ELK-HUNTING IN THE OLYMPIC MOUNTAINS. 63 



appeared like a white ribbon below. I soon made my camp, 

 caught a few fine trout, had supper, and turned in for the 

 night. 



" The next morning I started early to explore the basin, 

 look for game and fur signs, calculating to use my first 

 camp as a home-camp while stopping in the basin. The river 

 was low, as the June freshets had not yet come down, and 

 in every bend of the river, either on one side or the 

 other, were great gravel-bars, sometimes one hundred and 

 fifty yards wide and one-fourth of a mile long. I soon 

 struck one of these bars. Elk-signs were plenty; also the 

 natural enemies of the Elk, the Cougar and Timber Wolf, 

 had been there. 



' ' There were some Cinnamon and Bald-faced Bears, and 

 very few Beaver signs. As I calculated to stay in the basin 

 a few days, I wanted some Elk-meat. I kept a-sharp look- 

 out for that kind of game. I would take a few steps, and 

 look carefully at everything within my range of vision, 

 occasionally looking over that portion I had just passed 

 that was still in range. 



"Thump! thump! thump! Listen! Isn't that a Deer 

 jumping? Oh, no, my boy! that is your heart beating. 

 And, reader, if there is a heart in you, and you had been 

 with me, your heart would have beaten too: for what had 

 looked like a mass of dead tree-limbs, I just then discov- 

 ered was the velvet-covered horns of six bull Elk. 



' ' And now to stalk them. I felt satisfied that I was, as 

 yet, unobserved. They were fully three hundred yards 

 away, in plain view, lying down with their heads toward 

 me. They were on the opposite side of the river, near the 

 water. You will recollect this was about ten o' clock in the 

 day, and how I had come into full view of those Elk with- 

 out their seeing me, when there was not so much as a twig 

 between us, is something I never could answer satisfac- 

 torily; but I did take ten minutes to get from a standing to 

 a lying position, and twenty more minutes to roll off of that 

 gravel-bar to the friendly cover of an alder-thicket near by. 

 The rest was easy. In another half -hour I was within forty 



