FLOWN.
[A DEER HUNT IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.]
BY J. M. MURPHY.
The hero of the following adventure was a middle-aged hunter who trapped in the Bighorn Mountains. He knew as much about the habits of Indians and wild animals as any man I ever met. I had accepted an invitation to visit his camp, and thus found myself many a mile from civilization on the third day after leaving the line of the Union Pacific Railroad. He received me with all the cordiality of a Western hunter, and after he had hobbled my mustang and turned him loose to graze, he told me that he would start for the foot-hills in two hours, if I were not too tired to travel further that day. I replied that I was not, and in five hours from that time we were safely lodged in a brush hut on one of the long spurs of the Snowy Range. Having taken the precaution to look for Indian signs, we retired to bed at an early hour. But our sleep was disturbed so much by the weird howling of packs of hungry coyotes that we might as well have sat up all night.
We breakfasted, long before dawn, by the light of the camp fire. The morning being exceedingly chilly, we started out as soon as it was light enough to enable us to see the ground distinctly; but though we walked rapidly, I found my teeth chattering despite all my efforts to stop them, while my breath curled slowly upward in the air as if it were a miniature Russian bath.
Our route led us through a dark chasm, so terrible in its cavernous gloom that I believe my teeth chattered a little more, while the silence was so oppressive that I felt as if I had the nightmare.