116 IN THE BIG HORN MOUNTAINS. 



gazed down upon the scene of enchantment. We were en- 

 raptured, delighted, intoxicated with its beauty and grandeur. 

 We longed to live in this fairyland, to feast our eager eyes 

 always on such a picture. 



But this could not be. 



Our time was growing short, and we must soon bid the 

 mountains farewell. 



Huffman went ahead to seek a passage-way into the canyon. 

 There was only a game trail where we entered it no evi- 

 dence that any human being had ever risked his life by 

 descending the wall where we were about to descend it. After 

 Huffman had gone down some five or six hundred feet, he 

 fired a shot as a signal that we were to come on, that he had 

 found a route that was practicable. 



The report caused an echo that almost alarmed us. It 

 resounded, reverberated and rolled 'back and forth from wall 

 to wall, up and down the canyon for miles, and still came 

 back again and again in echoes as loud as the first. It seemed 

 to linger and mutter as if loth to leave the scene of its birth. 

 It gradually receded and finally, aftet what seemed to us a 

 long time, it began to grow fainter and fainter and at last 

 died out, and the great chasm relapsed again into its virgin 

 stillness. 



A few minutes later a large band of elk, probably a hundred 

 and fifty, alarmed by the report of Huffman's rifle, broke from 

 their cover and trotted off across one of the parks in the bottom 

 of the canyon. It was a beautiful sight. We watched them I- >: 

 several minutes, but they were so far below us that they looked 

 no larger than sheep. We started on our descent, and it 

 fairly made our heads swim to look over the dizzy heights and 

 through the narrow defiles that we were to pass. But by *K\v 

 and patient toiling, picking our way and tacking like a ship 

 sailing against the wind, we finally reached the foot of the 



