Copyright, 1915, by Elinore Pruitt Stewart All rights reserved Copyright © renewed 1943 by H C Stewart First Bison Book Printing 1979 Most recent printing indicated by first digit below 7 8 9 10 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Stewart, Elinore Pruitt, 1878-- Letters on an elk hunt 1 Stewart, Elinore Pruitt, 1878-- 2 Frontier and pioneer life--Wyoming 3 Elk hunting--Wyoming 4 Pioneers--Wyoming--Biography 5 Wyoming--Biography I Title F761 S82 1979 978 7'03'0924 79-13840 ISBN 0-8

Burnt Fork, Wyo. , July 8, 1914. Dear Mrs. Coney ,— Your letter of the 4th just to hand. How glad your letters make me; how glad I am to have you to tell little things to. I intended to write you as soon as I came back from Green River, to tell you of a girl I saw there; but there was a heap to do and I kept putting it off. I have described the desert so often that I am afraid I will tire you, so I will leave that out and tell you that we arrived in town rather late. The help at the hotel were h

In Camp on the Desert , August 24, 1914. Dear Mrs. Coney ,— At last we are off. I am powerfully glad. I shall have to enjoy this trip for us both. You see how greedy I am for new experiences! I have never been on a prolonged hunt before, so I am looking forward to a heap of fun. I hardly know what to do about writing, but shall try to write every two days. I want you to have as much of this trip as I can put on paper, so we will begin at the start. To begin with we were all to meet at Green Rive

In Camp , August 28. Dear Mrs. Coney ,— We are almost across the desert, and I am really becoming interested. The difficulties some folks work under are enough to make many of us ashamed. In the very center of the desert is a little settlement called Eden Valley. Imagination must have had a heap to do with its name, but one thing is certain: the serpent will find the crawling rather bad if he attempts to enter this Eden, for the sand is hot; the alkali and the cactus are there, so it must be a s

In Camp , August 31, 1914. Dear Mrs. Coney ,— We are across the desert, and camped for a few days’ fishing on a shady, bowery little stream. We have had two frosty nights and there are trembling golden groves on every hand. Four men joined us at Newfork, and the bachelors have gone on; but Mr. Stewart wanted to rest the “beasties” and we all wanted to fish, so we camped for a day or two. The twenty-eighth was the warmest day we have had, the most disagreeable in every way. Not a breath of air st

In Camp on the Gros Ventre , September 6, 1914. My Dear Friend ,— I have neglected you for almost a week, but when you read this letter and learn why, I feel sure you will forgive me. To begin with, we bade Mrs. Mortimer good-bye, and started out to find better fishing than the pretty little stream we were on afforded us. Our way lay up Green River and we were getting nearer our final camp-ground all the time, but we were in no hurry to begin hunting, so we were just loitering along. There were

Camp Cloudcrest , September 12, 1914. Dear Mrs. Coney ,— I find I can’t write to you as often as I at first intended; but I’ve a chance to-day, so I will not let it pass unused. We are in the last camp, right on the hunting ground, in the “midst of the fray.” We have said good-bye to dear Elizabeth, and I must tell you about her because she really comes first. To begin with, the morning we left the Holts, Elizabeth suggested that we three women ride in the buckboard, so I seated myself on a roll

Camp Cloudcrest , October 6, 1914. Dear Mrs. Coney ,— It seems so odd to be writing you and getting no answers. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy just now asked me what I have against you that I write you so much. I haven’t one thing. I told her I owed you more love than I could ever pay in a lifetime, and she said writing such long letters is a mighty poor way to show it. I have been neglecting you shamefully, I think. One of the main reasons I came on this hunt was to take the trip for you , and to tell you

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 whi

Cloudcrest , October 13, 1914. Dear, Dear Mrs. Coney ,— This is the very last letter you will receive dated from this camp. We are leaving a few days earlier than we intended and I am pretty badly on the fence. I want to laugh, and really I can hardly keep back the tears. We are leaving sooner than we meant, for rather a good reason. We haven’t one bite to eat except elk meat. After the men had brought into camp the elk we killed the other afternoon, they began to plan a sheep hunt. As sheep do

At Sorenson’s Cabin on Green River. Well, we’re here, warmed and fed and in much better trim bodily and mentally. We had mishap after mishap coming. First the Hutton horse, being a bronco, had to act up when he was hitched up. We had almost more game than we could haul, but at last we got started, after the bronco had reared and pitched as much as he wanted to. There are a great many springs,—one every few feet in these mountains,—and the snow hid the pitfalls and made the ground soft, so that t

In Camp , October 16, 1914. Dear Mrs. Coney ,— The day we left the game-warden’s was damp and lowering. It didn’t seem it could have one good thing to its credit, but there were several things to be thankful for. One of them was that you were safe at home in your warm, dry apartment. We had hardly passed the great Block buttes when the biggest, wettest flakes of snow began to pelt into our faces. I really like a storm, and the kiddies would have enjoyed the snow; but we had to keep the wagon-she

In Camp on the Desert , October 19. My dear, dear Friend ,— It is with a chastened, humble heart that I begin this letter; I have stood face to face with tragedy and romance, and to me one is as touching as the other, but you will know better when I tell you what I mean. We all bustled about to get started from Newfork. Now that we had started, all were homesick. Just ahead of us was a drove of two thousand steers being driven to the railroad to be shipped. I advise you to keep ahead of such dri

At the Well in the Desert , October 21. Dear Friend ,— We shall reach Green River City to-night. We will rest the teams one day, then start home. It will take us two days from Green River to reach home, so this is the last letter on the road. When we made camp here last night we saw some one coming on horseback along the cañon rim on the opposite side. The form seemed familiar and the horse looked like one I had seen, but I dared not believe my eyes. Clyde, who was helping to draw water from the