xxiv THE WAPITI 389 



the skin, expanded like a half- matured mushroom. This was 

 pure lead. 



No other bullet had touched that stag, and my first shot had 

 been intercepted by the trunk of one of the numerous trees which 

 had intervened between me and the animal when I fired. 



This wapiti had the finest antlers that I have ever possessed, 

 and the freak of nature had added two peculiar tines, which must 

 have plagued the unfortunate proprietor. These turned in the 

 reverse direction, therefore they must have acted like a grapnel in 

 catching the branches of trees, when otherwise they would have 

 been avoided in the usual manner, as the stag throws its head 

 backwards, and elevates the nose in passing through a forest. 

 Although the horns were perfectly clean and hard (29th August 

 1881), the extremity of one of the extra tines was round, instead 

 of pointed ; it was bloody at the tip, as a chronic inflammation 

 had been set up through continual friction, and it had never 

 thoroughly matured. We were powerless to do anything with this 

 grand animal ; we accordingly left it until we could send men and 

 mules from camp. Upon the following day, when we arrived, a 

 party of bears had scratched a hole, and attempted to roll the 

 wapiti into it. This was a glaring failure, as the animal was not 

 half concealed. The bears had eaten all the inner portion, which 

 we had laid upon one side ; they had also eaten the soft extremities 

 of the ribs and brisket ; but, beyond a quantity of grass and earth 

 roughly thrown upon the carcase by the claws of the bears when 

 scratching, there was no actual burying. 



The horns of this wapiti measured 53 inches in curve length 

 from burr to extreme point, 12| inches round the burr, 52 inches 

 direct line from tip to tip of extreme points. 



The day after this incident I had been riding with two of my 

 people over the summits of the mountains, about 10,000 feet above 

 the sea-level, when my attention was directed to a couple of fine 

 stags, about three-quarters of a mile distant, feeding along the 

 side of the hill-face downwards by an oblique course. Upon the 

 opposite side of a deep depression at the bottom flowed a consider- 

 able stream. After watching these stags for some time with my 

 field-glass, seeing that they occasionally raised their heads, and 

 looked wistfully towards a copse which grew upon the opposite 

 slope, on the shoulder of the mountain spur, I felt sure that 

 females must be somewhere in the thicket. Accordingly I crept 

 cautiously along the crest of the hill, until at length I arrived at 

 the border of the covert. As I had approached the copse I had 

 several times obtained a view of the stags ; they were no doubt 



