Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/401545
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 1 1 6 The snow deepened to a couple of feet– higher up the mountain and shaded all day by the firs. I regretted the earlier decision not to lash a pair of snowshoes to my pack. The first time he laid down I somehow sensed he was close by. I didn't know it for certain, yet I knew. Slowing to deliberate, quiet steps, I was not surprised when he exploded through the trees, leaving me with only a flash of brown and no shot. The blood became more frequent. By the third or fourth time he laid down, and halfway to timberline at 11,500 feet, I began to wonder if I should leave him with his magnificent spirit. I believed that he would recover but brushed that thought aside and returned to the reality that every hunter knows: Once an animal is wounded, you must make every effort to recover him. Probability has nothing to do with it – you try until there is no sign left to follow. And then you continue to look. Each time he laid down I got closer – not close enough, given the thickness of the woods, but closer than before. A hint of brown this time, a little more the next, and his departures seemed to be less explosive each time. He was tiring, as was I. Leaving home that morning for a brief hunt, I had packed nothing – water, snacks, or coffee – and I was beginning to drag. Nearing timberline, I tried to anticipate his next move. Timberline here does not mean simply that the trees give way to barren ground or moss-covered rocks. Here the timber abruptly ends as the mountain changes to almost vertical rock and scree. Where the timber ends there is no more "up," at least without ropes and steel anchors. Suddenly he burst from a blowdown, giving me no shot at all, and headed, amazingly, downhill. Thirty minutes later I followed him into a maze of tracks – our earlier trail up the mountain – and finally sorted out where he left the earlier trail and continued downhill, not straight downhill but with a slant back toward my land. The pursuit changed. He laid down twice more and twice I jumped him without a shot, but I could tell that he was tiring. I decided to push him as hard as possible. Heading down the mountain the snow became less, the solid firs began to give way to aspens, and I began a pace as fast as the terrain and my lungs would permit. While I could tell I was gaining, he always kept just out of sight. An hour later I begin to traverse the tops of Fields 3 and 2, and picked up the clip even more. Breaking out at the bottom of Field 2, I saw him standing between two aspens at about 100 yards, with just his shoulder visible. Resting the rifle against a tree I fired – with another delayed shot. He bolted into the nearby trees. At the point I broke into a run and after I moved the muzzle from the elk's shoulder. He didn't move. Levering another shell, I aimed again and squeezed, with the same result except he bolted laterally down the mountain. Looking at the cartridges in my pocket, I immediately knew what had happened. Superior Ammo in Sturgis, South Dakota, loads nearly all of my ammunition, especially the difficult-to-find calibers, and their loads always perform perfectly. Years earlier, however, I had bought an old box of .348 cartridges, not to shoot but for the antique nature of the box. I had recently removed the cartridges to repair the box, grabbed them in my morning haste, and loaded my 348 rifle with cartridges more than 80 years old. M oving down to the bull's bed to make certain I had not hit him, I stopped cold. There was blood on the ground. A closer inspection revealed that the blood was not from my shot but had soaked into the snow through the night. Mentally calculating where I was in relation to the tracks lost the previous evening, it hit me: Jack's bull. Despite the blood trail's thin and spotty nature, I found it easily in the new snow, but looking at the great spaces between the elk's tracks I began to comprehend that this animal, though hit, would not die from its wounds. I begin tracking him at 7:15 a.m. and thought, I'm in for a long haul. He led me first through Field 2, then gradually up the mountain through aspen, then deeper snow, then fir trees as he grew closer to the North Slope. I have hunted these areas for 20 years and was not surprised as the blood trail headed toward the ragged canyon that defined East Alder Creek. The blood was sparse, and tracks of a recent herd covered the lower meadow. Carefully working, I finally found his solo tracks as they entered the thickening aspens. At first I moved slowly, convinced that I would get a shot but soon sensed the bull's gait was leaving me behind. I picked up my pace; not an easy thing while moving over brush and around blow-downs in a foot of snow. The blood, spotty until now, became more frequent as the bull pushed through tough terrain. An hour into the trailing I came to the creek, expecting the animal to cross and move into the formidable country we call Bear Slough. Rugged, steep and filled with fallen trees, deep ravines, and a significant population of black bears, it gets it name honestly. Instead, the bull turned directly uphill, through the nastiest country a hunter can imagine. The aspens gradually gave way to fir, and visibility dropped to less than 30 yards. Up the mountain we went, both moving around massive blow-downs, and I attempted to find some slant to the climb that allowed me to remain upright.