AN ELK-HUNT AT TWO-OCEAN PASS. 201 



another, on which to hang wet clothes and 

 shoes, and the beds are made around the 

 edges. As an offset to the warmth and shel- 

 ter, the smoke often renders it impossible 

 even to sit upright. We had a very good 

 camp-kit, including plenty of cooking- and 

 eating-utensils ; and among our provisions 

 were some canned goods and sweetmeats, 

 to give a relish to our meals of meat and 

 bread. We had fur coats and warm clothes, 

 which are chiefly needed at night, and plenty 

 of bedding, including water-proof canvas sheet- 

 ing and a couple of caribou-hide sleeping-bags, 

 procured from the survivors of a party of 

 arctic explorers. Except on rainy days I used 

 my buckskin hunting shirt or tunic ; in dry 

 weather I deem it, because of its color, texture, 

 and durability, the best possible garb for the 

 still-hunter, especially in the woods. 



Starting a day's journey south of Heart 

 Lake, we travelled and hunted on the eastern 

 edge of the great basin, wooded and moun- 

 tainous, wherein rise the head-waters of the 

 mighty Snake River. There was not so much 

 as a spotted line that series of blazes made 

 with the axe, man's first highway through the 

 hoary forest, but this we did not mind, as for 

 most of the distance we followed the well- 

 worn elk-trails. The train travelled in Indian 

 file. At the head, to pick the path, rode tall, 

 silent old Woody, a true type of the fast- 

 vanishing race of game hunters and Indian 

 fighters, a man who had been one of the Cali- 

 fornia forty-niners, and who ever since had 

 lived the restless, reckless life of the wilder- 

 ness. Then came Ferguson and myself ; then 



