210 The Wilderness Hunter. 



yet I knew he was mine, for the light blood sprang from 

 both of his nostrils, and he fell dying on his side before he 

 had gone thirty rods. 



Later in the fall I was again hunting among the lofty 

 ranges which continue towards the southeast the chain 

 of the Bitter Root, between Idaho and Montana. There 

 were but two of us, and we were travelling very light, 

 each having but one pack-pony and the saddle animal he 

 bestrode. We were high among the mountains, and fol- 

 lowed no regular trail. Hence our course was often one 

 of extreme difficulty. Occasionally, we took our animals 

 through the forest near timber line, where the slopes were 

 not too steep ; again we threaded our way through a line 

 of glades, or skirted the foot-hills, in an open, park coun- 

 try ; and now and then we had to cross stretches of tan- 

 gled mountain forest, making but a few miles a day, at the 

 cost of incredible toil, and accomplishing even this solely 

 by virtue of the wonderful docility and sure-footedness of 

 the ponies, and of my companion's skill with the axe and 

 thorough knowledge of woodcraft. 



Late one cold afternoon we came out in a high alpine 

 valley in which there was no sign of any man's having ever 

 been before us. Down its middle ran a clear brook. On 

 each side was a belt of thick spruce forest, covering the 

 lower flanks of the mountains. The trees came down in 

 points and isolated clumps to the brook, the banks of which 

 were thus bordered with open glades, rendering the travel- 

 ling easy and rapid. 



Soon after starting up this valley we entered a beaver 

 meadow of considerable size, it was covered with lush, 



