Now and then the President, looking back and seeing what slow progress
I was making, would beckon to me impatiently, and I could fancy him
saying, "If I had a rope around him, he would come faster than that!"
Once or twice I lost sight of both him and the elk; the altitude was
great, and the horse was laboring like a steam-engine on an upgrade.
Still I urged him on. Presently, as I broke over a hill, I saw the
President pressing the elk up the opposite slope. At the brow of the
hill he stopped, and I soon joined him. There on the top, not fifty
yards away, stood the elk in a mass, their heads toward us and their
tongues hanging out. They could run no farther. The President laughed
like a boy. The spectacle meant much more to him than it did to me. I
had never seen a wild elk till on this trip, but they had been among
the notable game that he had hunted. He had traveled hundreds of
miles, and undergone great hardships, to get within rifle range of
these creatures. Now here stood scores of them, with lolling tongues,
begging for mercy.
After gazing at them to our hearts' content, we turned away to look up
our companions, who were nowhere within sight. We finally spied them a
mile or more away, and, joining them, all made our way to an elevated
plateau that commanded an open landscape three or four miles across.
It was high noon, and the sun shone clear and warm. From this lookout
we saw herds upon herds of elk scattered over the slopes and gentle
valleys in front of us. Some were grazing, some were standing or lying
upon the ground, or upon the patches of snow. Through our glasses we
counted the separate bands, and then the numbers of some of the bands
or groups, and estimated that three thousand elk were in full view in
the landscape around us. It was a notable spectacle. Afterward, in
Montana, I attended a council of Indian chiefs at one of the Indian
agencies, and told them, through their interpreter, that I had been
with the Great Chief in the Park, and of the game we had seen. When I
told them of these three thousand elk all in view at once, they
grunted loudly, whether with satisfaction or with incredulity, I could
not tell.
In the midst of this great game amphitheatre we dismounted and enjoyed
the prospect. And the President did an unusual thing, he loafed for
nearly an hour,--stretched himself out in the sunshine upon a flat
rock, as did the rest of us, and, I hope, got a few winks of sleep. I
am sure I did. Little, slender, striped chipmunks, about half the size
of ours, were scurrying about; but I recall no other wild thing save
the elk.