An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass. 201 



in the winter stock of meat for my ranch I often far 

 excelled these figures as far as mere numbers went ; but 

 on no other regular hunting trip, where the quality and 

 not the quantity of the game was the prime consideration, 

 have I ever equalled them ; and on several where I 

 worked hardest I hardly averaged a head a week. The 

 occasional days or weeks of phenomenal luck, are more 

 than earned by the many others where no luck whatever 

 follows the very hardest work. Yet, if a man hunts with 

 steady resolution he is apt to strike enough lucky days 

 amply to repay him. 



On this Shoshone trip I fired fifty-eight shots. In 

 preference to using the knife I generally break the neck 

 of an elk which is still struggling ; and I fire at one as 

 long as it can stand, preferring to waste a few extra 

 bullets, rather than see an occasional head of game 

 escape. In consequence of these two traits the nine elk 

 I got (two running at sixty and eighty yards, the others 

 standing, at from thirty to a hundred) cost me twenty- 

 three bullets ; and I missed three shots all three, it is 

 but fair to say, difficult ones. I also cut off the heads of 

 seventeen grouse, with twenty-two shots ; and killed two 

 ducks with ten shots fifty-eight in all. On the Bighorn 

 trip I used a hundred and two cartridges. On no other 

 trip did I use fifty. 



To me still-hunting elk in the mountains, when they 

 are calling, is one of the most attractive of sports, not 

 only because of the size and stately beauty of the quarry 

 and the grand nature of the trophy, but because of the 

 magnificence of the scenery, and the stirring, manly, 



