318 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 



beautiful scenery; and always after as noble and 

 lordly game as is to be found in the Western world. 



Since writing the above I killed an elk near my 

 ranch; probably the last of his race that will ever 

 be found in our neighborhood. It was just before 

 the fall round-up. An old hunter, who was under 

 some obligation to me, told me that he had shot a 

 cow elk and had seen the tracks of one or two others 

 not more than twenty-five miles off, in a place where 

 the cattle rarely wandered. Such a chance was not 

 to be neglected; and, on the first free day, one of 

 my Elkhorn foremen, Will Dow by name, and my- 

 self, took our hunting horses and started off, ac- 

 companied by the ranch wagon, in the direction of 

 the probable haunts of the doomed deer. Toward 

 nightfall we struck a deep spring pool, near by the 

 remains of an old Indian encampment. It was at 

 the head of a gre'at basin, several miles across, in 

 which we believed the game to lie. The wagon 

 was halted and we pitched camp; there was plenty 

 of dead wood, and soon the venison steaks were 

 broiling over the coals raked from beneath the 

 crackling cottonwood logs, while in the narrow val- 

 ley the ponies grazed almost within the circle of the 

 flickering firelight. It was in the cool and pleasant 

 month of September; and long after going to bed 

 we lay awake under the blankets watching the stars 

 that on clear nights always shine with such intense 

 brightness over the lonely Western plains. 



We were up and off by the gray of the morning. 

 It was a beautiful hunting day; the sundogs hung 



