THE WHITE ELK OF ASTOKIA. 253< 



he's what the Inguns call ' big medicine/ i.e., a charmed 

 or sacred animal. He's supposed to be the spirit of a 

 departed warrior who was drowned near Astoria. They 

 never shoot at him, as they say he can't be killed by 

 a mortal bullet. But I should like to have him within 

 fifty paces of this tube, and I rather guess I should give 

 him some medicine he wouldn't like. I expect his skin 

 would fetch fifty dollars at Portland, and his horns, 

 which are enormous, one hundred more. I've only seen 

 him once and that a long way off, with some others." 

 We camped that night under a clump of vines, protected 

 from the wind, that blew keenly enough, by a bush tent 

 of scrub. Long after my companion has gone to sleep I 

 laid awake listening to the soughing of the wind in the 

 topmast pines, and gazing on the peaks of the Cascade 

 sierra gleaming cold and pure in the moon's pale light ;. 

 but listen or gaze as I would, that story of the white elk 

 kept ringing in my ears. What would I not give to shoot 

 him ? why shouldn't I ? he couldn't be harder to kill than 

 an ordinary elk ; and so I fretted myself to sleep. Next 

 morning after an icy-cold bath in the streamlet we sallied 

 forth, and after a most fatiguing scramble of over two 

 hours, the first valley opened below us. It might have 

 been about four miles long by one wide ; a stream like a 

 silver thread ran through it, and it was dotted here and 

 there with a clump of pines, or masses of igneous gneiss 

 and trap. It looked about as pretty a spot as there 

 is in the universe. On the opposite side, about three- 

 quarters of a mile off, a band of elk were feeding in perfect 

 peace and security; they must have numbered some 

 fifty or sixty, and among them I made out a stag with 

 splendid horns. On examining the ground with my glass, 

 we found it would be impossible to stalk to windward, as 



