Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 319 



in the red dawn; the wind hardly stirred over the 

 crisp grass; and though the sky was cloudless, yet 

 the weather had that queer, smoky, hazy look that 

 it is most apt to take on during the time of the In- 

 dian summer. From a high spur of the tableland we 

 looked out far and wide over a great stretch of 

 broken country, the brown of whose hills and val- 

 leys was varied everywhere by patches of dull red 

 and vivid yellow, tokens that the trees were already 

 putting on the dress with which they greet the mor- 

 tal ripening of the year. The deep and narrow but 

 smooth ravines running up toward the edges of the 

 plateaus were heavily wooded, the bright green tree- 

 tops rising to a height they rarely reach in the bar- 

 ren plains country; and the rocky sides of the sheer 

 gorges were clad with a thick growth of dwarfed 

 cedars, while here and there the trailing Virginia 

 creepers burned crimson among their sombre masses. 

 We hunted stealthily up-wind, across the line of 

 the heavily timbered coulies. We soon saw traces 

 of our quarry ; old tracks at first, and then the fresh 

 footprints of a single elk a bull, judging by the 

 size which had come down to drink at a miry 

 alkali pool, its feet slipping so as to leave the marks 

 of the false hoofs in the soft soil. We hunted with 

 painstaking and noiseless care for many hours; at 

 last, as I led old Manitou up to look over the edge 

 of a narrow ravine, there was a crash and move- 

 ment in the timber below me, and immediately after- 

 ward I caught a glimpse of a great bull elk trotting 

 up through the young trees as he gallantly breasted 



