274 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



must travel on foot, pack on back; while the successful 

 chase of the bighorn, perhaps on the whole the manliest 

 of all our sports, means heart-breaking fatigue for any 

 but the strongest and hardiest. The prongbuck, again, 

 must be followed on the desolate, sun-scorched plains. 

 But the wapiti now dwells amid lofty, pine-clad moun- 

 tains, in a region of lakes and streams. A man can travel 

 in comfort while hunting it, because he can almost al- 

 ways take a pack-train with him, and the country is usu- 

 ally sufficiently open to enable the hunter to enjoy all 

 the charm of distant landscapes. Where the wapiti 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 aro- 

 matic 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 pursuit does 

 not normally mean such wearing exhaustion as is en- 

 tailed 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 

 murmur 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 pitchy stumps flame like giant 

 torches in the darkness. 



In the old days, of course, much of the hunting was 



