AND OTHER HUNTING ADVENTURES. 173 



After dinner we all went out and hunted until 

 dark. Soon after leaving camp some of us heard 

 lively firing up the canon, where our guide had 

 gone, and felt certain that he had secured meat, for 

 we had heard glowing accounts, from him and his 

 friends, of his prowess as a hunter. The rest of us 

 were not so despondent, therefore, when we returned 

 at dusk empty handed, as we should otherwise have 

 been, until we reached camp and found the guide 

 there wearing a long face and bloodless hands. 



He told a doleful story of having had five fair 

 shots at a large bull elk, who stood broadside on, only 

 seventy-five yards away, but who finally became 

 alarmed at the fusilade and fled, leaving no blood 

 on his trail. The guide of course anathematized 

 his gun in the choicest terms known to frontiersmen, 

 and our mouths watered as we thought of what 

 might have been. 



Our potatoes, having been compelled to stand for 

 meat also, had vanished rapidly, and we ate the last 

 of them for supper that night. Few words were 

 spoken and no jokes cracked over that meal. We 

 ate bread straight for breakfast, and turning out 

 early hunted diligently all day. We were nearly 

 famished when we returned at night and no one had 

 seen any living thing larger than a pine squirrel. 

 It is written that "man shall not live by bread 

 alone, " and we found that we could not much longer. 

 And soon we should not have even that, for our 

 flour was getting low. But we broke the steaming 

 flat-cake again at supper, and turned in to dream of 

 juicy steaks, succulent joints, and delicious rib 

 roasts. 



