288 SPORT AND TRAVEL 



remove the inside fat, and then covered with snow, 

 as Graham wanted to use it later on for a bear bait. 



On the second occasion of my very limited suc- 

 cess with wapiti on this trip, I had the luck to come 

 up with some of these animals whilst they were still 

 on the move, and for once managed to get within shot 

 of them, as although the forest in which we found 

 them was pretty thick, the noise they themselves were 

 making probably drowned the sound of our foot- 

 steps in the snow. This small herd of wapiti must 

 have passed close to our camp in the early dawn 

 and we got on their tracks before they had gone 

 very far. We followed them up the same ravine in 

 which I had shot the first mule deer, eight days 

 earlier, and overtook them before midday. Just be- 

 fore we got up to them, they led us through a very 

 thick patch of small larch-trees, and I had just 

 come to the conclusion that they would be sure to 

 hear us approaching before we saw them, when we 

 heard a sound in the forest above us as of a horn 

 being struck against a tree. " That's them," said 

 Graham, and with beating hearts we commenced to 

 climb towards the sound as noiselessly as possible, 

 I going in front with my rifle at the ready. 



I had just got out of the thick patch of larch- 

 trees when I saw two wapiti bulls amongst the big 

 fir-trees on the hillside above me. They had evi- 

 dently heard something, at least I think so, as they 

 were walking quickly one behind the other, as if 



