MAINLY OF ELK 



Sunday the fourths 



A half clear dawn with the hillsides shrouded in heavy 

 clouds, four inches of snow on the level, and snow again at half- 

 past eight. 



Jay and Bill, Art and Earl saddled up. The first two 

 started in spite of heavy snowfall. Art made a bluff at going 

 but concluded that the fireside was a very good place. He 

 stayed there. The artist didn't even make a bluff at going out, 

 but set up a canvas and got busy with a composition of the valley 

 and Mount Baldy in late afternoon light. 



Fred arrived from Grayling with the mail and Chicago 

 newspapers, the latest of them seven days old. William and 

 Jay came back shortly before noon, after an eight-mile ride, 

 reporting very heavy snow and high wind on the higher levels 

 where they had been hunting, and no sign of recently moving 

 elk except one track crossed on the way home about three-quarters 

 of a mile back from camp at the foot of the ridge. This track they 

 said was comparatively fresh, and was that of a young bull or cow. 



After dinner the snow continued. Art and Earl decided 

 they would go out for a while and take up the fresh track of the 

 young bull mentioned by Jay and William. About four o'clock 

 they returned, carrying the liver of the animal. Art had had his 

 first shot at an elk. It proved to be a fine piece of meat, a young 

 spike bull, 18 to 20 months old, with his spikes which were about 

 fourteen inches long still in the velvet, which condition at this 

 time of year it seems is rare. Earl reported that they had fol- 

 lowed him only about a mile and a half when they found him 

 leisurely feeding on some willows at the edge of a spruce thicket, 

 and Art had brought him down with a shoulder shot at about 

 eighty yards, a second shot at closer range breaking the spinal 

 column just back of the head. A royal supper and a congenial 

 evening followed. 



This day William took another bath on a rubber sheet 

 spread on the cabin floor before the fireplace. A fire's a com- 

 fortable thing anyway, with seven inches of snow on the level 

 outside and perhaps more to come. 



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