AND OTHER HUNTING ADVENTURES. 191 



but by walking and leading their saddle animals 

 ahead, the pack animals were able to follow slowly. 

 Finally they reached the trail of the elk herd, and 

 following this, after nine days of tedious and painful 

 traveling, the party arrived at a ranch on the 

 Stinking Water river, which was kept by a 

 "squaw man" and his wife, where they were 

 enabled to lodge and recruit themselves and their 

 stock, and whence they finally reached their homes 

 in safety. The band of elk passed on down the 

 river, and our tourists never saw them again; but 

 they have doubtless long ere this all fallen a prey to 

 the ruthless war that is constantly being waged 

 against them by hunters white and red. 



It is sad to think that such a noble creature as the 

 American elk is doomed to early and absolute 

 extinction, but such is nevertheless the fact. Year 

 by year his mountain habitat is being surrounded 

 and encroached upon by the advancing line of set- 

 tlements, as the fisherman encircles the struggling 

 mass of fishes in the clear pond with his long and 

 closely-meshed net. The lines are drawn closer and 

 closer each year. These lines are the ranches of 

 cattle and sheep raisers, the cabins and towns of 

 miners, the stations and residences of employes of 

 the railroads. All these places are made the shelters 

 and temporary abiding places of Eastern and for- 

 eign sportsmen who go out to the mountains to 

 hunt. Worse than this, they are made the perma- 

 nent abiding places, and constitute the active and 

 convenient markets of the nefarious and unconscion- 

 able skin hunter and meat hunter. Here he can 

 find a ready market for the meats and skins he 



