SPORT AND TRAVEL 245 



part of him to strike the snowy ground at the foot 

 of the rock was his nose. Then the carcass slid 

 down the steep slope amongst the pine-trees, and did 

 not stop until it had reached the bed of the creek 

 close to where we stood above the waterfall. Only 

 the point of one tine of the right-hand antler was 

 injured. The sheerness of the cliff down which he 

 fell had probably saved his horns, for he touched 

 nothing until his nose hit the steep snow slope at 

 the foot of the bare rock. But the state of his nose, 

 skull, and jawbone proved with what terrific violence 

 he had struck the ground. The incisor teeth of the 

 lower jaw and the whole of the end of the lower jaw 

 were gone, the remainder of the jawbones being left 

 separate from one another, whilst the skull was split 

 from the nose right up to between the horns ! The 

 skin and flesh of the point of the jaw and nose were 

 much split and smashed, but not nearly so much so 

 as one would have expected from the state of the 

 skull and jawbones. 



This was by far the biggest-bodied and heaviest 

 wapiti I shot, and he carried a very fair head, too, for 

 nowadays. We found an easier way of getting down 

 to the bed of the creek below the waterfall on the 

 opposite side to that by which we had ascended, but it 

 took us all our time to get the wapiti's head down. 



As Davies wanted all the meat, we returned to the 

 carcass of the wapiti the next day with a couple of 

 pack horses, Davies and one of our men accompany- 



