did not make any noise threading that wet thicket,
and we ascended the opposite slope very cautiously. What little wind
there was blew from the elk toward us, so they could not scent us. Once
up on the edge of the ridge we halted to listen. After a long time we
heard a far-away bugle, then another at least half a mile distant. Had
we miscalculated? R.C. was for working down the ridge and I was for
waiting there a few moments. So we sat down again. The forest was almost
silent now. Somewhere a squirrel was barking. The sun peeped out of the
pale clouds, lighted the glades, rimmed the pines in brightness. I
opened my lips to speak to R.C. when I was rendered mute by a piercing
whistle, high-pitched and sweet and melodiously prolonged. It made my
ears tingle and my blood dance. "Right close," whispered R.C. "Come on."
We began to steal through the forest, keeping behind trees and thickets,
peeping out, and making no more sound than shadows. The ground was damp,
facilitating our noiseless stalk. In this way we became separated by
about thirty steps, but we walked on and halted in unison. Passing
through a thicket of little pines we came into an open forest full of
glades. Keenly I peered everywhere, as I slipped from tree to tree.
Finally we stooped along for a space, and then, at a bugle blast so
close that it made me jump, I began to crawl. My objective point was a
fallen pine the trunk of which appeared high enough to conceal me. R.C.
kept working a little farther to the right. Once he beckoned me, but I
kept on. Still I saw him drop down to crawl. Our stalk was getting
toward its climax. My state was one of quivering intensity of thrill, of
excitement, of pleasure. Reaching my log I peeped over it. I saw a
cow-elk and a yearling calf trotting across a glade about a hundred
yards distant. Wanting R.C. to see them I looked his way, and pointed.
But he was pointing also and vehemently beckoning for me to join him. I
ran on all fours over to where he knelt. He whispered pantingly:
"Grandest sight--ever saw!" I peeped out.

In a glade not seventy-five yards away stood a magnificent bull elk,
looking back over his shoulder. His tawny hind-quarters, then his dark
brown, almost black shaggy shoulders and head, then his enormous spread
of antlers, like the top of a dead cedar--these in turn fascinated my
gaze. How graceful, stately, lordly!

R.C. stepped out from behind the pine in full view. I crawled out, took
a kneeling posi