150 Deer and Antelope of North America 



all our sports, means heart-breaking fatigue for 

 any but the strongest and hardiest. The prong- 

 buck, again, must be followed on the desolate, sun- 

 scorched plains. But the wapiti dwells amid lofty, 

 pine-clad mountains, in a region of lakes and 

 streams. A man can travel in comfort while 

 hunting it, because he can almost always take a 

 pack-train with him, and the country is usually 

 sufficiently open to enable the hunter to enjoy all 

 the charm of distant landscapes. Where the wap- 

 iti lives the spotted trout swarm in the brooks, 

 and the wood-grouse fly upward to perch among 

 the tree-tops as the hunter passes them. When 

 hunting him there is always sweet cold water to 

 be drunk at night, and beds of aromatic fir boughs 

 on which to sleep, with the blankets drawn over 

 one to keep out the touch of the frost. He must 

 be followed on foot, and the man who follows him 

 must be sound in limb and wind. But his pur- 

 suit does not normally mean such wearing ex- 

 haustion as is entailed by climbing cliffs all day 

 long after the white goat. Whoever has hunted 

 the wapiti, as he looks at his trophies, will always 

 think of the great mountains with the snow lying 

 in the rifts in their sides ; of the splashing mur- 

 mur of rock-choked torrents ; of the odorous 

 breath of the pine branches ; of tents pitched in 

 open glades ; of long walks through cool open 

 forests ; and of great camp-fires, where the 



