THE WAPITI, OR ROUND- HORNED ELK 



heard or smelt us ; for after a mile's painstaking search we came to a 

 dense thicket in which were two beds, evidently but just left, for the twigs 

 and bent grass-blades were still slowly rising from the ground to which 

 the bodies of the elk had pressed them. The long, clean hoof-prints told 

 us that the quarry had started off at a swinging trot. We followed at once, 

 and it was wonderful to see how such large, heavy beasts had gone up the 

 steepest hill-sides without altering their swift and easy gait, and had 

 plunged unhesitatingly over nearly sheer cliffs down which we had to 

 clamber with careful slowness. 



They left the strip of rugged Bad Lands and went on into the smoother 

 country beyond, luckily passing quite close to where our horses were 

 picketed. We thought it likely that they would halt in some heavily tim- 

 bered coulees six or seven miles off; and as there was no need of hurry, 

 we took lunch and then began following them up an easy feat, as 

 their hoofs had sunk deep into the soft soil, the prints of the dew-claws 

 showing now and then. At first we rode, but soon dismounted, and led 

 our horses. 



We found the elk almost as soon as we struck the border of the ground 

 we had marked as their probable halting-place. Our horses were unshod, 

 and made but little noise ; and coming to a wide, long coulee filled with tall 

 trees and brushwood, we as usual separated, I going down one side and 

 my companion the other. When nearly half-way down he suddenly 

 whistled sharply, and I of course at once stood still, with my rifle at the 

 ready. Nothing moved, and I glanced at him. He had squatted down 

 and was gazing earnestly over into the dense laurel on my side of the 

 coulee. In a minute he shouted that he saw a red patch in the brush 

 which he thought must be the elk, and that it was right between him and 

 myself. Elk will sometimes lie as closely as rabbits, even when not in 

 very good cover ; still I was a little surprised at these not breaking out 

 when they heard human voices. However, there they staid ; and I waited 

 several minutes in vain for them to move. From where I stood it was 

 impossible to see them, and I was fearful that they might go off down the 

 valley and so offer me a very poor shot. Meanwhile, Manitou, who is not 

 an emotional horse, and is moreover blessed with a large appetite, was feed- 

 ing greedily, rattling his bridle-chains at every mouthful ; and I thought 

 that he would act as a guard to keep the elk where they were until I 

 shifted my position. So I slipped back, and ran swiftly round the head 

 of the coulee to where my companion was still sitting. He pointed me 

 out the patch of red in the bushes, not sixty yards distant, and I fired into 

 it without delay, by good luck breaking the neck of a cow elk, when imme- 



