AND OTHER HUNTING ADVENTURES. 193 



brings in, and an opportunity to spend the proceeds 

 of such outrageous traffic in ranch whisky and rev- 

 elry. The ranchmen themselves hunt and lay in 

 their stock of meat for the year when the game 

 comes down into the valleys. The Indians, when 

 they have eaten up their Government rations, lie in 

 wait for the elk in the same manner. So that when 

 the first great snows of the autumn or winter fall in 

 the high ranges, when the elk band together and 

 seek refuge in the valleys, as did the herd that our 

 fortunate tourists followed out, they find a mixed 

 and hungry horde waiting for them at the mouth of 

 every cafion. Before they have reached the valley 

 where the snow-fall is light enough to allow them 

 to live through the winter their skins are drying in 

 the neighboring "shacks." 



This unequal, one-sided warfare, this ruthless 

 slaughter of inoffensive creatures, can not last 

 always. Indeed, it can last but little longer. In 

 ranges where only a few years ago herds of four or 

 five hundred elk could be found, the hunter of 

 to-day considers himself in rare luck when he finds 

 a band of ten or .twelve, and even small bands of 

 any number are so rare that a good hunter may 

 often hunt a week in the best elk country to be 

 found anywhere without getting a single shot. All 

 the Territories have good, wholesome game-laws 

 which forbid the killing of game animals except 

 during two or three months in the fall ; but these 

 laws are not enforced. They are a dead letter on 

 the statute-books, and the illegal and illegitimate 

 slaughter goes on unchecked. 



13 



