A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



the timber, the Hght-colored, big bull of the band slowly climbed 

 out of the creek-bottom, and, stopping broadside in the meadow, 

 started to bugle. The report of the rifle cut short the first few 

 bars of music, and caused both bull and cows to dash into the 

 timber immediately. As the former leaped a huge windfall 

 within the edge of the trees I fired again, and both of us scram- 

 bled down the slope. Charlie started to look at the ground for 

 blood, while I hurried about a hundred yards into the gloom of 

 the spruces and stopped to listen. Immediately I heard the 

 rattling of antlers against tree-trunks ahead of me, and, follow- 

 ing the sound, found the elk in its last struggles. It had col- 

 lapsed as it was leaping an enormous slanting log on the slope, 

 and it had slid dow^n this and firmly lodged between two tree- 

 trunks, where it was feebly shaking its antlers from side to side. 

 A shot at close range ended its struggles, and I had leisure to 

 examine a fine twelve-point head. The first shot had pierced 

 its lungs, while the second had grazed its neck. Charlie started 

 at the work of skinning, and I ascended the mountain, to find 

 the horses in exactly the same position in which we had left 

 them in our hurried descent. 



Near the scene of the killing was one of the alkali licks 

 common to this country. It consisted of an extensive pocket 

 in the blue-clay hillside, worn, in the course of years, by the 

 licking and tr^ampling of thousands of elk and antelope. Later 

 in the afternoon, w^hen we were slowly leading the two horses, 

 loaded with the head and some of the meat of the elk, along an 

 open hillside near camp, we jumped a band of about fifteen 

 antelope which were feeding in a slight depression below us. 

 Unfortunately for the buck of the band, these animals, in order 

 to get to higher ground, circled us about two hundred yards 

 distant. After a struggle to extract my rifle from the holster 

 — my horse being riervous from the scent of the blood — I fired 

 two shots at the running buck, which was bringing up the 

 rear of the rapidly vanishing antelope. It would be hard to 



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