XXIV 
THE WAPITI 
263. 
the carcase by the claws of the bears when 
scratching, there was no actual burying. 
The horns of this wapiti measured 53 inches in 
curve length from burr to extreme point, 12^- inches 
round the burr, 52 inches direct line from tip to tip 
of extreme points. 
The day after this incident I had been riding 
with two of my people over the summits of the 
mountains, about 10,000 feet above the sea-level, 
when my attention was directed to a couple of 
fine stags, about three-quarters of a mile distant, 
feeding along the side of the hill-face down¬ 
wards by an oblique course. Upon the opposite 
side of a deep depression at the bottom 
flowed a considerable stream. After watching these 
stags for some time with my field-glass, seeing that 
they occasionally raised their heads, and looked 
wistfully towards a copse which grew upon the 
opposite slope, on the shoulder of the mountain 
spur, I felt sure that females must be somewhere in 
the thicket. Accordingly I crept cautiously along 
the crest of the hill, until at length I arrived at the 
border of the covert. As I had approached the copse 
I had several times obtained a view of the stags ; 
they were no doubt advancing, and would in my 
opinion cross the stream, and join other deer which, 
although invisible, were somewhere in the neigh¬ 
bourhood. 
After waiting a few minutes, I discovered that a 
plot of open ground lay within the copse at no 
great distance ; this I perceived through the light 
