St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-01-02
ENCOUNTER WITH AN ELK.
The Thrilling Experience of q
Western Hunter.

Aspen, COL, Mail.
While s'Billy" Dougan and "Ed"
Wheeler were out on a hunt on Piceance
creek they fell in with a man named e.
W. Garfield from Omaha, who was out
for big game and Joined in with them
on the hunt.
lie was rather a tenderfoot in the
land and was not properly on to what
constituted Sportman's outfit. On the
bosom of his highly-polished shirt he
wore beautiful solitaire, while a black
Prince Albert coat EMBODIED his gener-
Gus form. He weighed 225 pounds and
wore patent feathers. but he was a
pretty good fellow, though not used to
the ways of the COW country.
DOugan tells the yarn. as wheeler
naturally modest and unassuming, acted
very heroically and didn't have word
to say.
On the first morning of the hunt they
had gone up to McCarthy'S gulch, about
three miles from Piceance creek.
Dougan going east. and Wheeler and
Garfield on to the flats The two latter
were not long in sighting big buck.
They crawled uD as near as possible,
Garfield being a little the closer.
Wheeler, of course, let him take the
~.
han let 60. and. after toss of the head,
the buck dropped. Like true sports
man Garfield dropped his gun, drew his
snckersee, and made for the game. He
reached the animal, grabbed all antler
and was about to severe the jugular
when something strange happened.
The elk jumped to his feet with a
snort, Garfield yelled in dismay, and in
moment man and beast were in a
deadly struggle. The elk had only been
creased by the ball from Cantield's rifle.
and when he felt the hand on his
antler he reused in an instant to give
battle.
His first plunge knocked Garfield
down and the second tangled his antlers
| in heavy belt that the hunter wore.
| The animal pushed and tugged and Can
field yelled and groaned, and they might
have been doing so yet, but for the IN
reference of Wheeler.
When the latter saw the downfall of
his companion he was about hundred
yards distant His first impulse was to
send a bullet into the elk, and he act
tualIy had bead drawn when he
thought he m ght accidentally make q
miss of the elk and kill the man.
Then he took to his heels as fast as
possible for the struggling two. Reach
Ing them he heard Garfield groaning:
ooh, Lord! Oh. Lord'' Whipping
out his knife, he drew it across the anil
mails throat. A stream of blood gushed
from the wound on to the PROSTATE man,
the elk toppled over dead and his ant
lerS were released.
Garfield was helped to his feet thor
oughy exhausted. That part of him
self and his clothing which was not
covered with dust was smeared with
blood. His Prince Albert was wreck,
his shirt front was crimson field out of
which still sparkled the solitaire in the
sunlight, his patent feathers were no
longer entitled to entree into polished
society, his face was flushed. his hair
was tangled and he was generally done
up.
He got to the ranch where they were
stopping as soon as possible, and washed
and scraped for all hour until he pre-
scented a somewhat respectable appear
ance. Later in the day lie went after
the head and horns. These he took. as
well as the saddle of his first elk, to his
home as trophies of the chase. The elk
had five prongs.
He may thank his lucky star, good
leather belt and Ed Wheeler for having
got off so lucky. Any one of these miss
ing in the combination and his name
would now be Dennis with very
small n