112 TRAPPING IN NEBRASKA 1866-7. 
we discovered them, Buffalo and I armed ourselves and 
gave chase. The elk walked faster as they passed out on 
the open prairie, and it became difficult to come up to 
them. The trail led south of the forks of the main river, 
where their speed was still further accelerated by the 
sound of axes among the timber. It was from a party 
of Ilinoisans—founders of the after flourishing town of 
Norfolk. 
As the elk were snuffing the wind it was not difficult 
in keeping a little behind them unobserved. About sun- 
down we watched them pass down on the bottoms of a 
little stream, now called Union Creek. They then fed 7 
leisurely toward the water giving us time to reach within 
shooting distance just as they were passing down to the 
creek bed for a drink. 
A magnificent buck, larger than any of the rest, re- 
mained standing upon the bank, with head erect, and 
his huge antlered crown catching the crimson rays of the 
fast sinking sun. He stood, indeed, a monarch of the 
woods, and with a haughty gallantry born of his kind, 
he measured with his eye the surrounding landscape with 
Suspicious unrest. Did his sense of smell detect the pres- 
ence of his unsated enemies, as they lay crouching in the 
grass an hundred yards awayP We were divining his 
mind in about this way, when at a whispered signal we 
fired our unerring rifles at his breast. His disappearance 
was as sudden and complete as the transit of a ghost. 
We arose with baffled expressions on our counten- 
ances and started, forward plainly hearing the departing 
animals crushing through the heavy underbrush across the 
stream. When we reached where the big elk had stood, 
crimson blood clots were found spurted on the green 
grass, The trail of blood led across the stream where it 
a! 
