THE WAPITI 
thirst before we reached the Big Horns and his comfortable ranch. Here 
we met Rattlesnake Jack, the hunter, and at once set out on our trip to 
their range about 100 miles to the north. 
Though I obtained fine specimens of white-tail, mule deer and pronghorn, 
we never seemed to have any luck with the great stag. They were then, in 
1886, getting scarce, and we only succeeded in moving one or two bulls, 
without ever getting a sight of one. August slipped away and the greater 
part of September, when one day Jack and I came on the fresh spoor of 
a travelling bull. He was feeding slowly through the forest amidst a field 
of blueberries — here nearly as large as cherries and delicious eating — 
when on looking up there stood the stag gazing fixedly at us about 100 
yards distance. It was an easy shot and I missed it. Why recount the 
awful heart-burnings that followed. They are too painful to speak of, but 
they left me with a fierce desire to kill a wapiti if I had to stay in the 
mountains for years. Ten blank days followed and it began to snow, 
warning us that our stay in the mountains would now be short, and then 
we moved into Red Fork and commenced hunting in a new area. 
September 22 broke a clear frosty morning as Jack and I set forth on 
our horses to work a forest to the north. We had hardly entered it when 
we found abundant fresh sign of wapiti. Accordingly, we left our horses 
and quartered the woods, slowly working up wind. We had nearly come 
to an end of the forest and were within sight of an open park when a crash 
on our left showed a fine bull racing through the dense timber and running 
as if for the cover behind. 
“ Watch that opening,” said Jack, and I did watch it, placing a bullet 
at the spot where the white shoulder appeared. To my joy the beast 
stumbled and fell, but at once rose again and hobbled out of view. What 
a youth does and what he ought to do are two very different things, and 
with the usual impetuosity I did the wrong one, which was to follow at 
once, the result being that I jumped the bull three times and thoroughly 
scared him. Although his shoulder and foreleg were broken he made for 
the open park, and we saw the grand fellow running on three legs down the 
valley, ascend the further hill and disappear in a clump of wood about 
five acres in extent. 
Then Jack did the right thing. “ I guess we don’t scare him no more,” 
he said. “ He’ll lie right there and get stiff, and we’ll fix him sure in the 
morning.” Of course I rebelled against such a course, but was fortunately 
overruled. 
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