Contrary to his predictions, however, we found no grouse or other small game _en route_, and soon ate up our bacon. Furthermore, we were five days in reaching the elk country, instead of three as he said. All this time we were climbing mountains and had appetites that are known only to mountain climbers. We had plenty of bread and potatoes, but these were not sufficient. We hankered for flesh, and though we filled ourselves with vegetable food, yet were we hungry.
Finally we reached our destination at midday. While we were unloading the horses, a "fool hen" came and lit in a tree near us. A rifle ball beheaded her, and almost before she was done kicking she was in the frying pan.
A negro once had a bottle of whisky, and was making vigorous efforts to get outside of it, when a chum came up and asked for a pull at it. "O, g'long, nigger," said the happy owner of the corn juice. "What's one bottle of whisky 'mong one man?" And what was one little grouse among five half-starved men? The smell and taste only made us long for more.
After dinner we all went out and hunted until dark. Soon after leaving camp some of us heard lively firing up the cañon, where our guide had gone, and felt certain that he had secured meat, for we had heard glowing accounts, from him and his friends, of his prowess as a hunter. The rest of us were not so despondent, therefore, when we returned at dusk empty handed, as we should otherwise have been, until we reached camp and found the guide there wearing a long face and bloodless hands.
He told a doleful story of having had five fair shots at a large bull elk, who stood broadside on, only seventy-five yards away, but who finally became alarmed at the fusilade and fled, leaving no blood on his trail. The guide of course anathematized his gun in the choicest terms known to frontiersmen, and our mouths watered as we thought of what might have been.
Our potatoes, having been compelled to stand for meat also, had vanished rapidly, and we ate the last of them for supper that night. Few words were spoken and no jokes cracked over that meal. We ate bread straight for breakfast, and turning out early hunted diligently all day. We were nearly famished when we returned at night and no one had seen any living thing larger than a pine squirrel. It is written that "man shall not live by bread alone," and we found that we could not much longer. And soon we should not have even that, for our flour was getting low. But we broke the steaming flat-cake again at supper, and turned in to dream of juicy steaks, succulent joints, and delicious rib roasts.