1 86 The Elk of the Pacific Coast 



prising shortness. Yet the feeling of awe which 

 overcomes you, with the consciousness that the 

 great game is all about you, staring at you, per- 

 haps, over the very next log, and that nothing 

 in nature is at fault but your eyes, makes the 

 hunt a continuous pleasure, though it is very 

 likely to end about where it began. 



And thus it will be as you go farther into the 

 north, where the increasing rainfall makes the 

 woods more sombre. More elk, for a while, at 

 least; but also more ferns, higher salal, ranker 

 vine-maple, more expansive salmon berries, and 

 trees standing even more like brothers, with 

 dimmer light falling from the sky through the 

 damper air and more sombre shades in these 

 shorter corridors of the forest. With the increas- 

 ing rain come increasing wet spots that may bog 

 your horse, an increase in the dampness on the logs 

 that may let you slide off into some mire covered 

 with a growth of ferns so rank you could not see 

 it. Windfalls with great tangles of moss adding to 

 the confusion of the vines multiply, fallen trees 

 piled high on each other and becoming all the time 

 more difficult to go around as well as to cross over, 

 confront you, until at last the obstacles are such 

 that the best horse is a burden to you. It is not 

 much farther to where you are a burden to your- 

 self, where you could not see an elk if there were 

 a score within a few rods, where you would not 



