I was endeavouring to get a picture of the main herd before it broke up, when Hope espied old "Stub Tail" in the rear of a bunch of young cows who were heading away for the hills. Shouting for me to join him, he gave chase. We gained on them easily in the heavy snow of the valley, and almost overtook them where they floundered, belly-deep, on their erratic course. Then they struck the wind-swept slopes of the lower hills, where the agile cows drew away from us rapidly and scampered out of sight. But not so old "Tuskegee." Whether it was rheumatism in his stiff old joints that made him stop, or simple weariness, or, as is most likely, the unconquerable pride that would not permit him to turn his back upon an enemy, I shall not attempt to say. In any case, he wheeled and faced us, head low, hoofs pawing the moss, and snorting in angry defiance. As he stood with his rugged form towering against the white background of the snowy hillside, two jets of steam rushing from his nostrils, his jaws flecked with bloody foam, his one eye gleaming green as the starboard light of a steamer, and his bellows of rage so deep that they seemed to come from beneath the earth, old "Tuskegee" might have been the vindictive incarnation of the spirit of all the geysers and hell holes in the Yellowstone bent on an errand of wrath and destruction. Right then and there I forgot what I came for, forgot the picture I had intended to take, forgot everything but that snorting colossus in front of me and the fact that the hillside sloped invitingly in the opposite direction. Wherefore I tried to swing around, and in swinging turned too short, crossed my ski, and fell in a heap with my face in the snow. They say that an ostrich will snuggle its head contentedly into the sand and let a band of Arabs with drawn scimitars charge right into its tail feathers. This may be quite true. Perhaps the climate of the Sahara has something to do with it. But it won't work with a man, a bull buffalo and a snowdrift, particularly if the man is strapped to two ten-foot-six strips of hickory and the bull buffalo has a bad reputation. The faith, folly, foolishness, or whatever it is of the ostrich would have saved me a lot of unpleasant apprehensions. Every moment of the time I struggled to unsocket my head from under the nose of one of my ski I was sure I was going to be gored the next. And I am certain I was down all of five minutes, notwithstanding Hope's assertion that he had me straightened out and on my feet inside of ten seconds. "Steady, young feller," I heard him saying as I rubbed the snow from my eyes; "don't lose your head like that again." (I wonder if he meant that literally.) "Old 'Tusky' won't hurt a fly nowadays. He's just posing for his picture. Gimme that camera. Hold up there; tain't nothing to be scared of!" [Illustration: _Photo by S. N. Leek_ ELK IN GATHERING STORM, JACKSON'S HOLE]