We got into camp fairly early and selected the most level piece of ground to be found some twenty yards from the lake; the edge of the lake itself was swampy.
The lake was about a mile long by a quarter of a mile broad. It was the first of a chain of lakes connected by a narrow stream with a rough rocky bed running to the west. The sides were clothed with dense forest and the tops of the surrounding hills were even now covered with snow.
The view in the morning was most beautiful —the mist floating up the forest-clad ravines to the distant hill-tops all reflected in the glassy surface of the lake. At sunset it was equally lovely.
This lake we called No. 1, as we understood the chain consisted of three lakes extending westward down the valley which was to be our future hunting ground.
Smith suggested he should go out, look quietly round, examine the country and search for fresh tracks, so that we could begin our regular hunting the next day.
Being now in the game country I had given strict orders that no one was to shoot at anything, but to come back and report what he had seen—I was therefore somewhat astounded to hear a single shot at no great distance as I was catching a dish of trout for dinner.
Smith soon came back looking very dejected. He said he had come on fresh tracks of a good bull, and in following them up saw something brown in the undergrowth which he thought was a small deer, and as we wanted meat in camp he took a snapshot at it, and then found it was the bull and he feared he had wounded it.
I had to accept this story, improbable as it was, for there was no mistaking a great bull wapiti for a small deer.
THE VANCOUVER FOREST, SHOWING UNDERGROWTH THROUGH WHICH WE HAD TO MAKE OUR WAY