“As I was saying, I took out after the beast with the hand-axe, and hung to its heels down the valley; but when he circled back toward the head, I was left winded at the lower end.  Speaking of grub, I might as well stop long enough to explain a couple of points.  Up thereabouts, in the midst of the mountains, is an almighty curious formation.  There is no end of little valleys, each like the other much as peas in a pod, and all neatly tucked away with straight, rocky walls rising on all sides.  And at the lower ends are always small openings where the drainage or glaciers must have broken out.  The only way in is through these mouths, and they are all small, and some smaller than others.  As to grub—­you’ve slushed around on the rain-soaked islands of the Alaskan coast down Sitka way, most likely, seeing as you’re a traveller.  And you know how stuff grows there—­big, and juicy, and jungly.  Well, that’s the way it was with those valleys.  Thick, rich soil, with ferns and grasses and such things in patches higher than your head.  Rain three days out of four during the summer months; and food in them for a thousand mammoths, to say nothing of small game for man.

“But to get back.  Down at the lower end of the valley I got winded and gave over.  I began to speculate, for when my wind left me my dander got hotter and hotter, and I knew I’d never know peace of mind till I dined on roasted mammoth-foot.  And I knew, also, that that stood for skookum mamook pukapuk—­excuse Chinook, I mean there was a big fight coming.  Now the mouth of my valley was very narrow, and the walls steep.  High up on one side was one of those big pivot rocks, or balancing rocks, as some call them, weighing all of a couple of hundred tons.  Just the thing.  I hit back for camp, keeping an eye open so the bull couldn’t slip past, and got my ammunition.  It wasn’t worth anything with the rifle smashed; so I opened the shells, planted the powder under the rock, and touched it off with slow fuse.  Wasn’t much of a charge, but the old boulder tilted up lazily and dropped down into place, with just space enough to let the creek drain nicely.  Now I had him.”

“But how did you have him?” I queried.  “Who ever heard of a man killing a mammoth with a hand-axe?  And, for that matter, with anything else?”

“O man, have I not told you I was mad?” Nimrod replied, with a slight manifestation of sensitiveness.  “Mad clean through, what of Klooch and the gun.  Also, was I not a hunter?  And was this not new and most unusual game?  A hand-axe?  Pish!  I did not need it.  Listen, and you shall hear of a hunt, such as might have happened in the youth of the world when cavemen rounded up the kill with hand-axe of stone.  Such would have served me as well.  Now is it not a fact that man can outwalk the dog or horse?  That he can wear them out with the intelligence of his endurance?”

I nodded.

“Well?”