X 



THE WAPITI, OR ROUND- HORNED ELK 



HIS stately and splendid deer, the lordliest of its kind throughout 

 the world, is now fast vanishing. In our own neighborhood it is 

 already almost a thing of the past. But a small band yet lingers round 

 a great tract of prairie and Bad Lands some thirty-five miles from 

 the ranch house. 



One fall I killed a good bull out of the lot. I was hunting on 

 horseback, and roused the elk out of a deep, narrow coulee, heavily tim- 

 bered, where he was lying by himself. He went straight up the steep side 

 directly opposite to where I stood, for I had leaped off my horse when I 

 heard the crash of the underbrush. When on a level with me, he halted 

 and turned half round to gaze at me across the ravine, and then I shot him. 

 The next season, when we were sorely in need of meat for smoking and 

 drying, we went after these elk again. At the time most of the ponies 

 were off on one of the round-ups, which indeed I had myself just left. 

 However, my two hunting-horses, Manitou and Sorrel Joe, were at home. 

 The former I rode myself, and on the latter I mounted one of my men who 

 was a particularly good hand at finding and following game. With much 

 difficulty we got together a scrub wagon team of four as unkempt, dejected, 

 and vicious-looking broncos as ever stuck fast in a quicksand or balked in 

 pulling up a steep pitch. Their driver was a crack whip, and their load 

 light, consisting of little but the tent and the bedding ; so we got out to 

 the hunting-ground and back in safety ; but as the river was high and the 

 horses were weak, we came within an ace of being swamped at one cross- 

 ing, and the country was so very rough that we were only able to get the 

 wagon up the worst pitch by hauling from the saddle with the riding- 

 animals. 



We camped by an excellent spring of cold, clear water not a common 

 luxury in the Bad Lands. We pitched the tent beside it, getting enough 

 timber from a grove of ash to make a large fire, which again is an appre- 



