104 IN THE BIG HORN MOUNTAINS. 



through a heavy body of timber, we sighted our first elk a 

 bull and cow. They were about a hundred yards ahead of 

 us, and saw us about the same time we saw them. Jack slid 

 off his mule and opened on them bringing the bull down 

 with his second shot, while on the run. At this the cow 

 circled around us so as to give us each a shot. I scored a 

 miss, but Huffman, who was in the rear, hit her in the flank 

 with his first shot, missed with his second and third, and 

 finally brought her down with a broken shoulder on the 

 fourth round. 



Later in the day, as we were passing another of the small 

 parks, I saw an object under the low hanging branches of a 

 small pine tree that looked like a deer a buck with large 

 antlers standing facing us. I pointed it out to the other boys 

 and asked them if it were not a deer, but they thought not 

 thought it was only a log with dead limbs on it. The ground 

 was bare of snow there, and the dense shade caused by the 

 green foliage of the pine tree rendered the figure very indis- 

 tinct, still it looked so much like game that I told them I 

 would try it one any way. As I turned the old pill-driver 

 loose, the deer for such it proved to be made one leap into 

 the air and was out of sight in the brush. Then we saw five 

 or six others leap across an opening about ten feet wide, 

 between two clumps of scrub pine. As they went we fanned 

 them, and when the circus was over we went down there. 

 One handsome buck lay dead within twenty feet of where the 

 performance took place, with a hole in his shoulder where a 

 bullet had entered, and one among the short ribs on the 

 opposite side where it had passed out. 



Huffman unpacked " Nig " and exposed a plate on this 

 fellow, after placing a large elk skull and antlers that lay near 

 the spot in the rear of the "subject" to fill in the back- 

 ground. 



