me. That's
exactly like it was. One pair was jest foolin', one was fencing and was
still perlite; but that third pair was a playin' the game for keeps. An'
for givin' the facts, that's away ahead of any photograph I ever seen."

Once I did come on the fatal battle-ground, but it was some time after
the decision; and there I found the body of the one who did not win. The
antlers are a fair index of the size and vigour of the stag, and if the
fallen one was so big and strong, what like was he who downed him,
pierced him through and left him on the plain.

SNAPPING A CHARGING BULL

At one time in a Californian Park I heard the war-bugle of an Elk. He
bawled aloud in brazen, ringing tones: "Anybody want a F-I-G-H-T
t-t-t-t!!"

I extemporized a horn and answered him according to his mood. "_Yes, I
do; bring it ALONG!_" and he brought it at a trot, squealing and roaring
as he came. When he got within forty yards he left the cover and
approached me, a perfect incarnation of brute ferocity and hate.

[Illustration]

His ears were laid back, his muzzle raised, his nose curled up, his
lower teeth exposed, his mane was bristling and in his eyes there blazed
a marvellous fire of changing opalescent green. On he marched, gritting
his teeth and uttering a most unpleasantly wicked squeal.

Then suddenly down went his head, and he came crash at me, with all the
power of half a ton of hate. However, I was not so much exposed as may
have been inferred. I was safely up a tree. And there I sat watching
that crazy bull as he prodded the trunk with his horns, and snorted, and
raved around, telling me just what he thought of me, inviting him to a
fight and then getting up a tree. Finally he went off roaring and
gritting his teeth, but turning back to cast on me from time to time the
deadly, opaque green light of his mad, malignant eyes.

A friend of mine, John Fossum, once a soldier attached to Fort
Yellowstone, had a similar adventure on a more heroic scale. While out
on a camera hunt in early winter he descried afar a large bull Elk lying
asleep in an open valley. At once Fossum made a plan. He saw that he
could crawl up to the bull, snap him where he lay, then later secure a
second picture as the creature ran for the timber. The first part of
the programme was carried out admirably. Fossum got within fifty feet
and still the Elk lay sleeping. Then the camera was opened out. But
alas! that little _pesky_ "click," that does so muc