However, when I next heard him he had evidently changed his course and was going straight away from me. The sun had now risen, and following after him I soon found his tracks. He was walking forward with the regular wapiti stride, and I made up my mind I had a long chase ahead of me. We were going up hill, and though I walked hard, I did not trot until we topped the crest. Then I jogged along at a good gait, and as I had on moccasins, and the woods were open, I did not have to exercise much caution. Accordingly I gained, and felt I was about to come up with him, when the wind brought down from very far off another challenge. My bull heard it before I did, and instantly started toward the spot at a trot. There was not the slightest use of my attempting to keep up with this, and I settled down into a walk. Half an hour afterward I came over a slight crest, and immediately saw a herd of wapiti ahead of me, across the valley and on an open hillside. The herd was in commotion, the master bull whistling vigorously and rounding up his cows, evidently much excited at the new bull’s approach. There were two or three yearlings and two-year-old bulls on the outskirts of the herd, and the master bull, whose temper had evidently not been improved by the coming of the stranger, occasionally charged these and sent them rattling off through the bushes. The ground was so open between me and them that I dared not venture across it, and I was forced to lie still and await developments. The bull I had been following and the herd bull kept challenging vigorously, but the former probably recognized in the latter a heavier animal, and could not rouse his courage to the point of actually approaching and doing battle. It by no means follows that the animal with the heaviest body has the best antlers, but the hesitation thus shown by the bull I was following made me feel that the other would probably yield the more valuable trophies, and after a couple of hours I made up my mind to try to get near the herd, abandoning the animal I had been after.