CHAPTER VII.
All being ready, Uncle Kit, Johnnie West and myself pulled out for South Park. We passed over a high range of mountains, struck the Park on the east side, and a more beautiful sight I never saw than the region was at that time. Coming in from the direction mentioned, one could overlook the entire park, which was almost surrounded by snow-capped mountains, and the valley, several miles below, which was about eighty miles long and from ten to twenty miles wide, was as green as a wheatfield in June. When we were near the valley we could see elk in bands of a hundred or more, with small herds of bison scattered here and there in the valley, and antelope by the hundred.
I had often heard of a hunter's paradise, and when I got sight of this lovely valley, with its thousands of wild animals of almost every description known to the continent, I made up my mind that if there ever was such a place as a hunter's paradise, I had surely found it. The high mountains with scattering pine trees on the sides; the snowy white peaks above the timber line, and the many little mountain streams and rills that paid tribute to the main stream that coursed this beautiful valley, all
