AFTER BIG-GAME IN WYOMING 223 



more open prairie-land below. Some of these canons 

 are so steep -sided and narrow that, riding towards 

 them, their existence is unknown until, suddenly 

 arriving on their brink, one finds further progress 

 effectually barred. The plateau on the far side seems 

 a short rifle-shot away, but it may be half a day's 

 journey to get there. In the place I write of, two of 

 these steep canons, starting near the summit of the 

 main range of the Rockies, joined some ten miles 

 below, enclosing between them a gradually narrowing 

 plateau of thick forest and open glade, broken here 

 and there by smaller valleys, and forming a perfect 

 natural park for deer. This plateau terminated in a 

 rounded and less precipitous hillside, where the two 

 canons met and joined in one large and well- watered 

 valley or strath. The rounded termination of the 



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plateau was covered with well-worn game - trails, 

 showing it to be a favourite pass for herds of elk. 



Our party of two the writer and a ranchman 

 had crossed the head of one of the canons, and, 

 with favourable wind, had spent the day in stalk- 

 ing down the plateau between. In the forenoon a 

 solitary twelve-point bull had been encountered, and, 

 after a short stalk, had duly met his fate in the 

 shape of a rifle bullet through the heart. The rest 

 of the afternoon had been spent in vainly endeavour- 

 ing to get sight of what was evidently, from his 

 hoarse note, a fine old bull, who in the thickest of the 

 pine timber, with a band of cows in charge, had been 

 sounding his deep-voiced challenge far and wide. 

 The ' whistling ' or rutting season was at its height, 

 and the bull I speak of was being challenged back on 

 either side by two others not much inferior in size, 

 each evidently accompanied by his respective harem 



