Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 315 



ering up an elk carcass. His motions looked awk- 

 ward, but it was marvelous to see the ease and ab- 

 sence of effort with which he would scoop out 

 great holes in the earth, or twitch the heavy carcass 

 from side to side. And the proud, graceful, half- 

 timid, half-defiant bearing of the elk was in its own 

 way quite as noteworthy; they seemed to glory in 

 their own power and beauty, and yet to be ever on 

 the watch for foes against whom they knew they 

 might not dare to contend. The true still-hunter 

 should be a lover of nature as well as of sport, or he 

 will miss half the pleasure of being in the woods. 



The finest bull, with the best head that I got, was 

 killed in the midst of very beautiful and grand sur- 

 roundings. We had been hunting through a great 

 pine wood which ran up to the edge of a broad 

 canyon-like valley bounded by sheer walls of rock. 

 There were fresh tracks of elk about, and we had 

 been advancing up wind with even more than our 

 usual caution when, on stepping out into a patch of 

 open ground, near the edge of the cliff, we came 

 upon a great bull, beating and thrashing his antlers 

 against a young tree, about eighty yards off. He 

 stopped and faced us for a second, his mighty ant- 

 lers thrown in the air, as he held his head aloft. 

 Behind him towered the tall and sombre pines, while 

 at his feet the jutting crags overhung the deep chasm 

 below, that stretched off between high walls of bar- 

 ren and snow-streaked rocks, the evergreens cling- 

 ing to their sides, while along the bottom the rapid 

 torrent gathered in places into black and sullen 



