IN THE WAPITI COUNTRY
September 8th. We got away in fine weather through the most open
country we had yet met. Our objective was a lake about three miles
away, for having found Keogh Lake, Eustace Smith's rough-sketch map now
came in useful.
The country looked more promising for game, for we came across many
well-beaten wapiti tracks and at least two fresh tracks of good bulls.
We got into camp fairly early and selected the most level piece of
ground to be found some twenty yards from the lake; the edge of the
lake itself was swampy.
The lake was about a mile long by a quarter of a mile broad. It was the
first of a chain of lakes connected by a narrow stream with a rough
rocky bed running to the west. The sides were clothed with dense forest
and the tops of the surrounding hills were even now covered with snow.
The view in the morning was most beautiful --the mist floating up
the forest-clad ravines to the distant hill-tops all reflected in the
glassy surface of the lake. At sunset it was equally lovely.
This lake we called No. 1, as we understood the chain consisted of
three lakes extending westward down the valley which was to be our
future hunting ground.
Smith suggested he should go out, look quietly round, examine the
country and search for fresh tracks, so that we could begin our regular
hunting the next day.
Being now in the game country I had given strict orders that no one was
to shoot at anything, but to come back and report what he had seen--I
was therefore somewhat astounded to hear a single shot at no great
distance as I was catching a dish of trout for dinner.
Smith soon came back looking very dejected. He said he had come on
fresh tracks of a good bull, and in following them up saw something
brown in the undergrowth which he thought was a small deer, and as we
wanted meat in camp he took a snapshot at it, and then found it was the
bull and he feared he had wounded it.
I had to accept this story, improbable as it was, for there was no
mistaking a great bull wapiti for a small deer.
[Illustration: THE VANCOUVER FOREST, SHOWING UNDERGROWTH THROUGH WHICH
WE HAD TO MAKE OUR WAY]
[Illustration: LAKE NO. 1
[_To face page 110._]
What was done was done, and there was no use making a fuss. If I were
making such a trip again, I would ask the men to leave their rifles
behind, for they cannot resist shooting at anything that comes their
way.
He had come back at once to tell me, and begged of me to go out with
him and take up the track, which was only about a mile away.
The rain was again falling and we had only a couple of hours of
daylight, but still I decided to see for myself the tracks and
ascertain, if possible, whether the bull had been wounded and where.
Taking Thomson with us, we started and were soon as usual wet through.
We found the spot where Smith had come on the bull and fired. There
were a few traces of blood, but they were all high up on the bushes,
and from the pace the wapiti was travelling, it was evident he was none
the worse for the light bullet of Smith's Winchester rifle.
We followed the track till dusk and had a weary tramp back to camp in
the dark.
I had again ricked my knee and was in considerable pain. Everything
seemed to have gone wrong, first my accident, then Smith's, and now a
wounded wapiti that we might never find.
The prospect of the morrow's work with a swollen and painful knee was
not very cheering, and I think we were all rather sad when we turned
in that night.
September 9th. It had rained all night and was still pelting when we
started. I had to walk with a stick and was unable to carry my own
rifle.
In a couple of hours we came to the spot where we had left the track
the previous evening.
Smith was a fine tracker, I have seldom seen a better.
The bull was going strong and well. We soon came to where he had
rested for the night, but there was no pool of blood, so the wound was
evidently not serious. In the early morning he had fed down the valley.
After about three hours' tracking we came on to the shore of another
lake (Lake No. 2), and thought the bull had taken to the water--to the
edge of which he had gone down through heavy swampy ground covered
with coarse grass. Taking a cast round, we found, however, that he had
turned right back and gone up the valley we had just come down, but on
the other side of the river connecting the two lakes.
Following up the track we suddenly heard a crash right ahead, but I
could see nothing. Smith dashed on and I heard a shout at the top of
his voice, "Come on, Sir John. Quick!" It was all very well "come on
quick," but with a bad knee, getting through a mass of fallen timber up
a fairly steep though fortunately short hill was no easy matter. How
I did it I cannot even now understand, but the pain in the knee was
forgotten, my stick thrown away, the rifle, which was of course loaded,
snatched out of Thomson's hand, and I found myself on the crest of
the hill looking down into a valley overgrown with dense salmon-berry
through which some great beast was crashing his way.
I am quite blind without a telescope sight and there was no time to
fix it. I could just make out the tips of the bull's horns moving
quickly through the undergrowth. I could only guess where the body was,
but fortunately the body of a wapiti is a pretty big mark. Taking a
snapshot as I would at a snipe I heard the welcome thud of the bullet.
The bull stood for a moment, which gave me time for a second shot, on
which I saw the great antlers sink out of sight in the undergrowth and
I knew that the trophy I had come so far to obtain was mine.
I confess to an anxious moment as to what the head would turn out to
be. The tracks were those of a big bull, but I had only seen the tips
of the horn; the spread looked good, but whether he was a six or a
sixteen points I could not say.
Going down to where he lay we found him stone dead, a good
thirteen-pointer, which the men naturally declared to be above the
average. Somehow, I was disappointed, as I expected a bigger head,
but after all getting him at all was a pure chance, and having now
experienced what hunting the wapiti in these dense forests meant, I
was, I think, on the whole very lucky. He looked an enormous beast as
he lay. What his weight was I could not guess, but he must have stood
about sixteen hands at the shoulder. It took the three of us all we
could do to turn him over to examine the wounds.
Both of my shots were fatal. We found that Smith's bullet had inflicted
a flesh wound high up in the rump, and would have done no harm.
Wet to the skin, but happy, I got under a giant cedar which gave
shelter from the heavy rain, and lighting a big fire, stripped to the
skin to dry my soaking clothes, while the men were removing the head
and getting some meat. We soon had wapiti steaks frizzling on the fire,
and a brew of hot tea made us all comfortable and happy.
The worst of the whole business was the waste of meat and the
impossibility of taking away the splendid skin. The head alone was one
man's load and to carry out a green skin was quite impossible.
Packing as much of the meat as we could carry, we made for the camp.
The creek flowing down the valley was coming down in heavy spate and we
had to cross and recross it many times--no easy matter--before we got
home.
September 10th. It was still raining. Smith was feeling pretty bad,
his side causing him much pain, and he was, I think, beginning to feel
anxious about himself. My knee was anything but comfortable. Neither
of us were up to another day in the forest, so I spent my day fishing
and caught about forty small cut-throat trout, the biggest about 3 oz.
I saw one fish about 2 lb. throw himself in the lake, but he would
not rise when I put a fly over him; it was possibly too late in the
season. This lake had practically never been fished, and I was much
disappointed to find that the sport was so poor.
Lansdown had gone back to bring up a small pack left at Keogh Lake. He
returned in the evening, reporting that he had come face to face with a
ten-pointer bull who simply looked at him and walked away.
Such is luck. Happily he had not a rifle, or most certainly he would
have loosed off.
September 11th. Our future plans had now to be discussed and decided on.
Instead of two or three days' march, we had owing to a chapter of
accidents taken ten days to get into the wapiti country. Provisions
were running short. Smith was practically _hors de combat_ and feeling
worse every day, and yet viewing the fact that we were now in the
wapiti country, and by spending another few days we might reasonably
expect to get another bull, I was extremely unwilling to turn back.
On the other hand, further exposure in the vile weather we were
experiencing might have resulted in Smith's serious illness. Not liking
to assume the responsibility, I left it to him. He reluctantly decided
for home. I feel sure he was even more disappointed than I was, for
he was a keen sportsman, but in his present condition he was quite
unfit to carry a pack, while serious illness might have resulted from
exposure to pouring rain. The decision was the only one that could be
come to, so there was no use in repining.
We accordingly sent Thomson and Lansdown back to Keogh Lake with the
wapiti head and one pack. Smith and I started out on our last chance
of finding another wapiti.
It was for a wonder a lovely morning, and I felt bitterly the hard luck
which had pursued us all the way, and which now compelled us to turn
back just as we had reached a game country. We went up a fine valley
running from the east of the lake--the most open forest we had yet
come to. It was timbered with magnificent spruce-trees, some of which
I should say were at least 180 feet in height. There was but little
undergrowth, it was the first ideal hunting ground we had struck. We
worked all the morning without finding anything but two-day-old tracks.
After lunch we suddenly came on quite fresh tracks of a good bull,
possibly the one Lansdown had seen the day before.
Taking up the tracks, we followed steadily on and must have come close
enough to disturb him, though we neither heard nor saw anything. We
came, however, on the spot where he had been lying down and had jumped
up and gone off at a gallop.
We tracked that bull till dusk and never came up with him. Fortunately
he took us down the valley to the lake where we were camped, and we got
home at nightfall.
OUT OF THE FOREST
[Illustration: PACKING OUT
[_To face page 121._]