IN THE WAPITI COUNTRY 113 



It was all very well " come on quick," but 

 with a bad knee, getting through a mass of 

 fallen timber up a fairly steep though fortun- 

 ately short hill was no easy matter. How 

 I did it I cannot even now understand, but 

 the pain in the knee was forgotten, my stick 

 thrown away, the rifle, which was of course 

 loaded, snatched out of Thomson's hand, and 

 I found myself on the crest of the hill looking 

 down into a valley overgrown with dense 

 salmon-berry through which some great beast 

 was crashing his way. 



I am quite blind without a telescope sight 

 and there was no time to fix it. I could just 

 make out the tips of the bull's horns moving 

 quickly through the undergrowth. I could 

 only guess where the body was, but fortun- 

 ately the body of a wapiti is a pretty big 

 mark. Taking a snapshot as I would at a 

 snipe I heard the welcome thud of the bullet. 

 The bull stood for a moment, which gave me 

 time for a second shot, on which I saw the great 

 antlers sink out of sight in the undergrowth and 

 I knew that the trophy I had come so far to 

 obtain was mine. 



I confess to an anxious moment as to what 

 the head would turn out to be. The tracks 

 were those of a big bull, but I had only seen the 

 tips of the horn; the spread looked good, but 



