292 MY SPORTING HOLIDAYS 



whatever to mar our happiness as we turned into 

 our blankets, thinking only of sport for the morrow. 



Next day I hunted alone, as I knew the locality, 

 on a steep and thickly-wooded mountain south of 

 camp, while my friend Dendy, with an old hunter 

 named Bob Snell, explored the range to the north. 

 I was fortunate enough, as it happened, to kill a good 

 bull elk that day in rather a curious way. I had 

 ridden nearly round and over the mountain in ques- 

 tion without seeing anything but a few cow elk, and 

 was making for camp late in the afternoon, when I 

 suddenly came in sight of a good bull with a small 

 band of cows. The elk saw me, and disappeared 

 down a steep gully before I had the chance of a shot. 

 I galloped round the head of the gully, intending to 

 cut off the elk in case they went up the other side 

 through some thick timber and rocks, as seemed 

 likely ; but I overshot the mark. The leading cow 

 appeared for a moment, emerging from cover on the 

 far brink, saw me, and led the band at full gallop 

 back down the gully and round the shoulder of a 

 steep hill to an open valley below. I heard the elk 

 crashing through the timber, and at length they 

 emerged in the open ground far below me, and at 

 least 400 yards away. I sat down on the crest of the 

 hill and opened fire in desperation on the bull as he 

 followed his harem a bad last across the open 

 valley not half a mile from our camp. I must have 

 fired at least six shots at him from my double express, 

 and had begun to look upon it as a lost opportunity, 

 when he suddenly stopped, walked round in a circle, 

 and then fell stone-dead at least 600 yards away, and 

 some 200 yards below me. One lucky shot, as I 

 afterwards found, had entered behind the ribs and 



