290 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April li, 1896. 
TWO OCEAN PASS. 
[Continued from page 261.] 
Saturday, Sept. 9— The weather having cleared, Phillips 
and I went to where I had killed the eight-point bull on 
Thursday. We took Brown along and a pack horse for 
the purpose of packing the meat to camp. The snow had 
melted and the morning was bright and crisp, as is usual 
in these mountains after a storm. After assisting Brown 
to pack the meat and the head of the bull, and seeing 
him on his way to camp, we hunted afoot near the head 
of the valley, in a basin or park, inclosed on all sides but 
one by steep, ragged mountains. We hunted for several 
hours without even seeing so much as a fresh sign until 
about noon, when I saw what seemed to me the shoulder 
of an elk between two trees. Upon examining it with 
my glasses my surmise proved correct, and now I could 
also see the tips of the horns, proving that it was a bull. 
The distance was not over 80yds., but I made a disgrace- 
ful miss nevertheless, and I missed the bull again with 
the left barrel as he ran away. Trying to run after him 
to get another shot, I was soon out of breath, when 
Phillips called my attention to two more bulls which, 
alarmed by the shooting, had started after the first one. 
I shot at the last of these two, he being the larger, but 
again missed with both barrels. Disgusted with my bad 
shooting, we took after them on the run, but the rarified 
air soon winded me. After regaining my breath some- 
what, I separated from Phillips, and had hardly pro- 
ceeded 150yds. when I saw the head and shoulder of a 
large bull behind a breastwork, so to speak, of evergreens. 
He was looking toward Phillips, and had not noticed me. 
Palling myself together for a steady shot and taking my 
time, I took aim at the bull's shoulder and pressed the 
trigger, but as the smoke hung in a dense cloud I could 
not see with what effect. Phillips, however, who had 
not seen the bull until after I fired, called to me to hurry, 
that he thought I had hit the bull, but that the latter had 
crossed the creek below us. When we arrived at the 
creek I was delighted to find a lot of blood in the spoor. 
The blood, however, soon stopped, or at least we could 
only find it at rare intervals. Once Phillips picked up a 
small piece of wood with some frothy blood on it, show- 
ing that the bull was hit in the lungs. We now decided 
to give him plenty of time to get sick and sat down to eat 
our lunch, resting for about an hour. 
After that we again took up the track, and some fifteen 
minutes later jumped the bull, which had been lying 
down. Being somewhat in the rear I did not see him, 
but Phillips saw him plainly and said he could also see 
the bullet mark and that I had hit him too high up. 
After him we went again, and directly came to a place 
where the wounded bull had disturbed another one, and 
there being no difference in the size of the track we for a 
little time followed the wrong one before we discovered 
our mistake. Phillips now did some very clever work at 
tracking, I myaelf being unable to follow the spoor ex- 
cept under his guidance. After a mile of such slow work 
we again jumped the bull in some green timber. I just 
got a glimpse of him, but fired a snap shot nevertheless, 
which missed and made him go now down-hill faster 
than ever. Fortunately he was now going in the direc- 
tion of where we had left our horses. Another mile or so 
of tracking and Phillips again put him up. I being to one 
side could not see him. I now proposed to Phillips that I 
take the lead and follow the track, which was here quite 
plain, and had hardly advanced 200yds. in that way 
when I saw the bull watching his back track. As no 
other part of his body was visible from my position ex- 
cept his head and neck I aimed for the latter. At the 
shot away went the bull again. Does he bear a charmed 
life? But while I reload I can see that he staggers, and 
down he goes with a crash. 
He had a nice and very symmetrical head of twelve 
points. 
We returned to camp with a pardonable amount of sat- 
isfaction at having killed the wounded bull after this 
long chase. The admirable woodcraft displayed by Phil- 
lips this day makes me forgive him all his former short- 
comings, for without his aid I certainly never would have 
gotteD the wounded animal. 
Sunday, Sept. 10, is, according to P., mainly remark- 
able for the fact that I stayed in camp and cleaned up 
things generally. P., Woody and Brown went to bring 
in the head of the bull killed by P. on Thursday, and P. 
killed another bull of twelve points near the same place. 
We have now plenty of bear bait, and if any bears are 
in this section of the country they should come to the 
carcasses of the elk. But so far we have only seen old 
sign, months old at that. 
P. is rather "rubbing it into me" this trip, but he de- 
serves his success. He is not only a tireless, resolute 
hunter, but also a good shot and good all-round sports- 
man. O. takes after his father (P. ), but this being his first 
hunt in the mountains, he is not quite as successful as his 
pluck deserves. He broke the ice to-day, however, killing 
a nice nine-point bull with abnormal horns. 
I attribute my ill success so far, or rather my bad shoot- 
ing, to the rifle I carry. It is a new one, .45cal., and 
should have been made after the pattern of my old .40. 
But the stock is so very much straighter that I can hardly 
get my eye down to the sight at all, which causes me to 
overshoot. I have always been rather proud of my ability 
to shoot large gams, having kih^J lots on previous trip3, 
with misses only few and far between, and shall stick 
hereafter to the old .40, than which a better rifle never 
was made and which I fortunately brought along. I also 
like its long, heavy bullet, with only a small hole in front, 
better than the shorter one of the new .45, which seems 
to lack in penetration and breaks up too soon. 
Monday, Sept. 11, is marked with red letters in my 
hunting diary, for on that day I killed the biggest bull elk 
that I ever saw, or for that matter ever expect to see 
again. That morniasr Phillips and I went on the high 
ground after sheep. We left our horses at the entrance 
of a canon some three miles from camp, and climbed 
through the cool, green forest and later through a maza 
of dwarfed cedars until we got above timber line. We 
hunted the rocks and ridges faithfully, but saw no fresh 
signs of sheep; only elk tracks, even at this elevation, 
seemed to be plentiful, About noon we were within a 
couple of hundred feet of the top of the highest peak of 
he range, the name of which on the maps is given as 
Tount's Peak, and sat down to eat our luncheon. The 
day was beautifully bright and clear, and the wind for a 
wonder, even at these higher levels, quite steady, gentle 
and from the east. What magnificent views one gets 
when hunting in the mountains. They alone are worth 
all the toil and trouble one has to undergo. To the east 
the mountains which form the canon of the Stinking 
Water could be seen, looking so rough and barren that I 
doubt whether even in the centuries to come the moun- 
tain sheep, whose favorite haunts they are, will ever be 
quite exterminated in that range. To the west, just 
peeping over the nearer ranges of the Shoshones, I recog- 
nize my old friend the Grand Teton, under whose shadow 
I camped but three short weeks ago. And there, some 
hundreds of feet below us, a large hawk rises from his 
rocky perch and sweeps in circles, each larger than the 
foregoing, and on motionless wings through the rarified 
air in search of food, uttering discordant cries. How 
strange it seems to look down at the bird instead of up, 
and I cannot help suppressing the wish that I had wings 
to be able to sail away through space whenever the notion 
would take me. Altogether, we are up here "pretty close 
to God Almighty," as a friend with whom I hunted once 
in the Colorado Rockies quaintly expressed it. 
With another friend, a lawyer, my companion on many 
a big-game hunt, and than whom a better sportsman and 
scholar never lived, I was once traveling on the divide 
between the Grand and the Eagle rivers, in Colorado. 
Neither of us had spoken for over an hour, but when we 
got near the highest point we both, actuated by the same 
impulse, reined in our horses to admire the scenery, which 
there was sublimely grand. Suddenly M., turning in his 
saddle, said: "F., do you believe in the existence of God?" 
To which I replied that I certainly did. ''But," M. con- 
tinued, "at times I seem to have doubts about His exist- 
the edge of which had heretofore both prevented the elk 
from seeing us and us from examining the intervening 
ground, had a sheer drop here of about 200ft., and from 
the base of it there was a gradual slope of perfectly open 
ground covered with short grass— a regular mountain 
meadow — to where the game was. It was therefore 
impossible to proceed on the same line we had been 
doing. If we went further to the right the elk would 
surely get our wind and take alarm. We were therefore 
obliged to take the left side of the cliff, but after crawl- 
ing along on our knees in the dry bed of a ravine for 
some distance, we only found that its course would 
eventually only take us further from our game. Con- 
trary to the advice of Phillips, who wished me to stay 
here and wait till the game moved — which he supposed 
would be inlour direction — I now retraced my steps to our 
first position on the cliff, crawling to the edge of it; but 
try as I would. I could not get nearer than what I esti- 
mated to be about 350yds. to the elk without being ob- 
served by them. There was no help for it, however, and I 
prepared to chance the shot. I am willing to confess that 
I did not like the distance. My rifle, a .400 double express 
by Fraser, of Edinburgh, was sighted to only 200yds., 
and except one buck antelope, which I had bowled over 
with it the previous season at what I afterward stepped 
over 400yds., I had never risked any long shots. At this 
high altitude, however, any rifle will hold up better than 
on a lower level, the thinness of the air straightening the 
trajectory by offering less resistance to the bullet and in- 
creasing its range. 
Taking off my hat I put it on the ground beside me, plac- 
ing a number of cartridges in it ready to hand. Then I took 
a careful look at the bulls through the field glasses and se- 
lected what seemed to me the one with the best antlers. This 
bull had its neck and head stretched out on the ground, 
— — — - 
ltd 
A HUNTING DAY. 
Photo by Mr. Clay Pierce. 
ence;" and then proceeded to argue and to illustrate his 
meaning. To all of which I only made answer that I 
failed to see what good it would do any man to doubt; 
that I had reasoned with myself on that subject many a 
time, and that I was a firm believer. Finally M. said, 
"F., I believe you are right. Few unbelievers can come 
out here, see what we are looking at right now, and not 
experience a change of heart. Unbelief is a disease of 
the cities." To all of which I agreed, and we proceeded 
on our way. Poor M., he has now gone to that land 
where all doubts cease. 
But while I was thus day-dreaming Phillips had, with a 
more practical turn of mind, spread out the contents of the 
luncheon bag: cold fried elk meat, bread and a little dried 
fruit. I for one nev?r get tired of venison of any kind, 
but Phillips said he'd give something pretty for a nice 
piece of ham! After our somewhat laborious climb of the 
morning it felt good to rest, but after Phillips had smoked 
his pipe we started again. 
We had not gone very far when we discried at a great 
distance below us, in fact just at timber line, a band of 
animals. The field glasses showed that they were five 
bull elk and that they were feeding. As at least three of 
them carried very fine heads, I resolved to stalk them. 
The descent over the snow and precipitous slope below 
it proved very laborious, and once I had a nasty fall on 
some slide rock, tearing my skin and my clothing and 
getting the muzzles of my rifle full of dirt, As I always 
carry a pocket wiping string, made of strong harness 
leather so it cannot break, my rifla was soon cleaned. 
But in my fall I also dislodged some loose stones and 
rocks, which went bounding down the steep side of the 
hill. Although this did not disturb the elk, which all this 
time were hidden from our view by a projecting cliff, it 
alarmed a band of nine mountain sheep, which had pre- 
sumably been enjoying their siesta unknown to us, below 
the edge of the cliff. Very pretty they looked, but very 
tantalizing withal, being at least 600yds. away, as they 
went in single file at a rare pace down the hill, across 
the narrow valley and up the opposite side of the moun- 
tain, where we soon lost sight of them as they disappeared 
in one of the many snow-choked ravines. I was much 
afraid that the sheep would alarm the elk, but this fear 
proved groundless, for when we again got sight of the 
latter they had all five of them lain down. 
But how to get nearer than 400yds. to those elk was 
now the question that worried me. The cliff we were on. 
much in the same fashion that a well-trained pointer or 
setter does when commanded to "down — charge." I then 
gave the glasses to Phillips, telling him to watch the 
effects of the shot, raised the 200yds. sight and took aim 
at the bull's shoulder. At the crack of the rifle all five 
bulls jump 3d to their feet as if touched by an electric 
wand and moved a few steps toward our position, but 
being unable to locate the danger they there stood for 
some time all huddled together without moving. Not 
long though, for when I fired the left barrel at the same 
bull as before he made a tremendous jump sideways, 
while the others made off at a quick trot toward the tim- 
ber. The big one made several ineffectual attempts to fol- 
low his master, but seemingly paralyzed in his hindquar- 
ters was unable to do so. 
Phillips, who now had a good view of the bull with the 
glasses, called to me, "For God's sake, Mr. F., shoot; that 
bull carries a thousand-dollar head; there is not another 
one like him in Wyoming 1" So admonished, and natu- 
rally a trifle excited, I reloaded and fired several more 
shots at the bull, who all this time was making frantic 
but ineffectual efforts to move. Finally, however, he 
succeeded, first walking very slowly and painfully, then 
a trifle faster, when I gave him another right and left 
barrel, which he acknowledged each time with a decided 
wince. JuBt then he came to a little rising ground which 
he intended to cross, and while pushing in fresh cartridges 
I could see that twice he almost fell in his efforts to as- 
cend the rise. Then, after he got over the top of it, it 
seemed to me that I saw him fall and not rise again. 
Phillips, who all this time had been giving vent to his 
feelings in strong language — one moment praising the 
size of the bull's antlers and the number of tines, the next 
reflecting in not very parliamentary terms upon my 
shooting abilities (as if that would improve them) and the 
next again cursing his luck because I would not allow 
him to shoot — now declared with an oath of superior em- 
phasis which surpassed all previous efforts in that 
line, that he'd have that bull. (N. B. — If about to make a 
difficult shot at game tell your guide or companion to 
keep his mouth shut; or better still, if the nature of the 
ground permits, post him in a position some distance 
from you, so he cannot disconcert you by his remarks.) 
Making all haste possible, we finally got near the p'.ace 
where the bull had disappeared. Holding my rifle a 1 ; the 
"ready," I carefully and. slowly peeped over the ridge — 
and there, jast on the other side of it, lay my bull dead. 
