Taking light loads and leaving a man with balance of the plunder to keep off the bears as these animals are affected with a childish curiosity in relation to government rations, I started in advance of the party on the Lake trail, and was riding along slowly with my eyes shaded when my horse shied violently, with a snort, and stood trembling. I jerked away the shade and saw that I had ridden close up to a herd of at least two thousand elk. They had been lying in the snow, and had all sprung up together, frightening my horse. In a minute the great herd was out of sight, crashing through the forest, the old bulls screaming their strange fog-horn cry. It was a magnificent sight as the bulls were in full growth of horns, and the calves all large enough to run freely with the herd. No game animal has the majestic presence of a bull elk when he is not frightened, and in herds they manuevre with a wonderful precision breaking by file at a long swinging trot and coming into line right-left or front to gaze at some object of apprehension with a celerity and absence of confusion truly remarkable. In chasing them on horseback the first effect is to break them into a gallop, when they move more slowly and soon tire. In deep snow, when the herd breaks the trail for the horse to follow in, there is no difficulty in catching them. I remember a chase in the Yellowstone Valley one winter day when two of us killed seventeen elk in less than an hour. Two large wagon loads of meat. On this occasion I did not shoot, as we had a long march to make and it would have caused delay, but watched them ’til lost to view and rode on. This sign of abundant game was exceedingly favorable and gave a confidence which nothing else could have inspired. For the following 2 days the expedition remained in camp on the shore of the lake, preparing the outfit for double transportation by land and water, the pack animals and part of the men to follow the shoreline, the others to take the boat across the lake. The little boat was assembled, the seams pitched, and the “Teeps” erected for the first time, bough shelters having been used previously. On October 24, the men worked until late in the night making equipment ready and