Jack in the Rockies by George Bird Grinnell

Author:George Bird Grinnell
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781634215336
Publisher: Duke Classics

Chapter XI - Tracks in the Snow

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Meantime Joe had proceeded with his butchering and after he had finished, gathered some wood and made himself a little fire. It took some time to do this, for almost everywhere the wood was wet; but by looking carefully he found some dry branches that were sheltered by the foliage above them, and others that lay under a fallen tree, and presently he had a good fire lighted, and one that was so strong that he could throw wet wood on it and it would soon dry and burn. He built his fire in a sheltered place, and the light breeze drifted the smoke off down the stream. Before long he was warm and dry. After he had waited a while, he went out beyond the trees and looked off toward the ridge where Jack had gone, to see whether he was not yet coming back, but he saw nothing. A little later he went out again and Jack was not yet in sight, but as he turned about he saw coming down the hill about half a mile off, thirteen elk, mostly cows and calves, but one spikehorn, and following last of all and keeping the others together a monstrous bull with a great pair of horns. Of course when he saw them Joe stood still. The elk had come down from some higher hill, and when they came to where the snow was not very deep they began to scatter out and feed. When most of them had passed behind the point of hill which backed the next ridge above the one Joe was on, he began to move very slowly and cautiously toward the shelter of a clump of trees. Every now and then, one of the old cows would lift her head, and as she munched the grass that she had just plucked, would look all around the horizon, and when she did so, Joe stood without moving a muscle. Then when all the heads were down again, he very slowly moved a little toward his cover. At last only one of the elk was in sight, and when she put her head down he could see nothing but her back and hips, and two or three steps took him out of sight even of these. Still he did not run, but walked slowly, watching closely the sky-line above him, for at any moment one of the elk might walk up there to look over the country. None appeared, however, and in a very few moments he was hidden by the trees.

Now he did not know what to do. His first idea was to creep up to the ridge and kill some of the elk, but before he determined that he would do this he considered. He remembered how Hugh often spoke of not killing anything more than they needed to eat, and he knew that these deer that they had would last them for a long time. He did

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