ELK AND ANTELOPE HUNTING IN WYOMING 



mainder of the day was spent in leading a pack-horse down 

 into the canon and transporting the head to camp. 



The following day we moved camp above the timber-line 

 and spent ten days in an unsuccessful big-horn hunt. During 

 this time, although we saw about sixty small rams, ewes, and 

 lambs, we were unable to locate the old rams, which were off 

 by themselves at this season of the year. We discovered one 

 band of about a dozen mule-deer, including two good bucks, 

 in the distance, and saw numbers of elk every day that we 

 hunted. At one time we crept quite close to two large bull 

 elk which were battling in a secluded glade for the possession 

 of a small band of cows quietly feeding around the outskirts 

 of the struggle. When the cows scented us they broke into 

 flight at once, but before stampeding the two bulls carefully 

 backed away from each other in order to avoid any entangling 

 of antlers, and then trotted away in different directions. At 

 another time we drove the pack-horses to within one hundred 

 and twenty-five yards of where a band of about one hundred 

 and fifty of these animals were lying down on the rocks of the 

 perfectly bare top of a flat mountain. I counted six large, 

 twelve-point bulls among them, and the whole band seemed 

 reluctant to leave this spot, where they had been taking their 

 mid-day siesta. In fact, we thought that one bull was either 

 dead or injured, inasmuch as it allowed one of the pack-horses 

 to approach within a few yards of where it w^as stretched out 

 before it lurched to its feet and trotted away in the w^ake of the 

 band. 



One evening about the middle of September, after a two 

 days' journey from the top of the range, we pitched camp in the 

 cottonwoods on the banks of Hoback's River. Our object in 

 coming down into the Hoback Basin was to try to secure some 

 antelope heads, as well as a supply of fresh meat. Beyond a 

 few grouse, I had shot nothing for nearly two w'eeks. As w^e 

 were preparing camp for the night a stranger rode up on a white 



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