Riding an Elk.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 43, 29 March 1884, Page 3

Riding an Elk.

,T. H. Marden, better known as "Buckhorn Joe," arrived in the city yesterday with a waggon-load of game shot in and near Bear Creek Canon. He says: "It was lost Monday, and I was up Turkey Creek Cafion on the lookout for game. I saw fresh signs of elk, and I climbed up a rock to take a look around. I had to be awful quiet about it, though, so's not to skeer the game. The rock I clum wasn't above thirty-five feet high, and I calkerlated that there wouldn't be much danger of their getting sight first. I got up to the top,and looked around long enough to satisfy me that there wasn't anything in sight. Then I started to go down the other side. It was very steep on that side, and I rushed out and caught the limbs of a big spruced tree that stood up against the side of the rock. I hadn't scarcely more than done this than my feet slipped from under me, and I swung out off the rock. My weight was too much for the limbs I had hold of, and I went down almost as though I was lead, taking the limbs with me. I didn't strike ground, though, anr> now, come to think it over, I wish I had. An elk with seven-prong horns was hiding under the rock in the shade of the spruce t-ee, and I fell square on his shoulders. "I guess it would bo hard to tell who was slceert the most, mo or the elk. The elk started as though he was shot, and this saved me the trouble of doing anything of the kind, for he set back his head and brought; them big horns of his right square down on my leg&, and held me there as fast as if I was glued to his back. Tho wits seemed skeert out of that elk. He didn't seem to care where he went or whore I wanted him to go. Turkey Creek Canon seemed to please him very well for a little while, or until some dogs got after him. He didn't appear to have any regard for his safety, and seemed only looking; for dangerous places to run along. I wasn't afraid tor the oik, but when at times he skirted along the edges of precipices, where the fall would be anywhere from three to five hundred feet, I was somewhat afraid that the consarned elk would loosen the grip of his horns on my legs " " How far did you run ?*' "I didn't run at all. The elk did the running, and I lay just as still as I could. ! Sometimes when he would leap over a chasm I would find my heart standing still, too." " But how for did you go ?" " Well, we went up to the head of Turkey Creek Canon at the start, a distance of about ten miles, and then back again and out into Bear Creek Canon. When the elk got out into this canon he seemed only freshed up for the run, and only more anxious than ever before for taking in the fine scenery that the tourists come out here to look at. I had grown very tired of it, but this did not trouble the elk." " How did you escape?" " Well, you see as we came down Bear Creek Canon, after a run of about twenty miles in this canon we almost run over my 14-year-old boy there, who was out hunting, and as quick as a flash the lad sent a bullet through the heart of the elk. Then we I've r ckoned it up, and if that elk and I went a foot we went forty-five mile."." Mr Marden bore many evidences of the hardships he had undergone, his face and hands beinjr literally flayed. — From the " Rocky Mountain News."