The Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk. i5; 



open growth of small pines and spruces, the travelling 

 being easy. Then we came to the edge of a deep valley, 

 a couple of miles across. Into this we scrambled, down a 

 steep slide, where the forest had grown up among the 

 immense boulder masses. The going here was difficult to 

 a degree ; the great rocks, dead timber, slippery pine 

 needles, and loose gravel entailing caution at every step, 

 while we had to guard our rifles carefully from the conse- 

 quences of a slip. It was not much better at the bottom, 

 which was covered by a tangled mass of swampy forest 

 Through this we hunted carefully, but with no success, in 

 spite of our toil ; for the only tracks we saw that were at 

 all fresh were those of a cow and calf moose. Finally, in 

 the afternoon, we left the valley and began to climb a 

 steep gorge, down which a mountain torrent roared and 

 foamed in a succession of cataracts. 



Three hours* hard climbing brought us to another 

 valley, but of an entirely different character. It was sev- 

 eral miles long, but less than a mile broad. Save at the 

 mouth, it was walled in completely by chains of high rock- 

 peaks, their summits snow-capped ; the forest extended a 

 short distance up their sides. The bottom of the valley 

 was in places covered by open woodland, elsewhere by 

 marshy meadows, dotted with dense groves of spruce. 



Hardly had we entered this valley before we caught a 

 glimpse of a yearling elk walking rapidly along a game 

 path some distance ahead. We followed as quickly as 

 we could without making a noise, but after the first 

 glimpse never saw it again ; for it is astonishing how fast 

 an elk travels, with its ground-covering walk. We went 



