360 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



Misses Murphy(2), Miss Stevenson, Messrs. Barry, Corcoran, 

 Curzon, Greene, Philips, Scully, &c. 



I cannot close this sketch without expressing once again 

 my intense appreciation of the welcome given and the 

 assistance ever extended by the men of Tipperary to a 

 sport-loving Saxon taking his holiday among them. Their 

 one idea towards him would seem to be to help him to 

 see the sport to the best advantage, and to make his time 

 pass pleasantly. The last instance of my recent experience 

 was in the shape of an invitation to attend a small dinner, 

 given at Fethard to Mr. Burke by some of his more im- 

 mediate neighbours in the Hunt. The event was royally 

 and gracefully carried out, and its closing rites were on 

 a par with the happiest and most exhilarating phases of 

 freemasonry. 



CHAPTER LVI 



THE BIG BULL ELK OF COLORADO 



As exciting a day's hunting as has fallen to my lot for 

 years. But it was not a cub nor an old fox, nor even a 

 stag on Exmoor, nor yet a fallow buck in the New Forest, 

 that I saw broken up this 31st of August 1894. 'Twas a 

 right royal bull elk, as handsome as the Rocky Mountains 

 (already said to be " hunted out ") can now produce. I 

 spare you all preliminaries ; will linger not a moment over 

 ocean voyage or transcontinental journey. 1 will not even 

 ask you to accompany me a-horseback for three days by 

 mule-trail and through pathless forest, where every second 

 step carries you across fallen timber interlaced beneath the 

 dark, giant pine-trees. Its very inaccessibility renders the 

 hunting-ground in question so wild, undisturbed, and richly 

 stocked. Picture to yourselves a deep mountain-girt basin, 

 some ten miles across, its verdant area about equally 

 divided between sombre pine- forest and natural parks of 

 waving green grass and gaudy flowering (for a wet August 

 has kept the Rockies still in full summer brilliancy). 

 Through this a rushing river, full of the greediest and most 

 palatable of trout. Beside this our camp fire and our 



