124 EARLY DAY STORIES. 



til he was startled by a noise made by one of the horses. 

 He was a surprised and very badly scared wolf and lost no 

 time in getting away, throwing his head from side to side 

 frequently while running so as to look back to see if he was 

 pursued. We had not long followed the elk until they were 

 seen about half a mile away. They had quit feeding, and 

 were lying down, three or four of them posted on high 

 knolls, from which they could keep watch in every direction. 

 The horses were left with Sol who was to keep out of sight 

 while I made the approach. This was the most difficult job 

 of approaching, in hunting elk, that I ever had to do, in 

 which I succeeded. I had a number of other times to give 

 it up, and wait until the next day, but this time I got my 

 elk after two hours work. It was easy enough to get within 

 about three hundred yards of the game as I judged the dis- 

 tance, but a shot at that distance was too uncertain, and I 

 was unwilling to take the chance. I was lying on the south 

 side of the narrow rim of a small blowout, from which point 

 four or five elk were in plain sight, one of them a large 

 buck lying on the very top of a knoll. If I could only get 

 a dozen feet nearer to him, there was a chance to get into 

 a little valley with a knoll beyond that would shield 

 me from view. There was only one way to get into this val- 

 ley without being seen and that was to dig through the rim 

 of a small blow-out. By crawHng over the edge of the blow- 

 out, the elk would surely see me — by digging through the 

 narrow rim, he might or might not see me. If he did dis- 

 cover me and showed alarm, I would fire, if not I could get 

 near enough for a sure shot. With my hunting knife and 

 my hands I dug a trench through the loose sand wide and 

 deep enough for my body, and crawled through into the 

 little blow-out and then into the little valley. If the elk saw 

 me, which is not probable, he was not alarmed. This en- 

 abled me to reach a place where I got a sure shot. When 

 the ball struck he bounded to his feet, and sprang down the 

 opposite side of the knoll out of sight, but fell before going 



