est in the birch
scrub. Almost immediately we saw three roebuck near the rim of one
of the ravines, their white rump-patches showing conspicuously as
they bobbed about in the thin cover. We could have killed them
easily, but the hunters would not let us shoot, for we were after
larger game.

A few moments later we separated, Harry keeping on up the main
valley, while my hunter and I turned into a patch of brush directly
above us. We had not gone fifty yards when there was a crash, a rush
of feet, and four wapiti dashed through the bushes. The three cows
kept straight on, but the bull stopped just on the crest of the
ridge directly behind a thick screen of twigs. My rifle was sighted
at the huge body dimly visible through the branches. In a moment I
would have touched the trigger, but the hunter caught my arm,
whispering frantically, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"

Of course I knew it was a long chance, for the bullet almost
certainly would have been deflected by the twigs, but those splendid
antlers seemed very near and very, very desirable. I lowered my
rifle reluctantly, and the bull disappeared over the hill crest
whence the cows had gone.

"They'll stop in the next ravine," said the hunter, but when we
cautiously peered over the ridge the animals were not there--nor
were they in the next. At last we found their trail leading into the
grassy uplands; but the possibility of finding wapiti, these animals
of the forests, on those treeless slopes seemed too absurd even to
consider. Yet, the old Mongol kept straight on across the rolling
meadow.

Suddenly, off at the right, Harry's rifle banged three times in
quick succession--then an interval, and two more shots. Ten seconds
later three wapiti cows showed black against the sky line. They were
coming fast and straight toward us. We flattened ourselves in the
grass, lying as motionless as two gray bowlders, and a moment later
another wapiti appeared behind the cows. As the sun glistened on his
branching antlers there was no doubt that he was a bull, and a big
one, too.

The cows were headed to pass about two hundred yards above us and
behind the hill crest. I could easily have reached the summit where
they, would have been at my mercy, but lower down the big bull also
was coming, and the hunter would not let me move. "Wait, wait," he
whispered, "we'll surely get him. Wait, we can't lose him."

"What about that ravine?" I answered. "He'll go into the cover. He
will n