CLOUDCREST, October 10, 1914.

DEAR MRS. CONEY,

I wonder what you would do if you were here. But I reckon I had better not anticipate, and so I will begin at the beginning. On the morning of the eighth we held a council. The physician and the two students had gone. All had their limit of elk except Mr. Haynes and myself. Our licenses also entitled each of us to a deer, a mountain sheep, and a bear. We had plenty of food, but it had snowed about a foot and I was beginning to want to get out while the going was good. Two other outfits had gone out. The doctor and the students hired them to haul out their game. So we decided to stay on a week longer.

That morning Mrs. O’Shaughnessy and I melted snow and washed the clothes. It was delightful to have nice soft water, and we enjoyed our work; it was almost noon before we thought to begin dinner. I suppose you would say lunch, but with us it is dinner. None of the men had gone out that day.

Mr. Harkrudder was busy with his films and didn’t come with the rest when dinner was ready. When he did come, he was excited; he laid a picture on the table and said, “Do any of you recognize this?”

It looked like a flash-light of our camping ground. It was a little blurry, but some of the objects were quite clear. Our tent was a white blotch except for the outlines; the wagons showed plainly. I didn’t think much of it as a picture, so I paid scant attention. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy gave it close scrutiny; presently she said, “Oh, yis, I see what it is. It’s a puzzle picture and ye find the man. Here he is, hidin’ beyont the pine next the tent.”

“Exactly,” said Harkrudder, “but I had not expected just this. I am working out some ideas of my own in photography, and this picture is one of the experiments I tried the night of the storm. The result doesn’t prove my experiment either way. Where were you, Stewart, during the storm?”

“Where should I be? I bided i’ the bed,” the Stewart said.

“Well,” said Harkrudder, “I know where each of the other fellows was, and none of them was in this direction. Now who is the seventh man?”

I looked again, and, sure enough, there was a man in a crouching position outlined against the tent wall. We were all excited, for it was ten minutes past one when Harkrudder was out, and we couldn’t think why any one would be prowling about our camp at that time of the night.

As Mr. Stewart and I had planned a long, beautiful ride, we set out after dinner, leaving the rest yet at the table eating and conjecturing about the “stranger within our picture.” I had hoped we would come to ground level enough for a sharp, invigorating canter, but our way was too rough. It was a joy to be out in the great, silent forest. The snow made riding a little venturesome because the horses slipped a great deal, but Chub is dependable even though he is lazy. Clyde bestrode Mr. Haynes’s Old Blue. We were headed for the cascades on Clear Creek, to see the wonderful ice-caverns that the flying spray is forming.

We had almost reached the cascades and were crossing a little bowl-like valley, when an elk calf leaped out of the snow and ran a few yards. It paused and finally came irresolutely back toward us. A few steps farther we saw great, red splotches on the snow and the body of a cow elk. Around it were the tracks of the faithful little calf. It would stay by its mother until starvation or wild animals put an end to its suffering. The cow was shot in half a dozen places, none of them in a fatal spot; it had bled to death. “That,” said Mr. Stewart angrily, “comes o’ bunch shooting. The authorities should revoke the license of a man found guilty of bunch shooting.”

We rode on in silence, each a little saddened by what we had seen. But this was not all. We had begun to descend the mountain side to Clear Creek when we came upon the beaten trail of a herd of elk. We followed it as offering perhaps the safest descent. It didn’t take us far. Around the spur of the mountain the herd had stampeded; tracks were everywhere. Lying in the trail were a spike and an old bull with a broken antler. Chub shied, but Old Blue doesn’t scare, so Mr. Stewart rode up quite close. Around the heads were tell-tale tracks. We didn’t dismount, but we knew that the two upper teeth or tushes were missing and that the hated tooth-hunter was at work. The tracks in the snow showed there had been two men. An adult elk averages five hundred pounds of splendid meat; here before us, therefore, lay a thousand pounds of food thrown to waste just to enable a contemptible tooth-hunter to obtain four teeth. Tooth-hunting is against the law, but this is a case where you must catch before hanging.

Well, we saw the cascades, and after resting a little, we started homeward through the heavy woods, where we were compelled to go more slowly. We had dismounted, and were gathering some piñón cones from a fallen tree, when, almost without a sound, a band of elk came trailing down a little draw where a spring trickled. We watched them file along, evidently making for lower ground on which to bed. Chub snorted, and a large cow stopped and looked curiously in our direction. Those behind passed leisurely around her. We knew she had no calf, because she was light in color: cows suckling calves are of a darker shade. A loud report seemed to rend the forest, and the beauty dropped. The rest disappeared so suddenly that if the fine specimen that lay before me had not been proof, it would almost have seemed a dream. I had shot the cow elk my license called for.

We took off the head and removed the entrails, then covered our game with pine boughs, to which we tied a red bandanna so as to make it easy to find next day, when the men would come back with a saw to divide it down the back and pack it in. There is an imposing row of game hanging in the pines back of our tent. Supper was ready when we got in. Mr. Haynes had been out also and was very joyful; he got his elk this afternoon. We can start home day after to-morrow. It will take the men all to-morrow to get in the game.

I shall be glad to start. I am getting homesick, and I have not had a letter or even a card since I have been here. We are hungry for war news, and besides, it is snowing again. Our clothes didn’t get dry either; they are frozen to the bush we hung them on. Perhaps they will be snowed under by morning. I can’t complain, though, for it is warm and pleasant in our tent. The little camp-stove is glowing. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy is showing Jerrine how to make pigs of potatoes. Calvin and Robert are asleep. The men have all gone to the bachelors’ tent to form their plans, all save Mr. Murry, who is “serenading” Mrs. O’Shaughnessy. He is playing “Nelly Gray,” and somehow I don’t want to laugh at him as I usually do; I can only feel sorry for him.

I can hardly write because my heart is yearning for my little Junior boy at home on the ranch with his grandmother. Dear little Mother Stewart, I feel very tender toward her. Junior is the pride of her heart. She would not allow us to bring him on this trip, so she is at the ranch taking care of my brown-eyed boy. Every one is so good, so kind, and I can do so little to repay. It makes me feel very unworthy. You’ll think I have the blues, but I haven’t. I just feel humble and chastened. When Mr. Murry pauses I can hear the soft spat, spat of the falling snow on the tent. I will be powerfully glad when we set our faces homeward.

Good-night, dear friend. Angels guard you.

ELINORE STEWART.