He jumped to the ground, raised his gun and fired. At the sound of the gun all of the band ran away except the two who were fighting. I laughed and said, "Jim, I thought you were going to stop that fight."
He replied, "Give me your gun, and I will stop it."
This time I handed him my gun, and he squatted down and took a rest on his knee and fired. At the crack of the gun one of the elks fell to his knees, but got up and ran for all that was in him, and that was the last we saw of the elk. I told Jim he had spoilt the fun, and we had got no meat out of it. He grinned and said, "Oh durn it that old elk was too old to eat any way."
We went on and camped at the head of a little stream that emptied into
Green river. The sun was perhaps an hour high, when we went into camp.
As soon as we had staked out our horses Jim said, "Now Will, I will get
the supper, if you will go out and see if you can get some meat."
I answered, "That suits me to a T. Jim."
I took my gun and started for a little ridge. I had not gone over a hundred yards when I saw five deer coming directly towards me. Among them were two spring fawns. I dropped down at the root of a tree and waited until they came to within fifty yards of me; I then fired and broke one of the fawns' necks, and the rest of the flock came near running over me, and over Jim also. I picked up my fawn and went back to camp. Jim said, "I don't want you to go hunting anymore Will."
I said, "Why not?" He said, "If you do I shall have to stand guard over the camp to keep the deer from tramping every thing we have into the ground"; and he pointed to the tracks of the deer not ten feet from the fire. This convinced us that these deer had never heard the report of a gun before. We were now in the extreme south east end of Nevada, and I don't imagine a white man had ever been through that part of the country before. On this trip we traveled some twelve or fifteen hundred miles, and we never saw a white person the whole way, and not even the sign of one.
At this time when a little more than a half of a century has passed there are portions of this same country that could not be rode over from the fact that it is all fenced in and cultivated. If we had been told then that we would live to see railroads crossing every part of this country we would have thought the person insane to ever think of such a thing at a time when there was not a foot of rail-road as far west as Missouri.
We had broiled venison for supper that night, the first we had eaten for some time, and the reader may be sure we enjoyed it.
Next morning we pulled out of here quite early and crossed Green river just above the mouth of Blue River. We were now in the greatest game country I had ever seen then or ever have seen since. We traveled up this stream three days, and I do not think there was a half an hour at any one time that we were out of sight of game of some kind. There was the Bison which is a species of Buffalo, Elk, Deer, Black Bear, and Antelope. We crossed the main divide of the Rocky Mountains at the head of the Arkansas River. That night we camped within a few miles of what since has become the far-famed camp and now city of Leadville.