A DAY IN THE IDAHO ROCKIES 



During this trip we were not successful in sighting any moose, 

 although, to judge from the number of fresh tracks, they must 

 have been reasonably plentiful in this country. Several days 

 later, during a tracking-snow, we discovered the fresh trails of 

 two bull moose, and followed these until, in the midst of a thicket 

 of spruces, the animals had evidently come face to face with a 

 large grizzly. From the tracks in the snow it looked as if both 

 moose and bear had promptly 

 whirled, and, thoroughly alarm- 

 ed, made off in different direc- 

 tions. When, late in the after- 

 noon, we abandoned the moose- 

 tracks, both bulls were still 

 travelling at a swinging trot, 

 and within the boundaries of 

 the Yellowstone National Park. 

 Having respect for the Federal 

 law, and believing in a nation- 

 al game preserve, I decided to 

 turn back when Ed informed 

 me that we were near, if not 

 already over, the imaginary line 



that marked its boundary. He agreed with me, stating that in 

 this portion of the park the soldiers, on the lookout for buffalo 

 and beaver poachers, had been known to follow the almost 

 obsolete Western custom of shooting first and asking questions 

 afterward. 



After riding up the canon of the creek during all of the first 

 morning, at noon we unsaddled our horses in a picturesque park 

 without having seen any game. We ate luncheon to the ac- 

 companiment of the screaming of two of the most vividly col- 

 ored blue-jays that I had ever seen, then resumed our journey 

 up the canon. Here the scener^'^ became more rugged than 

 lower down, consisting of a strip of timber along the main 



. 297 



ID.\HO ELK HE.\D 



