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"You may joke and put me off, but it's a thing that cries for explanation."

"I am not a man who explains. Go ask Philip Norrisson to expound his father to you. I should be blithe of the young man's interpretation."

"I ask you simply, What has he done? What have you or had you-actually against him? And why do poor people speak of him in the same breath with their injuries, as if he were a public swindler?"

"Is that how the talk goes? Why, bless me, I supposed he was the man on horseback, the biggest frog in the puddle. So the people have memories, after all? It must be the soreheads, then; the ones who got left. The peculiar disgrace in this country is to 'get left,' you 'll observe; to grumble is next to it; the two go together, like cowardice and lying." "Are we soreheads, then? Is that why we have grumbled?"

"You have a shrewd Scots tongue, young woman," said Dunsmuir, with a bitter chuckle. "It is well seen we have had catechists in the family."

"This may amuse you," Dolly answered, and her lip trembled. "It reminds me that once you would not have put me off so, when I had far less reason for asking to be satisfied." Dunsmuir considered her flushed, excited face, and answered soberly: "Dolly, the trouble between Price Norrisson and your father was never a personal quarrel, understand; it was a difference in our methods of working. He is a promoter, one who peddles schemes in the money-markets; he neither builds out of his head nor pays out of his pocket; he is the man who talks. And I am the man who builds, wisely or fondly as the case may be. It is well known we engineers have a great conceit of our own ideas. But my plan was no more to Norrisson than any other man's; its merit to him was its price. He was jealous of the time spent pothering with a slow project, while he might have been reaping commissions from several. So he patched up a scheme of his own, which he privately substituted. To do him justice, he offered me half; but I could not look at it, from the nature of it, which was rotten, and he was tired of what he called my overniceness; and that was the break between us. I dare say I may have been invidious; I was angry. And he might have been more open with me. He might have waited to be off with one deal before he was on with another. He might afterward have been either for me or against me, and not have kept a vengeful interest in my scheme, which he used to strangle whenever it showed signs of life. Still, that is 'business,' according to the business man's code.

If I could have had a partner as sagacious and plucky as Norrisson, with a better sense of faith and a larger grasp of the scheme, we had not waited so long, perhaps. Yet it has not been long. Land-builders must be content to work as nature works. But he had never a conception of the thing in hand; he does not love the making of a country: he wants the price of his dicker, and so away to the next one. The present combination, if you insist on knowing, was forced upon me. It's a union like that between the Scots and the English — neither was happy in it nor very proud of it; yet both lived, as we shall, to reap its benefits and to forget its humiliations."

Our

"It is an ill-omened comparison. ditch-union, I hope, is not a sale," said Dolly, deeply moved. "And does the sun shine, now, on you both? Do you remember how you said you would never forgive him till he stood out of your sunlight?"

"A poor, silly speech. You would credit. me more by forgetting it. Men make such speeches to their women, who are indulgent to a phrase. The sun is for him that can make hay while it shines. That is what Norrisson did, in fine, when he built his ditch."

"Are you now the apologist, papa, or the historian?"

"Are you ever going to get over that illbred habit of retort? It is intolerable in a woman. You and Alan have argle-bargled till you know no other way of speaking. I have answered your first question. Now what else have you heard, between kitchen and parlor? What are the people's injuries?" "I should like to know the whole story of Norrisson's ditch.”

"Would you, indeed? and do you think your father is the man to tell it? Would you take for gospel Norrisson's story of my ditch?"

"I will make allowance; but I would have it from you. I ask you not to spare whatever to you is the truth."

"Poor Norrisson! If he only knew that the girls are after his record. I don't quite perceive the grounds of my daughter's interest."

"I should think you might. He has stood for the enemy of my house these years and years; now he stands for the friend. I am all turned about, and I 'm tired of being put off with phrases."

Dunsmuir laughed at her sharpness, but still with that bitter levity which took away her confidence in his answers. Dolly saw he was talking speciously, but could imagine no reason for his want of frankness.

"Well, then," he began, "Norrisson built a ditch seventy miles long in something less than a hundred days. He boomed up the lands, and the settlers rushed in; and as most of them were

short of cash, Norrisson's company forms another company-two names, but one pocket. The loan and mortgage company advanced money to the settlers on their lands, and the water company sold them water. But the ditch was got together in such a hurry-scurry that it took a year or two to settle down to regular work; the water was here and there and everywhere but where it was wanted. The first crops went under, and the first crop of settlers went along with them. There was a terrible tumble in real estate; claims were jumped; there were foreclosures, contests, and scandals, and the deuce to pay generally. And when the pie was smashed, Norrisson and his crowd gathered and picked out the plums. After that it was well seen they could afford to patch up the leaks in their ditches. There was never a wilder water-system on the face of this earth, yet somehow they have scrambled through. I understand the farmers are making money now. I supposed the past was forgotten, except they used it as an election cry. What I have chiefly against Norrisson is not personal to the man. We are fearfully and wonderfully made; honesty is comparative, and the best of us cannot boast. It is the man's methods of business I object to. He has antagonized the farmers at the outset; he cinched them, there's not a doubt; and we are now to reap the fruits of the stone-age policy. It means a fight, and a great. waste of the energies and the money of a new community. And when our big ditch is lined with ranches, and the farmers poll more votes than the company, they'll have to be bought, or they'll swing the elections and use their power as he has used his. It is all very corrupt ing, and a weariness to think on, when there's a

policy so much broader, which has been proved by the sad, wasteful experience of centuries. But it is written that young nations and young lives shall never profit by the mistakes of the old; every life and every country must learn its own lessons. But for an Old World lookeron, who has seen it all thrashed out before, it is a dowie business."

"Then you think Mr. Norrisson means to be honest, by his way of thinking?"

"I think he means to be a rich man." "Have you ever seen the beautiful Mrs. Norrisson ?"

"No; she has never shown up in this part of the country. I hear she is disaffected toward her husband and her native land, but she accepts her living from both; a lady with a small fist that can hold a heap of money. And there, you see, is where it befits to be charitable to the husband who has that hand to fill. Small blame to him if—”

"Oh, I've heard enough!" the girl broke in with a passionate gesture. "And where do you suppose the son comes from? His honesty is comparative too, I suppose?"

"He is a canny chiel," Dunsmuir answered coldly.

He watched Philip jealously in these days. of his probation; took note of his prudent silence on a situation both had agreed was impossible to any but a venal chief attainable through the loaves and fishes. Assuredly the young man had powers of self-control. Dunsmuir watched him come and go, faithful to the work, yet uncommitted; eyed him as Saul eyed David, and loved him not, yet could find in him no cause of offense.

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AN ELK-HUNT AT TWO-OCEAN PASS.

NE fall with my ranch-partner, Ferguson, I made an elk-hunt in northwestern Wyoming among the Shoshone Mountains, where they join the Hoodoo and Absoraka ranges. There is no more beautiful game-country in the United States. It is a park-land, where glades, meadows, and high mountain pastures break the evergreen forest: a forest which is open compared to the tangled density of the woodland farther north. It is a high, cold region of many lakes and clear, rushing streams. The steep mountains are generally of the rounded form so often seen in the ranges of the Cordilleras of the United States; but the Hoodoos, or Goblins, are carved in fantastic and extraordinary shapes; while the Tetons, a group of isolated rock peaks, show a striking boldness in their lofty outlines.

This was one of the pleasantest hunts I ever made. As always in the mountains, save where the country is so rough and so densely wooded that one must go afoot, we had a pack-train; and we took a more complete outfit than we had ever before taken on such a hunt, and so traveled in much comfort. Usually, when in the mountains, I have merely had one companion, or at most two, and two or three pack-ponies; each of us doing his share of the packing, cooking, fetching water, and pitching the small square of canvas which served as tent. In itself packing is both an art and a mystery, and a skilful professional packer, versed in the intricacies of the "diamond hitch," packs with a speed which no non-professional can hope to rival, and fixes the side packs and top packs with such scientific nicety, and adjusts the doubles and turns of the lashrope so accurately, that everything stays in place under any but the most adverse conditions. Of course, like most hunters, I myself can in case of need throw the diamond hitch, after a fashion, and pack on either the off or near side. Indeed, unless a man can pack, it is not possible to make a really hard hunt in the mountains, if alone, or with only a single companion. The mere fair-weather hunter, who trusts entirely to the exertions of others, and does nothing more than ride or walk about under favorable circumstances, and shoot at what somebody else shows him, is a hunter in name only. Whoever would really deserve the title must be able at a pinch to shift for himself, to grapple with the difficulties and hardships of

VOL. XLIV. -93.

wilderness life unaided, and not only to hunt, but at times to travel for days, whether on foot or on horseback, alone. However, after one has passed one's novitiate, it is pleasant to be comfortable when the comfort does not interfere with the sport; and although a man sometimes likes to hunt alone, yet often it is well to be with some old mountain hunter, a master of woodcraft, who is a first-rate hand at finding game, creeping upon it, and tracking it when wounded. With such a companion one gets much more game, and learns many things by observation instead of by painful experience.

On this trip we had with us two hunters, Tazewell Woody and Elwood Hofer, a packer who acted as cook, and a boy to herd the horses. Of the latter there were twenty; six saddle-animals and fourteen for the packs, two or three being spare horses, to be used later in carrying the elk-antlers, sheep-horns, and other trophies. Like most hunters' pack-animals, they were either half broken, or else broken down; tough, unkempt, jaded-looking beasts of every color -sorrel, buckskin, pinto, white, bay, roan. After the day's work was over, they were turned loose to shift for themselves; and about once a week they strayed, and all hands had to spend the better part of the day hunting for them. The worst ones for straying, curiously enough, were three broken-down old "bearbaits," which went by themselves, as is generally the case with the cast-off horses of a herd. There were two sleeping-tents, another for the provisions, in which we ate during bad weather, and a canvas tepee, which was put up with lodge-poles, Indian fashion, like a wigwam. A tepee is more difficult to put up than an ordinary tent; but it is very convenient when there is rain or snow. A small fire kindled in the middle keeps it warm, the smoke escaping through the open top; that is, when it escapes at all. Strings are passed from one pole to another, on which to hang wet clothes and shoes, and the beds are made round the edges. As an offset to the warmth and shelter, the smoke often renders it impossible even to sit upright. We had a very good camp-kit, including plenty of cookingand eating-utensils; and among our provisions were some canned goods and sweetmeats, to give a relish to our meals of meat and bread. We had fur coats and warm clothes, which are chiefly needed at night, and plenty of bedding, including water-proof canvas sheeting and two caribou-hide sleeping-bags, procured

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from the survivors of a party of arctic explorers. Except on rainy days I used my buckskin hunting-shirt or tunic; in dry weather I deem it, because of its color, texture, and durability, the best possible garb for the still-hunter, especially in the woods.

Starting a day's journey south of Heart Lake, we traveled and hunted on the eastern edge of the great basin, wooded and mountainous, wherein rise the head waters of the mighty Snake River. There was not so much as a spotted line, that series of blazes made with the ax, man's first highway through the hoary forest, but this we did not mind, as for most of the distance we followed well-worn elk-trails. The train traveled in Indian file. At the head, to pick the path, rode tall, silent old Woody, a true type of the fast-vanishing race of gamehunters and Indian-fighters, a man who had been one of the California forty-niners, and who ever since had lived the restless, reckless life of the wilderness. Then came Ferguson and I; then the pack-animals, strung out in line; while from the rear rose the varied oaths of our three companions, whose miserable duty it was to urge forward the beasts of burden.

It is heart-breaking work to drive a pack-train through thick timber and over mountains, where there is either a dim trail or none. The animals have a perverse faculty for choosing the wrong turn at critical moments, and they are continually scraping under branches and squeezing between tree-trunks, to the jeopardy or destruction of their burdens. After having been laboriously driven up a very steep incline, at the cost of severe exertion both to them and to the men, the foolish creatures turn and run down to the bottom, so that all the work has to be done over again. Some travel too slow, others travel too fast; yet one cannot but admire the toughness of the animals, and the sure-footedness with which they pick their way along the sheer mountain-sides, or among boulders and over fallen logs.

As our way was so rough, we found that we had to halt at least once every hour to fix the packs. Moreover, we at the head of the column were continually being appealed to for help by the unfortunates in the rear. First it would be "that white-eyed cayuse; one side of its pack 's down!" then we would be notified that the saddle-blanket of the "lop-eared Indian buckskin" had slipped back; then a shout "Look out for the pinto!" would be followed by that pleasing beast's appearance, bucking and squealing, smashing dead timber, and scattering its load to the four winds. It was no easy task to get the horses across some of the boggy places without miring, or to force them through the denser portions of the forest, where there was much down timber. Riding with a pack-train,

day in and day out, becomes both monotonous and irritating, unless one is upheld by the hope of a game-country ahead, or by the delight of exploration of the unknown. Yet when buoyed by such a hope, there is pleasure in taking a train across so beautiful and wild a country as that which lay on the threshold of our huntinggrounds in the Shoshones. We went over mountain passes, with ranges of scalped peaks on each hand; we skirted the edges of lovely lakes, and of streams with boulder-strewn beds; we plunged into depths of somber woodland, broken by wet prairies. It was a picturesque sight to see the loaded pack-train stringing across one of these high mountain meadows, the motley-colored line of ponies winding round the marshy spots through the bright green grass, while beyond rose the dark line of frowning forest, with lofty peaks towering in the background. Some of the meadows were beautiful with many flowers-goldenrod, purple aster, bluebells, white immortelles, and here and there masses of blood-red Indian pinks. In the parkcountry, on the edges of the evergreen forest, were groves of delicate quaking-aspen, the trees often growing to a considerable height; their tremulous leaves were already changing to bright green and yellow, occasionally with a reddish blush. In the Rocky Mountains the aspens are almost the only deciduous trees, their foliage offering a pleasant relief to the eye after the monotony of the unending pine and spruce woods, which afford so striking a contrast to the hard-wood forest east of the Mississippi.

For two days our journey was uneventful, save that we came on the camp of a squawman, one Beaver Dick, an old mountain hunter, living in a skin tepee, where dwelt his comely Indian wife and half-breed children. He had quite a herd of horses, many of them mares and colts; they had evidently been well treated, and came up to us fearlessly.

The morning of the third day of our journey was gray and lowering. Gusts of rain blew in my face as I rode at the head of the train. It still lacked an hour of noon, as we were plodding up a valley, beside a rapid brook running through narrow willow-flats, with the dark forest crowding down on each hand from the low foot-hills of the mountains. Suddenly the call of a bull elk came echoing down through the wet woodland on our right, beyond the brook, seemingly less than half a mile off, and was answered by a faint, far-off call from a rival on the mountain beyond. Instantly halting the train, Woody and I slipped off, our horses, crossed the brook, and started to still-hunt the first bull.

In this place the forest was composed of the western tamarack; the large, tall trees stood well apart, and there was much down timber,

but the ground was covered with deep, wet moss, over which we trod silently. The elk was traveling up-wind, but slowly, stopping continually to paw the ground and to thrash the bushes with his antlers. He was very noisy, challenging every minute or two, being doubtless much excited by the neighborhood of his rival on the mountain. We followed, Woody leading, guided by the incessant calling.

It was very exciting as we crept toward the great bull, and the challenge sounded nearer and nearer. While we were still at some distance the pealing notes were like those of a bugle, delivered in two bars, first rising, then abruptly falling; as we drew nearer they took on a harsh, squealing sound. Each call made our veins thrill; it sounded like the cry of some huge beast of prey. At last we heard the roar of the challenge not eighty yards off. Stealing forward three or four rods, I saw the tips of the horns through a mass of dead timber and young growth, and slipped to one side to get a clean shot. Seeing us, but not making out what we were, and full of fierce and insolent excitement, the wapiti bull stepped boldly toward us with a stately, swinging gait. Then he stood motionless, facing us, barely fifty yards away, his handsome twelve-tined antlers tossed aloft, as he held his head with the lordly grace of his kind. I fired into his chest, and as he turned I raced forward and shot him in the flank; but the second bullet was not needed, for the first wound was mortal, and he fell before going fifty yards.

The dead elk lay among the young evergreens. The huge, shapely body was set on legs that were as strong as steel rods, and yet slender, clean, and smooth; they were in color a beautiful dark brown, contrasting well with the yellowish of the body. The neck and throat were garnished with a mane of long hair; the symmetry of the great horns set off the fine, delicate lines of the noble head. He had been wallowing, as elk are fond of doing, and the dried mud clung in patches to his flank; a stab in the haunch showed that he had been overcome in battle by some master bull, who had turned him out of the herd.

We cut off the head, and bore it down to the train. The horses crowded together, snorting, with their ears pricked forward, as they smelled the blood. We also took the loins with us, as we were out of meat, though bull elk in the rutting season is not very good. The rain had changed to a steady downpour when we again got under way. Two or three miles further we pitched camp in a clump of pines on a hillock in the bottom of the valley, starting hot fires of pitchy stumps before the tents, to dry our wet things.

Next day opened with fog and cold rain. The

drenched pack-animals, when driven into camp, stood mopingly, with drooping heads and arched backs; they groaned and grunted as the loads were placed on their backs and the cinches tightened, the packers bracing one foot against the pack to get a purchase as they hauled in on the lash-rope. A stormy morning is a trial to temper: the packs are wet and heavy, and the cold makes the work even more than usually hard on the hands. By ten we broke camp. It needs between two and three hours to break camp and to get such a train properly packed; once started, our day's journey was from six to eight hours long, making no halt. We started up a steep, pine-clad mountainside, broken by cliffs. My hunting-shoes, though comfortable, were old and thin, and let the water through like a sieve. On the top of the first plateau, where black-spruce groves were strewn across the grassy surface, we saw a band of elk, cows and calves, trotting off through the rain. Then we plunged down into a deep valley, and, crossing it, a hard climb took us to the top of a great bare table-land, bleak and wind-swept. We passed little alpine lakes, fringed with scattering dwarf evergreens. Snow lay in drifts on the north sides of the gullies; a cutting wind blew the icy rain in our faces. For two or three hours we traveled toward the farther edge of the table-land. In one place a spike-bull elk stood half a mile off in the open; he traveled to and fro, watching us.

As we neared the edge the storm lulled, and pale, watery sunshine gleamed through the rifts in the low-scudding clouds. At last our horses stood on the brink of a bold cliff. Deep down beneath our feet lay the wild and lonely valley of Two-Ocean Pass, walled in on each hand by rugged mountain-chains, their flanks scarred and gashed by precipice and chasm. Beyond, in a wilderness of jagged and barren peaks, stretched the Shoshones. At the middle point of the pass two streams welled down from each side. At first each flowed in but one bed, but soon divided into two; each of the twin branches then joined the like branch of the brook opposite, and swept one to the east and one to the west, on their long journey to the two great oceans. They ran as rapid brooks, through wet meadows and willow-flats, the eastern to the Yellowstone, the western to the Snake. The dark pine forests swept down from the flanks and lower ridges of the mountains to the edges of the marshy valley. Above them jutted gray rock peaks, snow-drifts lying in the rents that seamed their northern faces. Far below us, from a great basin at the foot of the cliff, filled with the pine forest, rose the musical challenge of a bull elk; and we saw a band of cows and calves looking like mice as they ran among the trees.

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