AN ELK-HUNT AT TWO-OCEAN PASS. 219 



elusion until they regained their lost strength. 

 As we crept stealthily forward, the calling 

 grew louder and louder, until we could hear 

 the grunting sounds with which the challenge 

 of the nearest ended. He was in a large 

 wallow, which was also a lick. When we 

 were still sixty yards off, he heard us, and 

 rushed out, but wheeled and stood a moment 

 to gaze, puzzled by my buckskin suit. I fired 

 into his throat, breaking his neck, and down 

 he went in a heap. Rushing in and turning, 

 I called to Woody, " He's a twelve-pointer, 

 but the horns are small ! " As I spoke I 

 heard the roar of the challenge of the other 

 bull not two hundred yards ahead, as if in 

 defiant answer to my shot. 



Running quietly forward, I speedily caught 

 a glimpse of his body. He was behind some 

 fir-trees about seventy yards off, and I could 

 not see which way he was standing, and so 

 fired into the patch of flank which was visible, 

 aiming high, to break the back. My aim was 

 true, and the huge beast crashed down-hill 

 through the evergreens, pulling himself on his 

 fore legs for fifteen or twenty rods, his hind 

 quarters trailing. Racing forward, I broke 

 his neck. His antlers were the finest I ever 

 got. A couple of whisky- jacks appeared at 

 the first crack of the rifle with their customary 

 astonishing familiarity and heedlessness of 

 the hunter ; they followed the wounded bull 

 as he dragged his great carcass down the hill, 

 and pounced with ghoulish bloodthirstiness on 

 the gouts of blood that were sprinkled over 

 the green herbage. 



These two bulls lay only a couple of hun- 



