At this season the big bulls are quite easy to approach by any man at all skilled in still-hunting, for their incessant challenging betrays their whereabouts, and they are so angry and excited as to be less watchful than usual. Some of my most pleasurable memories of hunting are connected with stalking some great bull elk in frosty weather, when the woods rang with his challenges. One evening in early October I was camped high among the mountains of western Montana. We were travelling with a pack-train, and had pitched our small tent among some firs by a brook, while the horses grazed in the little park or meadow close by. Elk were plentiful round about. We had seen their trails everywhere, and late in the afternoon we had caught a glimpse of a band of cows as they disappeared among the pines. [Illustration: SIX-POINT ELK-ANTLERS] [Illustration] Towards morning I was awakened by hearing a bull challenge not very far from camp. The sound of the challenge kept coming nearer and nearer, and finally I heard one of the horses snort loudly in response; evidently the elk saw them, and, not making out exactly what they were, was coming down to join them. Sometimes horses will stampede when thus approached; but our ponies were veterans, and were very tired, and evidently had no intention of leaving their good pasture. Sitting up in my blankets, I could tell from the sound that they were still in the park, and then the challenge of the bull came pealing up not three hundred yards from the tent. This was more than I could stand, and I jumped up and put on my shoes and jacket. The moon was bright, but shooting by moonlight is very deceptive, and I doubt whether I would have hit him even had I got down to the park in time. However, he had moved on before I got down, and I heard his challenge in the woods beyond. [Illustration] Looking at my watch, I saw that it was nearly dawn. I returned to the tent and laid down as I was under the blankets, and shivered and dozed for half an hour, then I came back to the meadow, where the pack-ponies stood motionless. In the brightening light the moon paled, and I was very soon able to pick out the bull’s trail on the frost-covered ground, where it was almost as plain as if he had been walking in snow. I saw that he had struck up a long valley, from which a pass led into a wooded basin. At the top of the pass I lost the trail entirely, and as it was almost impossible to see for any distance through the woods, I came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was to sit down and await events. [Illustration: FOLLOWING AN ELK-TRAIL IN WINTER] [Illustration]