SPORT AND TRAVEL 277 



wore, like Graham, " gum " boots over German socks, 

 - the usual winter footgear in Western America. 

 Now, the higher slopes of the Rocky Mountains to the 

 east of the Yellowstone Park being very steep, and the 

 ground every night frozen solid, it may be imagined 

 that it was not easy to get about on them in gum 

 boots ; but the difficulty was very much increased by 

 the heat of the sun during the day, which just formed 

 a thin skin of mud over the frozen soil beneath, which 

 on a steep slope was most treacherous and might 

 easily have been fatal, as, once started on a slide down- 

 hill, nothing could have stopped one but a tree or a 

 rock. I don't think that anything but the " Steigei- 

 sen," worn in winter by chamois hunters in the 

 mountains of Europe, would enable one to get about 

 easily in the ground I have described, when frozen but 

 free from snow. It often took Graham and myself an 

 incredible time to cross quite a small piece of open 

 ground, and we had to do it on our knees very slowly 

 and with the utmost caution. 



Early on the morning of November 6, Graham 

 and I got on to the fresh tracks of a bull wapiti, 

 which in all probability was the same animal that I 

 had just caught a glimpse of in the dusk of the pre- 

 ceding evening. We followed him for five hours 

 along the course of a densely timbered ravine. He 

 travelled along the hillsides, but crossed the stream 

 at the bottom of the ravine several times, never once 

 stopping to feed, however. At length he commenced 



