THE WHITE ELK OF ASTORIA. • 251 



excellent English, " No_, thank you, sir/' It would have 

 been so romantic for him to have said, " Ugh ! the 

 pale-face eats when the redman, &c." [See Cooper, 

 passim. 1 I told him we had eaten all our meat, 

 but were bound after elk. He said it was rather early 

 \ov them to come down so low yet, as the snow had 

 been very light in the mountains, but that higher up, 

 a day or so, plenty could be found. He added he was 

 on his way himself for some deermeat, and so after our 

 meal he offered to accompany me. After an hour's 

 hunting, up went the hackles of my companion's dog. 

 "Look out, there are deer close at hand," and sure 

 enough a moment after there was a rustle in the bushes, 

 a flicker of a white tail, a crack of a rifle, and soon after 

 a prolonged yelp came up from the hollow beneath. 

 " That's Joe, — he's got him ;" guided by the sound, we 

 found Joe licking the blood that flowed from the flank 

 of a fine doe. Hanging her up by the heels to a limb 

 of a tree out of the reach of Master Wolf, we continued 

 our hunt, and soon after we got another; we gutted 

 both and packed them home on our backs. The place 

 positively swarmed with deer. My companion, on our 

 return, asked me to come and see him in the evening. 

 " You'll find my shanty over the stream, straight behind 

 that hemlock tree there ; perhaps I may be of some use 

 to you in showing you some elk," and he went away as 

 noiselessly as he came. In the evening I went over 

 to his place alone, and found a comfortable enough log 

 hut, neatly chinked with moss and newly shingled ; 

 a huge fire was burning on the hearth, before which was 

 roasting an " Arkansaw fry." This consists of skewering 

 alternate cutlets of deer-meat and thin slices of bacon 

 together, and then roasting the whole over a round of bread. 



