THE WAPITI, 189 



friend Will Dow, on one of the first trips 

 which I took with that prince of drivers, old 

 man Tompkins. We were laying in our stock 

 of winter meat; and had taken the wagon to 

 go to a knot of high and very rugged hills 

 where we knew there were deer, and thought 

 there might be elk. Old Tompkins drove 

 the wagon with unmoved composure up, down, 

 and across frightful-looking hills, and when 

 they became wholly impassable, steered the 

 team over a cut bank and up a kind of winding 

 ravine or wooded washout, until it became too 

 rough and narrow for farther progress. There 

 was good grass for the horses on a hill off to one 

 side of us; and stunted cottonwood trees grew 

 between the straight white walls of clay and 

 sandstone which hemmed in the washout. We 

 pitched our tent by a little trickling spring 

 and kindled a great fire, the fitful glare light- 

 ing the bare cliffs and the queer, sprawling 

 tops of the cottonwoods ; and after a dinner 

 of fried prairie-chicken went to bed. At dawn 

 we were off, and hunted till nearly noon ; when 

 Dow, who had been walking to one side, beck- 

 oned to me and remarked, " There's some- 

 thing mighty big in the timber down under the 

 cliff; I guess it's an elk " (he never had seen 

 one before) ; and the next moment, as old 

 Tompkins expressed it, " the elk came bilin' 

 out of the coulie." Old Tompkins had a rifle 

 on this occasion and the sight of game always 

 drove him crazy ; as I aimed I heard Dow 

 telling him " to let the boss do the shoot- 

 ing " ; and I killed the elk to a savage inter- 

 jectional accompaniment of threats delivered 

 at old man Tompkins between the shots. 



