xxiv THE WAPITI 379 



We had no other tent than an ordinary single cloth lean-to, about 

 7 feet square, and under 6 feet in height in the centre beneath the 

 ridge-pole. A bed upon the ground, formed of the tender ends of 

 spruce branches, and covered with a waterproof camp sheet, upon 

 which were double blankets, would have been a luxury in a milder 

 climate, but it was almost impossible to keep warm, as the cold 

 was so intense, that a pail of water exposed at night became a solid 

 block of ice before the morning. The most welcome bedfellows 

 were a few large rounded pebbles from the stream, about 10 Ibs. 

 each; these were well heated in the fire, and then wrapped in 

 thick flannel : in the absence of a warming-pan, it was a simple 

 arrangement that produced great comfort. 



The extent of forest was very small in proportion to the open 

 grass -land. Periodical fires appeared to have destroyed large 

 tracts, and the blackened stems produced an aspect of painful 

 desolation. 



Where the spruce forests were unharmed, the signs of wapiti 

 were very extraordinary. In some places there was not a sound 

 tree, as every stem had been used from time to time as a rubbing- 

 post, to clean the antlers. This would be a proof that the animals 

 were collected in vast numbers towards the end of the period when 

 the horns were hardening, and the velvet required rubbing. The 

 horns are clean in the middle of August ; the animals would be 

 there about the middle of July in their greatest numbers, but at 

 that time they would not be fit to shoot. 



The flies are insufferable until about 15th August, therefore 

 the actual shooting season in the Big Horn is limited from that 

 date until 30th September. 



A man who never misses a day, but who is in the saddle from 

 sunrise till sunset, will cover a large extent of country in a month, 

 and there will be very little remaining after a shooting expedition 

 of six weeks. 



When I was there, a party of skin-hunters had obtained a start 

 of a few days, and I was obliged to change my course in order to 

 avoid them, as they had already disturbed a portion of the ground. 



There was no attractive scenery throughout the Big Horn 

 range ; it was a great expanse of desolation. The finest spruce 

 were not larger than those ordinarily seen in England ; the cotton- 

 wood, which in the low country grows to the size of a black 

 poplar (which it exactly resembles), is dwarfed by the rigour of 

 the climate, and is not thicker, nor taller, than a hop-pole. This 

 grows in dense patches of 8 or 10 acres upon the face of the 

 slopes, and is the chief resort of the black-tail deer. 



