THE WAPITI OR ROUND-HORNED ELK
Once, while on another hunt with John Willis, I spent a week in a vain
effort to kill moose among the outlying mountains at the southern end
of the Bitter Root range. Then, as we had no meat, we determined to
try for elk, of which we had seen much sign.
We were camped with a wagon, as high among the foothills as wheels
could go, but several hours’ walk from the range of the game; for it
was still early in the season, and they had not yet come down from the
upper slopes. Accordingly we made a practice of leaving the wagon for
two or three days at a time to hunt; returning to get a night’s rest
in the tent, preparatory to a fresh start. On these trips we carried
neither blankets nor packs, as the walking was difficult and we had
much ground to cover. Each merely put on his jacket with a loaf of
frying-pan bread and a paper of salt stuffed into the pockets. We were
cumbered with nothing save our rifles and cartridges.
On the morning in question we left camp at sunrise. For two or three
hours we walked up-hill through a rather open growth of small pines and
spruces, the traveling being easy. Then we came to the edge of a deep
valley, a couple of miles across. Into these we scrambled, down a steep
slide, where the forest had grown up among the immense bowlder masses.
The going here was difficult to a degree; the great rocks, dead timber,
slippery pine needles, and loose gravel entailing caution at every
step, while we had to guard our rifles carefully from the consequences
of a slip. It was not much better at the bottom, which was covered by
a tangled mass of swampy forest. Through this we hunted carefully, but
with no success, in spite of our toil; for the only tracks we saw that
were at all fresh were those of a cow and calf moose. Finally, in the
afternoon, we left the valley and began to climb a steep gorge, down
which a mountain torrent roared and foamed in a succession of cataracts.
Three hours’ hard climbing brought us to another valley, but of an
entirely different character. It was several miles long, but less than
a mile broad. Save at the mouth, it was walled in completely by chains
of high rock-peaks, their summits snow-capped; the forest extended a
short distance up their sides. The bottom of the valley was in places
covered by open woodland, elsewhere by marshy meadows, dotted with
dense groves of spruce.
Hardly had we entered this valley before we caught a glimpse of a
yearling elk walking rapidly along a game path some distance ahead.
We followed as quickly as we could without making a noise, but after
the first glimpse never saw it again; for it is astonishing how fast
an elk travels, with its ground-covering walk. We went up the valley
until we were well past its middle, and saw abundance of fresh elk
signs. Evidently two or three bands had made the neighborhood their
headquarters. Among them were some large bulls, which had been trying
their horns not only on the quaking-asp and willow saplings, but also
on one another, though the rut had barely begun. By one pool they had
scooped out a kind of a wallow or bare spot in the grass, and had torn
and tramped the ground with their hoofs. The place smelt strongly of
their urine.
By the time the sun set we were sure the elk were toward the head of
the valley. We utilized the short twilight in arranging our sleeping
place for the night, choosing a thick grove of spruce beside a small
mountain tarn, at the foot of a great cliff. We were chiefly influenced
in our choice by the abundance of dead timber of a size easy to handle;
the fuel question being all-important on such a trip, where one has to
lie out without bedding, and to keep up a fire, with no axe to cut wood.
Having selected a smooth spot, where some low-growing firs made a wind
break, we dragged up enough logs to feed the fire throughout the night.
Then we drank our fill at the icy pool, and ate a few mouthfuls of
bread. While it was still light we heard the querulous bleat of the
conies, from among the slide rocks at the foot of the mountain; and the
chipmunks and chickarees scolded at us. As dark came on, and we sat
silently gazing into the flickering blaze, the owls began muttering and
hooting.
Clearing the ground of stones and sticks, we lay down beside the fire,
pulled our soft felt hats over our ears, buttoned our jackets, and went
to sleep. Of course our slumbers were fitful and broken, for every hour
or two the fire got low and had to be replenished. We wakened shivering
out of each spell of restless sleep to find the logs smouldering; we
were alternately scorched and frozen.
As the first faint streak of dawn appeared in the dark sky my companion
touched me lightly on the arm. The fire was nearly out; we felt numbed
by the chill air. At once we sprang up, stretched our arms, shook
ourselves, examined our rifles, swallowed a mouthful or two of bread,
and walked off through the gloomy forest.
At first we could scarcely see our way, but it grew rapidly lighter.
The gray mist rose and wavered over the pools and wet places; the
morning voices of the wilderness began to break the death-like
stillness. After we had walked a couple of miles the mountain tops on
our right hand reddened in the sun rays.
Then, as we trod noiselessly over the dense moss, and on the pine
needles under the scattered trees, we heard a sharp clang and clatter
up the valley ahead of us. We knew this meant game of some sort; and
stealing lightly and cautiously forward we soon saw before us the cause
of the noise.
In a little glade, a hundred and twenty-five yards from us, two bull
elk were engaged in deadly combat, while two others were looking
on. It was a splendid sight. The great beasts faced each other with
lowered horns, the manes that covered their thick necks and the hair
on their shoulders bristling and erect. Then they charged furiously,
the crash of the meeting antlers resounding through the valley. The
shock threw them both on their haunches; with locked horns and glaring
eyes they strove against each other, getting their hind legs well
under them, straining every muscle in their huge bodies, and squealing
savagely. They were evenly matched in weight, strength and courage;
and push as they might, neither got the upper hand, first one yielding
a few inches, then the other, while they swayed to and fro in their
struggles, smashing the bushes and plowing up the soil.
Finally they separated and stood some little distance apart, under the
great pines; their sides heaving, and columns of steam rising from
their nostrils through the frosty air of the brightening morning.
Again they rushed together with a crash, and each strove mightily to
overthrow the other, or get past his guard; but the branching antlers
caught every vicious lunge and thrust. This set-to was stopped rather
curiously. One of the onlooking elk was a yearling; the other, though
scarcely as heavy-bodied as either of the fighters, had a finer head.
He was evidently much excited by the battle, and he now began to walk
toward the two combatants, nodding his head and uttering a queer,
whistling noise. They dared not leave their flanks uncovered to his
assault; and as he approached they promptly separated, and walked
off side by side a few yards apart. In a moment, however, one spun
round and jumped at his old adversary, seeking to stab him in his
unprotected flank; but the latter was just as quick, and as before
caught the rush on his horns. They closed as furiously as ever; but
the utmost either could do was to inflict one or two punches on the
neck and shoulders of his foe, where the thick hide served as a shield.
Again the peacemaker approached, nodding his head, whistling, and
threatening; and again they separated.
This was repeated once or twice; and I began to be afraid lest the
breeze, which was very light and puffy, should shift and give them
my wind. So, resting my rifle on my knee I fired twice, putting one
bullet behind the shoulder of the peacemaker, and the other behind the
shoulder of one of the combatants. Both were deadly shots, but, as so
often with wapiti, neither of the wounded animals at the moment showed
any signs of being hit. The yearling ran off unscathed. The other three
crowded together and trotted behind some spruce on the left, while
we ran forward for another shot. In a moment one fell; whereupon the
remaining two turned and came back across the glade, trotting to the
right. As we opened fire they broke into a lumbering gallop, but were
both downed before they got out of sight in the timber.
As soon as the three bulls were down we busied ourselves taking off
their heads and hides, and cutting off the best portions of the
meat--from the saddles and hams--to take back to camp, where we smoked
it. But first we had breakfast. We kindled a fire beside a little
spring of clear water and raked out the coals. Then we cut two willow
twigs as spits, ran on each a number of small pieces of elk loin, and
roasted them over the fire. We had salt; we were very hungry; and I
never ate anything that tasted better.
The wapiti is, next to the moose, the most quarrelsome and pugnacious
of American deer. It can not be said that it is ordinarily a dangerous
beast to hunt; yet there are instances in which wounded wapiti,
incautiously approached to within striking distance, have severely
misused their assailants, both with their antlers and their forefeet.
I myself knew one man who had been badly mauled in this fashion. When
tamed the bulls are dangerous to human life in the rutting season. In a
grapple they are of course infinitely more to be dreaded than ordinary
deer, because of their great strength.
However, the fiercest wapiti bull, when in a wild state, flees the
neighborhood of man with the same panic terror shown by the cows; and
he makes no stand against a grisly, though when his horns are grown he
has little fear of either wolf or cougar if on his guard and attacked
fairly. The chief battles of the bulls are of course waged with one
another. Before the beginning of the rut they keep by themselves:
singly, while the sprouting horns are still very young, at which time
they lie in secluded spots and move about as little as possible; in
large bands, later in the season. At the beginning of the fall these
bands join with one another and with the bands of cows and calves,
which have likewise been keeping to themselves during the late winter,
the spring, and the summer. Vast herds are thus sometimes formed,
containing, in the old days when wapiti were plenty, thousands of
head. The bulls now begin to fight furiously with one another, and
the great herd becomes split into smaller ones. Each of these has one
master bull, who has won his position by savage battle, and keeps it by
overcoming every rival, whether a solitary bull, or the lord of another
harem, who challenges him. When not fighting or love-making he is kept
on the run, chasing away the young bulls who venture to pay court to
the cows. He has hardly time to eat or sleep, and soon becomes gaunt
and worn to a degree. At the close of the rut many of the bulls become
so emaciated that they retire to some secluded spot to recuperate. They
are so weak that they readily succumb to the elements, or to their
brute foes; many die from sheer exhaustion.
The battles between the bulls rarely result fatally. After a longer
or shorter period of charging, pushing, and struggling the heavier or
more enduring of the two begins to shove his weaker antagonist back
and round; and the latter then watches his chance and bolts, hotly,
but as a rule harmlessly, pursued for a few hundred yards. The massive
branching antlers serve as effective guards against the most wicked
thrusts. While the antagonists are head on, the worst that can happen
is a punch on the shoulder which will not break the thick hide, though
it may bruise the flesh underneath. It is only when a beast is caught
while turning that there is a chance to deliver a possibly deadly
stab in the flank, with the brow prongs, the “dog-killers” as they
are called in bucks. Sometimes, but rarely, fighting wapiti get their
antlers interlocked and perish miserably; my own ranch, the Elkhorn,
was named from finding on the spot where the ranch house now stands two
splendid pairs of elk antlers thus interlocked.
Wapiti keep their antlers until the spring, whereas deer and moose lose
theirs by midwinter. The bull’s behavior in relation to the cow is
merely that of a vicious and brutal coward. He bullies her continually,
and in times of danger his one thought is for sneaking off to secure
his own safety. For all his noble looks he is a very unamiable beast,
who behaves with brutal ferocity to the weak, and shows abject terror
of the strong. According to his powers, he is guilty of rape, robbery,
and even murder. I never felt the least compunction at shooting a bull,
but I hate to shoot a cow, even when forced by necessity. Maternity
must always appeal to any one. A cow has more courage than a bull. She
will fight valiantly for her young calf, striking such blows with her
forefeet that most beasts of prey at once slink away from the combat.
Cougars and wolves commit great ravages among the bands; but they often
secure their quarry only at the cost of sharp preliminary tussles--and
in tussles of this kind they do not always prove victors or escape
scathless.
During the rut the bulls are very noisy; and their notes of
amorous challenge are called “whistling” by the frontiersmen,--very
inappropriately. They begin to whistle about ten days before they begin
to run; and they have in addition an odd kind of bark, which is only
heard occasionally. The whistling is a most curious, and to me a most
attractive sound, when heard in the great lonely mountains. As with so
many other things, much depends upon the surroundings. When listened
to nearby and under unfavorable circumstances, the sound resembles a
succession of hoarse whistling roars, ending with two or three gasping
grunts.
But heard at a little distance, and in its proper place, the call of
the wapiti is one of the grandest and most beautiful sounds in nature.
Especially is this the case when several rivals are answering one
another, on some frosty moonlight night in the mountains. The wild
melody rings from chasm to chasm under the giant pines, sustained and
modulated, through bar after bar, filled with challenge and proud
anger. It thrills the soul of the listening hunter.
Once, while in the mountains, I listened to a peculiarly grand chorus
of this kind. We were traveling with pack ponies at the time, and our
tent was pitched in a grove of yellow pine, by a brook in the bottom
of a valley. On either hand rose the mountains, covered with spruce
forest. It was in September, and the first snow had just fallen.
The day before we had walked long and hard; and during the night I
slept the heavy sleep of the weary. Early in the morning, just as the
east began to grow gray, I waked; and as I did so, the sounds that
smote on my ear caused me to sit up and throw off the warm blankets.
Bull elk were challenging among the mountains on both sides of the
valley, a little way from us, their notes echoing like the calling of
silver bugles. Groping about in the dark, I drew on my trousers, an
extra pair of thick socks, and my moccasins, donned a warm jacket,
found my fur cap and gloves, and stole out of the tent with my rifle.
The air was very cold; the stars were beginning to pale in the dawn;
on the ground the snow glimmered white, and lay in feathery masses on
the branches of the balsams and young pines. The air rang with the
challenges of many wapiti; their incessant calling came pealing down
through the still, snow-laden woods. First one bull challenged; then
another answered; then another and another. Two herds were approaching
one another from opposite sides of the valley, a short distance above
our camp; and the master bulls were roaring defiance as they mustered
their harems.
I walked stealthily up the valley, until I felt that I was nearly
between the two herds; and then stood motionless under a tall pine. The
ground was quite open at this point, the pines, though large, being
scattered; the little brook ran with a strangled murmur between its
rows of willows and alders, for the ice along its edges nearly skimmed
its breadth. The stars paled rapidly, the gray dawn brightened, and in
the sky overhead faint rose-colored streaks were turning blood-red.
What little wind there was breathed in my face and kept me from
discovery.
I made up my mind, from the sound of the challenging, now very near me,
that one bull on my right was advancing toward a rival on my left, who
was answering every call. Soon the former approached so near that I
could hear him crack the branches, and beat the bushes with his horns;
and I slipped quietly from tree to tree, so as to meet him when he came
out into the more open woodland. Day broke, and crimson gleams played
across the snow-clad mountains beyond.
At last, just as the sun flamed red above the hilltops, I heard the
roar of the wapiti’s challenge not fifty yards away; and I cocked and
half raised my rifle, and stood motionless. In a moment more, the
belt of spruces in front of me swayed and opened, and the lordly bull
stepped out. He bore his massive antlers aloft; the snow lay thick on
his mane; he snuffed the air and stamped on the ground as he walked. As
I drew a bead, the motion caught his eye; and instantly his bearing of
haughty and warlike self-confidence changed to one of alarm. My bullet
smote through his shoulder-blades, and he plunged wildly forward, and
fell full length on the blood-stained snow.
Nothing can be finer than a wapiti bull’s carriage when excited or
alarmed; he then seems the embodiment of strength and stately grace.
But at ordinary times his looks are less attractive, as he walks with
his neck level with his body and his head outstretched, his horns lying
almost on his shoulders. The favorite gait of the wapiti is the trot,
which is very fast, and which they can keep up for countless miles;
when suddenly and greatly alarmed, they break into an awkward gallop,
which is faster, but which speedily tires them.
I have occasionally killed elk in the neighborhood of my ranch on the
Little Missouri. They were very plentiful along this river until 1881,
but the last of the big bands were slaughtered or scattered about that
time. Smaller bunches were found for two or three years longer, and to
this day, scattered individuals, singly or in parties of two or three,
linger here and there in the most remote and inaccessible parts of
the broken country. In the old times they were often found on the open
prairie, and were fond of sunning themselves on the sand bars by the
river, even at midday, while they often fed by daylight (as they do
still in remote mountain fastnesses). Nowadays the few survivors dwell
in the timber of the roughest ravines, and only venture abroad at dusk
or even after nightfall. Thanks to their wariness and secluseness,
their presence is often not even suspected by the cowboys or others who
occasionally ride through their haunts; and so the hunters only know
vaguely of their existence. It thus happens that the last individuals
of a species may linger in a locality for many years after the rest of
their kind have vanished; on the Little Missouri to-day every elk (as
in the Rockies every buffalo) killed is at once set down as “the last
of its race.” For several years in succession I myself kept killing one
or two such “last survivors.”
A yearling bull which I thus obtained was killed while in company with
my staunch friend Will Dow, on one of the first trips which I took with
that prince of drivers, old man Tompkins. We were laying in our stock
of winter meat; and had taken the wagon to go to a knot of high and
very rugged hills where we knew there were deer, and thought there
might be elk. Old Tompkins drove the wagon with unmoved composure up,
down, and across frightful-looking hills, and when they became wholly
impassable, steered the team over a cut bank and up a kind of winding
ravine or wooded washout, until it became too rough and narrow for
further progress. There was good grass for the horses on a hill off to
one side of us; and stunted cottonwood trees grew between the straight
white walls of clay and sandstone which hemmed in the washout. We
pitched our tent by a little trickling spring and kindled a great fire,
the fitful glare lighting the bare cliffs and the queer, sprawling
tops of the cottonwoods; and after a dinner of fried prairie-chicken
went to bed. At dawn we were off, and hunted till nearly noon; when
Dow, who had been walking to one side, beckoned to me and remarked,
“There’s something mighty big in the timber down under the cliff; I
guess it’s an elk” (he never had seen one before); and the next moment,
as old Tompkins expressed it, “the elk came bilin’ out of the coulie.”
Old Tompkins had a rifle on this occasion and the sight of game always
drove him crazy; as I aimed I heard Dow telling him “to let the boss
do the shooting”; and I killed the elk to a savage interjectional
accompaniment of threats delivered at old man Tompkins between the
shots.
Elk are sooner killed off than any other game save buffalo, but this
is due to their size and the nature of the ground they frequent rather
than to their lack of shyness. They like open woodland, or mountainous
park country, or hills riven by timber coulies; and such ground is the
most favorable to the hunter, and the most attractive in which to hunt.
On the other hand moose, for instance, live in such dense cover that
it is very difficult to get at them; when elk are driven by incessant
persecution to take refuge in similar fastnesses they become almost
as hard to kill. In fact, in this respect the elk stands to the moose
much as the blacktail stands to the whitetail. The moose and whitetail
are somewhat warier than the elk and blacktail; but it is the nature
of the ground which they inhabit that tells most in their favor. On
the other hand, as compared to the blacktail, it is only the elk’s
size which puts it at a disadvantage in the struggle for life when
the rifle-bearing hunter appears on the scene. It is quite as shy and
difficult to approach as the deer; but its bulk renders it much more
eagerly hunted, more readily seen, and more easily hit. Occasionally
elk suffer from fits of stupid tameness or equally stupid panic; but
the same is true of blacktail. In two or three instances, I have seen
elk show silly ignorance of danger; but half a dozen times I have known
blacktail behave with an even greater degree of stupid familiarity.
There is another point in which the wapiti and blacktail agree in
contrast to the moose and whitetail. Both the latter delight in
water-lilies, entering the ponds to find them, and feeding on them
greedily. The wapiti is very fond of wallowing in the mud, and of
bathing in pools and lakes; but as a rule it shows as little fondness
as the blacktail for feeding on water-lilies or other aquatic plants.
In reading of the European red deer, which is nothing but a diminutive
wapiti, we often see “a stag of ten” alluded to as if a full-grown
monarch. A full-grown wapiti bull, however, always has twelve, and
may have fourteen, regular normal points on his antlers, besides
irregular additional prongs; and he occasionally has ten points
when a two-year-old, as I have myself seen with calves captured
young and tamed. The calf has no horns. The yearling carries two
foot-long spikes, sometimes bifurcated, so as to make four points.
The two-year-old often has six or eight points on his antlers; but
sometimes ten, although they are always small. The three-year-old has
eight or ten points, while his body may be nearly as large as that of
a full-grown animal. The four-year-old is normally a ten or twelve
pointer, but as yet with much smaller antlers than those so proudly
borne by the old bulls.
Frontiersmen only occasionally distinguish the prongs by name. The brow
and bay points are called dog-killers or war-tines; the tray is known
simply as the third point; and the most characteristic prong, the long
and massive fourth, is now and then called the dagger-point; the others
being known as the fifth and sixth.
In the high mountain forest into which the wapiti has been driven,
the large, heavily furred northern lynx, the lucivee, takes the place
of the smaller, thinner-haired lynx of the plains, and of the more
southern districts, the bobcat or wildcat. On the Little Missouri
the latter is the common form; yet I have seen a lucivee which was
killed there. On Clark’s Fork of the Columbia both occur, the lucivee
being the most common. They feed chiefly on hares, squirrels, grouse,
fawns, etc.; and the lucivee, at least, also occasionally kills foxes
and coons, and has in its turn to dread the pounce of the big timber
wolf. Both kinds of lynx can most easily be killed with dogs, as they
tree quite readily when thus pursued. The wildcat is often followed
on horseback, with a pack of hounds, when the country is favorable;
and when chased in this fashion yields excellent sport. The skin of
both these lynxes is tender. They often maul an inexperienced pack
quite badly, inflicting severe scratches and bites on any hound which
has just resolution enough to come to close quarters, but not to rush
in furiously; but a big fighting dog will readily kill either. At
Thompson’s Falls two of Willis’ hounds killed a lucivee unaided, though
one got torn. Archibald Rogers’ dog Sly, a cross between a greyhound
and a bull mastiff, killed a bobcat single-handed. He bayed the cat and
then began to threaten it, leaping from side to side; suddenly he broke
the motion, and rushing in got his foe by the small of the back and
killed it without receiving a scratch.
The porcupine is sure to attract the notice of any one going through
the mountains. It is also found in the timber belts fringing the
streams of the great plains, where it lives for a week at a time in a
single tree or clump of trees, peeling the bark from the limbs. But
it is the easiest of all animals to exterminate, and is now abundant
only in deep mountain forests. It is very tame and stupid; it goes on
the ground; but its fastest pace is a clumsy waddle, and on trees,
but is the poorest of tree-climbers,--grasping the trunk like a small,
slow bear. It can neither escape nor hide. It trusts to its quills for
protection, as the skunk does to its odor; but it is far less astute
and more helpless than the skunk. It is readily made into a very
unsuspicious and familiar, but uninteresting, pet. I have known it come
into camp in the daytime, and forage round the fire by which I was
sitting. Its coat protects it against most foes. Bears sometimes eat
it when very hungry, as they will eat anything; and I think that elk
occasionally destroy it in sheer wantonness. One of its most resolute
foes is the fisher, that big sable--almost a wolverine--which preys on
everything, from a coon to a fawn, or even a small fox.
The noisy, active little chickarees and chipmunks, however, are by far
the most numerous and lively denizens of these deep forests. They are
very abundant and very noisy; scolding the travelers exactly as they do
the bears when the latter dig up the caches of ants. The chipmunks soon
grow tame and visit camp to pick up the crusts. The chickarees often
ascend to the highest pine tops, where they cut off the cones, dropping
them to the ground with a noise which often for a moment puzzles the
still-hunter.
Two of the most striking and characteristic birds to be seen by him
who hunts and camps among the pine-clad and spruce-clad slopes of the
northern Rockies are a small crow and a rather large woodpecker. The
former is called Clark’s crow, and the latter Lewis’ woodpecker. Their
names commemorate their discoverers, the explorers Lewis and Clark,
the first white men who crossed the United States to the Pacific, the
pioneers of that great army of adventurers who since then have roamed
and hunted over the Great Plains and among the Rocky Mountains.
These birds are nearly of a size, being about as large as a flicker.
The Clark’s crow, an ash-colored bird with black wings and white tail
and forehead, is as common as it is characteristic, and is sure to
attract attention. It is as knowing as the rest of its race, and very
noisy and active. It flies sometimes in a straight line, with regular
wing-beats, sometimes in a succession of loops like a woodpecker, and
often lights on rough bark or a dead stump in an attitude like the
latter; and it is very fond of scrambling and clinging, often head
downward, among the outermost cones on the top of a pine, chattering
loudly all the while. One of the noticeable features of its flight is
the hollow, beating sound of the wings. It is restless and fond of
company, going by preference in small parties. These little parties
often indulge in regular plays, assembling in some tall tree-top and
sailing round and round it, in noisy pursuit of one another, lighting
continually among the branches.
The Lewis’ woodpecker, a handsome, dark-green bird, with white breast
and red belly, is much rarer, quite as shy, and generally less noisy
and conspicuous. Its flight is usually strong and steady, like a
jay’s, and it perches upright among the twigs, or takes short flights
after passing insects, as often as it scrambles over the twigs in the
ordinary woodpecker fashion. Like its companion, the Clark’s crow,
it is ordinarily a bird of the high tree-tops, and around these it
indulges in curious aërial games, again like those of the little crow.
It is fond of going in troops, and such a troop frequently choose some
tall pine and soar round and above it in irregular spirals.
The remarkable and almost amphibious little water wren, with its sweet
song, its familiarity, and its very curious habit of running on the
bottom of the stream, several feet beneath the surface of the race of
rapid water, is the most noticeable of the small birds of the Rocky
Mountains. It sometimes sings loudly while floating with half-spread
wings on the surface of a little pool. Taken as a whole, small birds
are far less numerous and noticeable in the wilderness, especially
in the deep forests, than in the groves and farmland of the settled
country. The hunter and trapper are less familiar with small-bird music
than with the screaming of the eagle and the large hawks, the croaking
bark of the raven, the loon’s cry, the crane’s guttural clangor, and
the unearthly yelling and hooting of the big owls.
No bird is so common around camp, so familiar, so amusing on some
occasions, and so annoying on others, as that drab-colored imp of
iniquity, the whiskey-jack--also known as the moose bird and camp
robber. The familiarity of these birds is astonishing, and the variety
of their cries--generally harsh, but rarely musical--extraordinary. They
snatch scraps of food from the entrances of the tents, and from beside
the camp fire; and they shred the venison hung in the trees unless
closely watched. I have seen an irate cook of accurate aim knock one
off an elk-haunch, with a club seized at random; and I have known
another to be killed with a switch, and yet another to be caught alive
in the hand. When game is killed they are the first birds to come to
the carcass. Following them come the big jays, of a uniform dark-blue
color, who bully them, and are bullied in turn by the next arrivals,
the magpies; while when the big ravens come, they keep all the others
in the background, with the exception of an occasional wide-awake
magpie.
For a steady diet no meat tastes better or is more nourishing than elk
venison; moreover the different kinds of grouse give variety to the
fare, and delicious trout swarm throughout the haunts of the elk in the
Rockies. I have never seen them more numerous than in the wonderful and
beautiful Yellowstone Canyon, a couple of miles below where the river
pitches over the Great Falls, in wind-swayed cataracts of snowy foam.
At this point it runs like a mill-race, in its narrow winding bed,
between immense walls of queerly carved and colored rock which tower
aloft in almost perpendicular cliffs. Late one afternoon in the fall
of ’90 Ferguson and I clambered down into the canyon, with a couple of
rods, and in an hour caught all the fish we could carry. It then lacked
much less than an hour of nightfall, and we had a hard climb to get out
of the canyon before darkness overtook us; as there was not a vestige
of a path, and as the climbing was exceedingly laborious, and at one
or two points not entirely without danger, the rocks being practicable
in very few places, we could hardly have made much progress after it
became too dark to see. Each of us carried the bag of trout in turn,
and I personally was nearly done out when we reached the top; and then
had to trot three miles to the horses.