THE WHITE ELK OF ASTORIA. 255 



all the gods and goddesses of venerie, and pulled the 

 trigger. Fiz-z ! went the cap^ and a moment after the 

 rifle exploded, sending the bullet up into the air, half 

 way to the Cascade mountains. The white elk gave one 

 look at the smoke, and then dashed off to leeward 

 behind me^ I after him as hard as I could pelt. Three 

 times I loaded and fired in a utterly futile manner, till 

 the noble quarry at length disappeared behind a spur 

 of a mountain, and was lost to view. I still followed on 

 for miles, cursing all breechloaders, all caps, all every- 

 thing, till I gave up, and then found I had lost my way. 

 After four hours of rambling about, I at length found 

 my companion, who was busy skinning the elk that we 

 had shot. " Well, where have you been ? I heard your 

 rifle go off.'' '^Been ! why I fired at the white elk ! '' 

 and then I told him all my story. He listened atten- 

 tively, and looked incredulous. " Waal, of course you 

 may have seen him, I don't say not; but^I wouldn't 

 talk about it much to the boys if I was you." For two 

 whole days I hunted steadily for the white elk, but I 

 never saw him again. We killed in all eight doe elk, 

 and three stags, with fine heads of horns. There were 

 reports of a lake near here, which I should have 

 certainly tried to discover, if I could have spared the 

 time ; the Indians say it has never been seen by a 

 white man. They describe it as a gigantic 'hole, so even 

 and round that it seems as though it had been scooped 

 out of the solid rock by an army of giants ; it appears 

 that the depths of the walls to the water below is over 

 2000 feet, all polished like glass. The Indians say 

 that of an evening a storm-cloud, red with lightning 

 flashes and bickering with thunderbolts, rolls sullenly 

 along from side to side of the lake, while around it 



