THE CENTRE DEMOCRAT, BELLEFONTE, PA. Thursday, November 4th, 1909, HUNTING THE ELK THEODORE ROOSEVELT fCopyright, 1385, by G. P. Putnam's Sons Published under arrangement with GP. Putnam's Sons, New York and London.) NE day Merrifield and 1 went out together and had a rather exciting chase after some bull elk. The previous evening, to ward sunset, I had seen three bulls trotting off across an open glade toward a great stretch of forest and broken ground, up mear the foot of the rocky peaks. Next morning early we started off to hunt through this country. The walk- ing was hard work, especlally up and | down the steep cliffs, covered with slip pery pine needles; or among the wind. RUT LL re falls, where the rows of dead trees lay plied up across ene another in the wildest confusion. We saw nothing until we came to a large patch of burnt ground, where we at once found the soft, black soll marked up by elk hoofs, nor had we penetrated Into it more than a few hundred yards before we came to tracks made but a few min. utes before, and almost instantly after. ward saw three bull elk, probably those I had seen on the preceding day. We had been running briskly up-hill through the soft, heavy loam, In which our feet made no noise, but slipped and sank deeply; as a consequence, I was all out of breath and my hand so un- steady that I missed my first shot Elk, however, do not vanish with! the instantaneous rapidity of fright- ened deer, and these three trotted off ig a direction quartering to us, I doubt if I ever went through more violent exertion than in the next ten min- utes. We raced after them at full speed, opening fire; 1 wounded all three, but none of the wounds were immediately disabling. They trotted on and we panted afterwards, slipping on the wet earth, pitching headlong over charred stumps, leaping on dead logs that broke beneath our weight, more than measuring our full length on the ground, halting and fir- ing whenever we got a chance. At last one bull fell: we passed him by after the others which were still run- ning up-hill. The sweat streamed into my eyes and made furrows in the sooty mud that covered my face, from having fallen full length down on the burnt earth: I sobbed for breath as I toiled at a shambling trot after them, as nearly done out as could well be At this moment they turned down-hilL It was a great relief; a man who Is too done up to go a steep up-hill oan still run fast enough down; with a last spurt I closed In near enough to fire again; one elk fell; the other went off once on the ground, ut when we came up close It raised its head and looked proudly at us, the heavy mane bris- tiling up on the neck, while Its eyes glared and Its teeth grated together I felt really sorry to kill it. Though these were both well-known elks, their antlers, of ten points, were small, twisted, and 1ll-shaped; In fact hardly | worth preserving, except to call to mind a chase In which during a few minutes I did as much downright hard work as it has often fallen to my lot to do. The burnt earth had blackened our faces and hands till we looked like negroes. off, In a place where the cattle rarely | | wandered. Such a chance was not to | be neglected and, on the first free day, { one of my Elk-horn foremen, Will Dow | by name, and myself, took our hunt ing horses and started off, accompa- nied by the ranch wagon, in the direc. tion of the probable haunts of the doomed deer. Towards nightfall we struck a deep spring pool, near by the remains of an old Indian encampment. It was at the head of a great basin, several miles across, in which we be. lleved the game to lle. The wagon was halted and we pitched camp; there was plenty of dead wood, and soon the venison steaks were brolling over the coals raked from beneath the crackling cottonwood logs, while in the valley the ponles grazed almost within the circle of the flicker ing fire-light. It was in the cool and pleasant month of September; and long after going to bed we lay awake under the blankets watching the stars that on clear nights always shine with such intense brightness over the lonely Western plains, We were up and off by the gray of the morning. It was a beautiful hunt- narrow The finest bull, with the best head | that 1 got, was killed In the midst of very beautiful and grand surroundings We had been hunting through a great pine wood wkich ran up to the edge | of a broad cax “u-llke valley, bounded by sheer walls of rock. There were fresh tracks of elk about, and we had been advancing up wind with even more than our usual caution when, on | stepping out into a patch of open ground, near the edge of the cliff, we came upon a great bull, beating and thrashing his antlers against a young tree, about eighty yards off. He stopped and faced us for a second, his | mighty antlers thrown In the alr, as he | held his head aloft. Behind him tow ered the tall and sombre pines, while i at his feet the jutting crags overhung the deep chasm below, that stretched off between high walls of barren and snow-streaked rocks, the evergreen: clinging to thelr sides, while along the bottom the rapid torrent gathered In places into black and sullen mountain | lakes. As the bull turned to run | struck him just behind the shoulder; | he reeled te the death-blow, but stag gered gamely on a few rods into the forest sinking to the ground, with my second bullet through his lungs, Two or three days later than this 1 before killed another bull, nearly as large, In | the same patch of woods in which 1 | A bear had been | of the latter, | had siain the Orsi feeding on the carcass and, after a valn effort to find his den, we determined to beat through the woods and try to start him up. Ac cordingly, Merrifield, the teamster, and myself took parailel courses some three hundred yards apart, and started at one end to walk through to the other. I doubt if the teamster much wished to meet a bear alone (while nothing would have given Merrifield more hearty and unaffected enjoyment than to have en countered an entire famlly), gradually edged in pretty close to me Where the woods became pretty open | [ saw him suddenly lift his rifle and | fire, and immediately afterwards a , splendid bull elk trotted past ln front of me, evidently untouched, the team ster having missed. The elk ran to the other side of two trees that stood close together some seventy yards off, and stopped for a moment to look round. only part of Lis body 1 could see be tween the two trees, and sent a bullet | into his flank. Away he went, and | after, running In my was In me. If a wounded elk gets fairly started he will go at a measured trot for many hours, and even If mor tally hurt may run twenty miles be fore falling; while at the same time he does not start off at full speed, and | hunter a he turns will often give an active chance for another shot as and changes his course preparatory to | taking a straight line. So I raced along after the elk at my very best speed for a few hundred feet, and then got an other shot as he went across a littie | glade, injuring his hip somewhat This Soon the venison steaks were broiling at a walk. We passed the second elk and | kept on alone after the third not able to go at more than a slow trot myself, and too much winded to dare risk a shot at any distance. He got out of the burnt patch, going into some thick timber in a deep ravine; I closed pretty; wel and rushed after him into a thiciet of young evergreens. Hardly was I In when there was a scramble and bounce among them and I eaught a glimpse of a yellow body moving out to one side; | ran out toward the edge | and fired through the twigs at the moving beast. Down It went but] when J ran up, to my disgust 1 found that I had jumped and killed, In my haste, a bla k-tall deer. which must | bave been already roused Ly the pas sage of the wounded elk. I at once took up the trall of the latter again, but after a little while the blood grew less, and ceased, and I lost the track; nor could 1 find It, hunt as hard as | might. The poor beast could not have gone five hundred yards; yet we never found the carcass, Then 1 walked slowly back past the deer 1 had slain by so curious a mis , 10 the elk. The first one shot was already dead. The second only wounded, though It conld not When it saw os coming It sought made It all right for me, and another hundred yards’ burst took me up to where 1 was able to put a ball In a fatal spot, and the grand old fellow sank down and fell over on his side, No sportsman can ever feel much keener pleasure and self-satisfaction than when, after a successful stalk and good shot, he walks up to a grand | elk lying dead in the cool shade of the great evergreens, and looks at the | massive and yet finely moulded form, and at the mighty antlers which are to serve in the future as the trophy and proof of his successful skill. Still hunting the elk on the mountains Is as | noble a kind of sport as can well be imagined; there is nothing more pleas | ant and enjoyable, and at the same time it demands that the hunter shall | bring into play many manly qualities. | There have been few days of my hunt. | ing life that were so full of unalloyed | hapr'ness as were those spent on the | Bighorn range. From morning tl night 1 was on foot, In cool, bracing | | alr, now moving silently through the | vast, melancholy pine forests, now | treading the brink of high, rocky prec. iplces, always amid the most grand and beautiful scenery: and always after as noble and lordly game as is to be found in the Western world Since writing the above 1 killed an elk near my ranch; probably the last of his race that will ever be found in our neighberhood. It was just Vator w aod he | Kneeling down 1 fired at the | moccasing over | the moss and pine needles for all there | There was a ¢ timber : the sundogs hung in the red the stirred over the crisp though the sky was cloudless yet the weather had that hazy look that it is most apt to take on during the time of the Indian summer. From a high spur of the table-land we looked out far and | wide over a great stretch of broken country, the brown of whose hills and valleys was dawn; wind hardly or grass: and Queer, Smoky, tokens that the trees were already put {ting on the dress with which they | greet the mortal ripening of the year The deep and narrow but smooth ra vines running up towards the edges of the plateaus were heavily wooded the bright green treetops rising a height they rarely reach In the bar | ren plainscountry: and the recky sides of the sheer gorges were clad with a thick growth of dwarfed cedars, | while here and there the trailing Vir | glnia creepers burned crimson among | thelr sombre masses | We hunted stealthily up wind. across the line of the heavily timbered cou. lien We saw traces of our quarry; old tracks at first, then the | fresh footprints of a single elk—a bull, judging by the size—which had come down to drink at a mirey alkall pool, its feet slipping so as to leave the marks of the false hoofs In the soft soll. We hunted with palostaking and noiseless care for many hours; at last as 1 led old Manitou up to look over the edge of a narrow ravine, there was a crash and movement In the timber below me, and immediately afterwards 1 caught a glimpse of a great bull elk trotting up through the young trees as he gallantly breasted the steep hillside opposite. When clear of the woods, and directly across the valley from me, he stopped and turned half round, throwing his Sead In the air to gaze for a moment at the Intruder. My bul. let struck too far back, but, neverthe- less, made a deadly wound, and the elk went over the crest of the hill at a | wild, plunging gallop. We followed the bloody trail for a quarter of a mile, and found him dead in a thicket Though of large size, he yet had but small antlers, with few polots w | 8OON Big Contracts Placed. President W. C. Brown, of the New | York Central and Hudson River rall. road. announced Friday that the man agement has entered upon a campaign of extraordinary expenditures to meet | extraordinary traffic demands The company has placed contracts in the last few dave he sald, for $25,000,000 worth of new locomotives, passenger and freight cars, and Intends to spend £60.000.000 more—3$85,000,000 In all in renewing grades, straightening | curves and laying new ralla, exclusive | af $50,000,000 terminal improvements | in New York City i “These expenditures” he sald, “are! absolutely necessary to meet the de- | mands of business. The trae rec. | ords fram the month of September and | October, up to date, have exceeded | anything In the company's history” | : What a Weman Will Net De. 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