RUSTLINGS IN THE ROCKIES. 31 



were fired by and at Huffman, who returned to camp that 

 night with the news that he had rode up to the head of the 

 creek four or five miles from camp, and had there jumped 

 three separate jags of elk ; one of about forty, another of 

 about twenty-five and another of about sixty ; that he had 

 emptied his magazine and his belt into them at fifty to 

 seventy-five yards rise, that he had wounded several, but had 

 not killed any. He didn't swear. Oh no, of course not. 

 He wasn't mad enough. He just raved and danced like an 

 escaped lunatic; he tore his hair, slung his hat and tramped 

 our grub and cooking utensils into the ground with his big 

 boots as he waltzed around the camp-fire. He pronounced 

 all the maledictions he could think of on that condemned 

 little Kennedy pea slinger of his. He wished he had a car 

 load of them to dam the Yellowstone river with ; and yet 

 he said he didn't know what the river had done to deserve 

 such punishment. On second consideration he rather 

 thought it was the guns that ought to be damned instead of 

 the river. 



Sawyer said how he would like to have been there with 

 his Winchester Express ; Mike and Allen would have liked 

 to have been there with their 45-75 Winchesters; and I 

 whispered in Huffman's ear that I might have wounded 

 another one or two if I had been there with my old 40-75 

 Sharps. 



"Well, you sheep-eating idiots," he growled, " why in 

 thunder did'nt you come? I didn't tell you to stay away." 

 We finally all cooled off, and compromised with the few of 

 the elk that got away by promising them that we would be 

 with them bright and early on the morrow. 



And sure enough, the next morning we moved on them en 

 masse. We went to the same quaking-asp thickets the same 

 coulees and springs where Huffman had been the day before ; 



