SPORT AND TRAVEL 229 



were lying down in such deep snow that their bodies 

 were quite invisible, only their heads and necks show- 

 ing above the surface. As I caught sight of them 

 they too saw me, and getting up trotted downhill 

 through the snow. At this moment I heard a sort 

 of grunt below me, and then saw a few more wapiti 

 hinds coming up towards me through the pine-trees. 

 Then I saw the head and horns of a stag appear, but 

 he was going along the hillside, or rather climbing it 

 obliquely. He was within shot, but I could only see 

 his head and horns, as his body was hidden by a swell 

 in the ground. 



I now 7 made the most frantic efforts to get nearer 

 to him. I think he must have seen me ; but the snow 

 was so deep that he could only move slowly through 

 it, whilst I could scarcely move at all, in spite of the 

 most desperate exertions, which, as I was probably ten 

 thousand feet above sea level, made me pant so much 

 that I thought I should not be able to hit anything 

 smaller than an elephant. I managed, however, to 

 gain the crest of a piece of rising ground from which 

 I had only been a few yards distant, and could then 

 see about half the body of the wapiti stag, and, though 

 fearfully unsteady, managed to put a bullet into him. 



Just as I fired I saw a second and smaller wapiti 

 stag coming up the hill behind the first. A glance 

 assured me it was the animal I had wounded in the 

 morning and followed all day, as he held his mouth 

 open and halted with his head down just as I saw him. 



