working through the tangled trees and underbrush at the bottom of a little winding valley, I suddenly smelt wapiti ahead, and without paying any further attention to the search for tracks, I hunted cautiously up the valley, and when it forked was able to decide by the smell alone which way the wapiti had gone. He was going up wind ahead of me, and his ground-covering walk kept me at a trot in order to overtake him. Finally I saw him, before he saw me, and then, by making a run to one side, got a shot at him when he broke cover, and dropped him. It is exciting to creep up to a calling wapiti. If it is a solitary bull, he is apt to be travelling, seeking the cows, or on the lookout for some rival of weaker thews. Under such circumstances only hard running will enable the hunter to overtake him, unless there is a chance to cut him off. If, however, he hears another bull, or has a herd under him, the chances are that he is nearly stationary, or at least is moving slowly, and the hunter has every opportunity to approach. In a herd the bull himself is usually so absorbed both with his cows and with his rivals that he is not at all apt to discover the approaching hunter. The cows, however, are thoroughly awake, and it is their eyes and keen noses for which the hunter must look out. A solitary bull which is answering the challenge of another is the easiest of all to approach. Of course, if there has been much hunting, even such a bull is wary and is on the lookout for harm. But in remote localities he becomes so absorbed in finding out the whereabouts of his rival, and is so busy answering the latter’s challenges and going through motions of defiance, that with proper care it is comparatively easy to approach him. Once, when within seventy yards of such a bull, he partly made me out and started toward me. Evidently he could not tell exactly what I was—my buckskin shirt probably helping to puzzle him—and in his anger and eagerness he did not think of danger until it was too late. On another occasion I got up to two bulls that were fighting, and killed both. In the fights, weight of body seems to count for more than size of antlers. Once I spent the better part of a day in following a wapiti bull before I finally got him. Generally when hunting wapiti I have been with either one of my men from the ranch or a hunter like Tazewell Woody, or John Willis. On this particular occasion, however, I happened to be alone; and though I have rarely been as successful alone as when in the company of some thoroughly trained and experienced plainsman or mountainman, yet when success does come under such circumstances it is always a matter of peculiar pride.