230 HUNTING TRIPS 



clear air we looked far over the broad val- 

 ley of the Bighorn as it lay at our very feet, 

 walled in on the other side by the distant 

 chain of the Rocky Mountains. 



Turning our horses, we rode back along 

 the edge of another canyon-like valley, with 

 a brook flowing down its centre, and its rocky 

 sides covered with an uninterrupted pine for- 

 est the place of all others in whose inac- 

 cessible wildness and ruggedness a bear 

 would find a safe retreat. After some time 

 we came to where other valleys, with steep, 

 grass-grown sides, covered with sage-brush, 

 branched out from it, and we followed one of 

 these out. There was plenty of elk sign 

 about, and we saw several black-tail deer. 

 These last were very common on the moun- 

 tains, but we had not hunted them at all, as 

 we were in no need of meat. But this af- 

 ternoon we came across a buck with re- 

 markably fine antlers, and accordingly I shot 

 it, and we stopped to cut off and skin out the 

 horns, throwing the reins over the heads 

 of the horses and leaving them to graze by 



