212 THE WILDERNESS HUNTER. 



out on the great plateau, seamed with deep, 

 narrow ravines. Reaches of pasture alternated 

 with groves and open forests of varying size. 

 Almost immediately we heard the bugle of a 

 bull elk, and saw a big band of cows and 

 calves on the other side of a valley. There 

 were three bulls with them, one very large, 

 and we tried to creep up on them ; but the 

 wind was baffling and spoiled our stalk. So 

 we returned to our horses, mounted them, and 

 rode a mile farther, toward a large open wood 

 on a hill-side. When within two hundred 

 yards we heard directly ahead the bugle of a 

 bull, and pulled up short. In a moment I 

 saw him walking through an open glade ; he 

 had not seen us. The slight breeze brought 

 us down his scent. Elk have a strong char- 

 acteristic smell ; it is usually sweet, like that 

 of a herd of Alderney cows ; but in old bulls, 

 while rutting, it is rank, pungent, and lasting. 

 We stood motionless till the bull was out of 

 sight, then stole to the wood, tied our horses, 

 and trotted after him. He was travelling fast, 

 occasionally calling ; whereupon others in the 

 neighborhood would answer. Evidently he 

 had been driven out of some herd by the 

 master bull. 



He went faster than we did, and while we 

 were vainly trying to overtake him we heard 

 another very loud and sonorous challenge to 

 our left. It came from a ridge-crest at the 

 edge of the woods, among some scattered 

 clumps of the northern nut-pine or pinyon a 

 queer conifer, growing very high on the mount- 

 ains, its multiforked trunk and wide-spread- 

 ing branches giving it the rounded top, and, 



