AN ELK-HUNT AT TWO-OCEAN PASS
In September, 1891, with my ranch-partner, Ferguson, I made an
elk-hunt in northwestern Wyoming among the Shoshone Mountains, where
they join the Hoodoo and Absoraka ranges. There is no more beautiful
game-country in the United States. It is a park land, where glades,
meadows, and high mountain pastures break the evergreen forest; a
forest which is open compared to the tangled density of the woodland
further north. It is a high, cold region of many lakes and clear,
rushing streams. The steep mountains are generally of the rounded form
so often seen in the ranges of the Cordilleras of the United States;
but the Hoodoos, or Goblins, are carved in fantastic and extraordinary
shapes; while the Tetons, a group of isolated rock-peaks, show a
striking boldness in their lofty outlines.
This was one of the pleasantest hunts I ever made. As always in the
mountains, save where the country is so rough and so densely wooded
that one must go afoot, we had a pack-train; and we took a more
complete outfit than we had ever before taken on such a hunt, and so
traveled in much comfort. Usually when in the mountains I have merely
had one companion, or at most a couple, and two or three pack-ponies;
each of us doing his share of the packing, cooking, fetching water, and
pitching the small square of canvas which served as tent. In itself
packing is both an art and a mystery, and a skilful professional
packer, versed in the intricacies of the “diamond hitch,” packs with
a speed which no non-professional can hope to rival, and fixes the
side packs and top packs with such scientific nicety, and adjusts the
doubles and turns of the lash-rope so accurately, that everything stays
in place under any but the most adverse conditions. Of course, like
most hunters, I can myself in case of need throw the diamond hitch
after a fashion, and pack on either the off or near side. Indeed,
unless a man can pack it is not possible to make a really hard hunt
in the mountains, if alone, or with only a single companion. The
mere fair-weather hunter, who trusts entirely to the exertions of
others, and does nothing more than ride or walk about under favorable
circumstances, and shoot at what somebody else shows him, is a hunter
in name only. Whoever would really deserve the title must be able at
a pinch to shift for himself, to grapple with the difficulties and
hardships of wilderness life unaided, and not only to hunt, but at
times to travel for days, whether on foot or on horseback, alone.
However, after one has passed one’s novitiate, it is pleasant to be
comfortable when the comfort does not interfere with the sport; and
although a man sometimes likes to hunt alone, yet often it is well
to be with some old mountain hunter, a master of woodcraft, who is a
first-rate hand at finding game, creeping upon it, and tracking it when
wounded. With such a companion one gets much more game, and learns many
things by observation instead of by painful experience.
On this trip we had with us two hunters, Tazewell Woody and Elwood
Hofer, a packer who acted as cook, and a boy to herd the horses. Of
the latter, there were twenty; six saddle-animals and fourteen for the
packs--two or three being spare horses, to be used later in carrying
the elk-antlers, sheep-horns, and other trophies. Like most hunters’
pack-animals, they were either half-broken, or else broken down; tough,
unkempt, jaded-looking beasts of every color--sorrel, buckskin, pinto,
white, bay, roan. After the day’s work was over, they were turned
loose to shift for themselves; and about once a week they strayed, and
all hands had to spend the better part of the day hunting for them.
The worst ones for straying, curiously enough, were three broken-down
old “bear-baits,” which went by themselves, as is generally the case
with the cast-off horses of a herd. There were two sleeping tents,
another for the provisions,--in which we ate during bad weather,--and a
canvas tepee, which was put up with lodge-poles, Indian fashion, like
a wigwam. A tepee is more difficult to put up than an ordinary tent;
but it is very convenient when there is rain or snow. A small fire
kindled in the middle keeps it warm, the smoke escaping through the
open top--that is, when it escapes at all; strings are passed from one
pole to another, on which to hang wet clothes and shoes, and the beds
are made around the edges. As an offset to the warmth and shelter, the
smoke often renders it impossible even to sit upright. We had a very
good camp-kit, including plenty of cooking and eating utensils; and
among our provisions were some canned goods and sweet-meats, to give
a relish to our meals of meat and bread. We had fur coats and warm
clothes,--which are chiefly needed at night,--and plenty of bedding,
including waterproof canvas sheeting and a couple of caribou-hide
sleeping-bags, procured from the survivors of a party of arctic
explorers. Except on rainy days, I used my buckskin hunting-shirt or
tunic; in dry weather I deem it, because of its color, its texture, and
its durability, the best possible garb for the still-hunter, especially
in the woods.
Starting a day’s journey south of Heart Lake, we traveled and hunted on
the eastern edge of the great basin, wooded and mountainous, wherein
rise the head-waters of the mighty Snake River. There was not so much
as a spotted line--that series of blazes made with the axe, man’s first
highway through the hoary forest,--but this we did not mind, as for
most of the distance we followed the well-worn elk-trails. The train
traveled in Indian file. At the head, to pick the path, rode tall,
silent old Woody, a true type of the fast-vanishing race of game
hunters and Indian fighters, a man who had been one of the California
forty-niners, and who ever since had lived the restless, reckless
life of the wilderness. Then came Ferguson and myself; then the
pack-animals, strung out in line; while from the rear rose the varied
oaths of our three companions, whose miserable duty it was to urge
forward the beasts of burden.
It is heart-breaking work to drive a pack-train through thick timber
and over mountains, where there is either a dim trail or none. The
animals have a perverse faculty for choosing the wrong turn at critical
moments; and they are continually scraping under branches and squeezing
between tree-trunks, to the jeopardy or destruction of their burdens.
After having been laboriously driven up a very steep incline, at the
cost of severe exertion both to them and to the men, the foolish
creatures turn and run down to the bottom, so that all the work has
to be done over again. Some travel too slow; others travel too fast.
Yet one can not but admire the toughness of the animals, and the
sure-footedness with which they pick their way along the sheer mountain
sides, or among bowlders and over fallen logs.
As our way was so rough, we found that we had to halt at least once
every hour to fix the packs. Moreover, we at the head of the column
were continually being appealed to for help by the unfortunates in
the rear. First it would be “that white-eyed cayuse; one side of its
pack’s down!” then we would be notified that the saddle-blanket of the
“lop-eared Indian buckskin” had slipped back; then a shout “Look out
for the pinto!” would be followed by that pleasing beast’s appearance,
bucking and squealing, smashing dead timber, and scattering its load
to the four winds. It was no easy task to get the horses across some of
the boggy places without miring; or to force them through the denser
portions of the forest, where there was much down timber. Riding with a
pack-train, day in and day out, becomes both monotonous and irritating,
unless one is upheld by the hope of a game-country ahead, or by the
delight of exploration of the unknown. Yet when buoyed by such a hope,
there is pleasure in taking a train across so beautiful and wild a
country as that which lay on the threshold of our hunting grounds in
the Shoshones. We went over mountain passes, with ranges of scalped
peaks on either hand; we skirted the edges of lovely lakes, and of
streams with bowlder-strewn beds; we plunged into depths of sombre
woodland, broken by wet prairies. It was a picturesque sight to see the
loaded pack-train stringing across one of these high mountain meadows,
the motley colored line of ponies winding round the marshy spots
through the bright green grass, while beyond rose the dark line of
frowning forest, with lofty peaks towering in the background. Some of
the meadows were beautiful with many flowers--goldenrod, purple aster,
bluebells, white immortelles, and here and there masses of blood-red
Indian pinks. In the park-country, on the edges of the evergreen
forest, were groves of delicate quaking-aspen, the trees often growing
to quite a height; their tremulous leaves were already changing to
bright green and yellow, occasionally with a reddish blush. In the
Rocky Mountains the aspens are almost the only deciduous trees, their
foliage offering a pleasant relief to the eye after the monotony of the
unending pine and spruce woods, which afford so striking a contrast to
the hardwood forest east of the Mississippi.
For two days our journey was uneventful, save that we came on the camp
of a squaw-man--one Beaver Dick, an old mountain hunter, living in a
skin tepee, where dwelt his comely Indian wife and half-breed children.
He had quite a herd of horses, many of them mares and colts; they had
evidently been well treated, and came up to us fearlessly.
The morning of the third day of our journey was gray and lowering.
Gusts of rain blew in my face as I rode at the head of the train. It
still lacked an hour of noon, as we were plodding up a valley beside
a rapid brook running through narrow willow-flats, the dark forest
crowding down on either hand from the low foothills of the mountains.
Suddenly the call of a bull elk came echoing down through the wet
woodland on our right, beyond the brook, seemingly less than half a
mile off; and was answered by a faint, far-off call from a rival on the
mountain beyond. Instantly halting the train, Woody and I slipped off
our horses, crossed the brook, and started to still-hunt the first bull.
In this place the forest was composed of the Western tamarack; the
large, tall trees stood well apart, and there was much down timber, but
the ground was covered with deep wet moss, over which we trod silently.
The elk was traveling up-wind, but slowly, stopping continually to paw
the ground and thresh the bushes with his antlers. He was very noisy,
challenging every minute or two, being doubtless much excited by the
neighborhood of his rival on the mountain. We followed, Woody leading,
guided by the incessant calling.
It was very exciting as we crept toward the great bull, and the
challenge sounded nearer and nearer. While we were still at some
distance the pealing notes were like those of a bugle, delivered in two
bars, first rising, then abruptly falling; as we drew nearer they took
on a harsh squealing sound. Each call made our veins thrill; it sounded
like the cry of some huge beast of prey. At last we heard the roar of
the challenge not eighty yards off. Stealing forward three or four
yards, I saw the tips of the horns through a mass of dead timber and
young growth, and I slipped to one side to get a clean shot.
Seeing us but not making out what we were, and full of fierce and
insolent excitement, the wapiti bull stepped boldly toward us with a
stately swinging gait. Then he stood motionless, facing us, barely
fifty yards away, his handsome twelve-tined antlers tossed aloft, as
he held his head with the lordly grace of his kind. I fired into his
chest, and as he turned I raced forward and shot him in the flank; but
the second bullet was not needed, for the first wound was mortal, and
he fell before going fifty yards.
The dead elk lay among the young evergreens. The huge, shapely body was
set on legs that were as strong as steel rods, and yet slender, clean,
and smooth; they were in color a beautiful dark brown, contrasting well
with the yellowish of the body. The neck and throat were garnished with
a mane of long hair; the symmetry of the great horns set off the fine,
delicate lines of the noble head. He had been wallowing, as elk are
fond of doing, and the dried mud clung in patches to his flank; a stab
in the haunch showed that he had been overcome in battle by some master
bull who had turned him out of the herd.
We cut off the head, and bore it down to the train. The horses crowded
together, snorting, with their ears pricked forward, as they smelt the
blood. We also took the loins with us, as we were out of meat, though
bull elk in the rutting season is not very good. The rain had changed
to a steady downpour when we again got under way. Two or three miles
further we pitched camp, in a clump of pines on a hillock in the bottom
of the valley, starting hot fires of pitchy stumps before the tents, to
dry our wet things.
Next day opened with fog and cold rain. The drenched pack-animals, when
driven into camp, stood mopingly, with drooping heads and arched backs;
they groaned and grunted as the loads were placed on their backs and
the cinches tightened, the packers bracing one foot against the pack
to get a purchase as they hauled in on the lash-rope. A stormy morning
is a trial to temper; the packs are wet and heavy, and the cold makes
the work even more than usually hard on the hands. By ten we broke
camp. It needs between two and three hours to break camp and get such
a train properly packed; once started, our day’s journey was six to
eight hours, making no halt. We started up a steep, pine-clad mountain
side, broken by cliffs. My hunting-shoes, though comfortable, were old
and thin, and let the water through like a sieve. On the top of the
first plateau, where black spruce groves were strewn across the grassy
surface, we saw a band of elk, cows and calves, trotting off through
the rain. Then we plunged down into a deep valley, and, crossing it,
a hard climb took us to the top of a great bare tableland, bleak and
wind-swept. We passed little alpine lakes, fringed with scattering
dwarf evergreens. Snow lay in drifts on the north sides of the gullies;
a cutting wind blew the icy rain in our faces. For two or three hours
we traveled toward the further edge of the tableland. In one place a
spike bull elk stood half a mile off, in the open; he traveled to and
fro, watching us.
As we neared the edge the storm lulled, and pale, watery sunshine
gleamed through the rifts in the low-scudding clouds. At last our
horses stood on the brink of a bold cliff. Deep down beneath our feet
lay the wild and lonely valley of Two-Ocean Pass, walled in on either
hand by rugged mountain chains, their flanks scarred and gashed by
precipice and chasm. Beyond, in a wilderness of jagged and barren
peaks, stretched the Shoshones. At the middle point of the pass, two
streams welled down from either side. At first each flowed in but one
bed, but soon divided into two; each of the twin branches then joined
the like branch of the brook opposite, and swept one to the east
and one to the west, on their long journey to the two great oceans.
They ran as rapid brooks, through wet meadows and willow-flats, the
eastern to the Yellowstone, the western to the Snake. The dark pine
forests swept down from the flanks and lower ridges of the mountains
to the edges of the marshy valley. Above them jutted gray rock peaks,
snowdrifts lying in the rents that seamed their northern faces. Far
below us, from a great basin at the foot of the cliff, filled with the
pine forest, rose the musical challenge of a bull elk; and we saw a
band of cows and calves looking like mice as they ran among the trees.
It was getting late, and after some search we failed to find any trail
leading down; so at last we plunged over the brink at a venture. It
was very rough scrambling, dropping from bench to bench, and in places
it was not only difficult but dangerous for the loaded pack-animals.
Here and there we were helped by well-beaten elk-trails, which we could
follow for several hundred yards at a time. On one narrow pine-clad
ledge, we met a spike bull face to face; and in scrambling down a very
steep, bare, rock-strewn shoulder, the loose stones started by the
horses’ hoofs, bounding in great leaps to the forest below, dislodged
two cows.
As evening fell, we reached the bottom, and pitched camp in a beautiful
point of open pine forest, thrust out into the meadow. There was good
shelter, and plenty of wood, water and grass; we built a huge fire and
put up our tents, scattering them in likely places among the pines,
which grew far apart and without undergrowth. We dried our steaming
clothes, and ate a hearty supper of elk-meat; then we turned into our
beds, warm and dry, and slept soundly under the canvas, while all night
long the storm roared without. Next morning it still stormed fitfully;
the high peaks and ridges round about were all capped with snow. Woody
and I started on foot for an all-day tramp; the amount of game seen the
day before showed that we were in a good elk country, where the elk
had been so little disturbed that they were traveling, feeding, and
whistling in daylight. For three hours we walked across the forest-clad
spurs of the foothills. We roused a small band of elk in thick timber;
but they rushed off before we saw them, with much smashing of dead
branches. Then we climbed to the summit of the range. The wind was
light and baffling; it blew from all points, veering every few minutes.
There were occasional rain-squalls; our feet and legs were well soaked;
and we became chilled through whenever we sat down to listen. We caught
a glimpse of a big bull feeding up-hill, and followed him; it needed
smart running to overtake him, for an elk, even while feeding, has a
ground-covering gait. Finally we got within a hundred and twenty-five
yards, but in very thick timber, and all I could see plainly was the
hip and the after-part of the flank. I waited for a chance at the
shoulder, but the bull got my wind and was off before I could pull
trigger. It was just one of those occasions when there are two courses
to pursue, neither very good, and when one is apt to regret whichever
decision is made.
At noon we came to the edge of a deep and wide gorge, and sat down
shivering to await what might turn up, our fingers numb, and our wet
feet icy. Suddenly the love-challenge of an elk came pealing across
the gorge, through the fine, cold rain, from the heart of the forest
opposite. An hour’s stiff climb, down and up, brought us nearly to him;
but the wind forced us to advance from below through a series of open
glades. He was lying on a point of the cliff-shoulder, surrounded by
his cows; and he saw us and made off. An hour afterward, as we were
trudging up a steep hillside dotted with groves of fir and spruce, a
young bull of ten points, roused from his day-bed by our approach,
galloped across us some sixty yards off. We were in need of better
venison than can be furnished by an old rutting bull; so I instantly
took a shot at the fat and tender young ten-pointer. I aimed well ahead
and pulled trigger just as he came to a small gully; and he fell into
it in a heap with a resounding crash. This was on the birthday of my
eldest small son; so I took him home the horns, “for his very own.” On
the way back that afternoon I shot off the heads of two blue grouse, as
they perched in the pines.
That evening the storm broke, and the weather became clear and very
cold, so that the snow made the frosty mountains gleam like silver. The
moon was full, and in the flood of light the wild scenery round our
camp was very beautiful. As always where we camped for several days, we
had fixed long tables and settles, and were most comfortable; and when
we came in at nightfall, or sometimes long afterward, cold, tired, and
hungry, it was sheer physical delight to get warm before the roaring
fire of pitchy stumps, and then to feast ravenously on bread and beans,
on stewed or roasted elk venison, on grouse and sometimes trout, and
flapjacks with maple syrup.
Next morning dawned clear and cold, the sky a glorious blue. Woody and
I started to hunt over the great tableland, and led our stout horses
up the mountain-side, by elk-trails so bad that they had to climb like
goats. All these elk-trails have one striking peculiarity. They lead
through thick timber, but every now and then send off short, well-worn
branches to some cliff-edge or jutting crag, commanding a view far
and wide over the country beneath. Elk love to stand on these lookout
points, and scan the valleys and mountains round about.
Blue grouse rose from beside our path; Clark’s crows flew past us,
with a hollow, flapping sound, or lit in the pine-tops, calling and
flirting their tails; the gray-clad whiskey-jacks, with multitudinous
cries, hopped and fluttered near us. Snowshoe rabbits scuttled away,
the big furry feet which give them their name already turning white.
At last we came out on the great plateau, seamed with deep, narrow
ravines. Reaches of pasture alternated with groves and open forests
of varying size. Almost immediately we heard the bugle of a bull elk,
and saw a big band of cows and calves on the other side of a valley.
There were three bulls with them, one very large, and we tried to creep
up on them; but the wind was baffling and spoiled our stalk. So we
returned to our horses, mounted them, and rode a mile further, toward a
large open wood on a hillside. When within two hundred yards we heard
directly ahead the bugle of a bull, and pulled up short. In a moment I
saw him walking through an open glade; he had not seen us. The slight
breeze brought us down his scent. Elk have a strong characteristic
smell; it is usually sweet, like that of a herd of Alderney cows; but
in old bulls, while rutting, it is rank, pungent, and lasting. We stood
motionless till the bull was out of sight, then stole to the wood, tied
our horses, and trotted after him. He was traveling fast, occasionally
calling; whereupon others in the neighborhood would answer. Evidently
he had been driven out of some herd by the master bull.
He went faster than we did, and while we were vainly trying to overtake
him we heard another very loud and sonorous challenge to our left. It
came from a ridge-crest at the edge of the woods, among some scattered
clumps of the northern nut-pine or pinyon--a queer conifer, growing
very high on the mountains, its multiforked trunk and wide-spreading
branches giving it the rounded top, and, at a distance, the general
look of an oak rather than a pine. We at once walked toward the
ridge, up-wind. In a minute or two, to our chagrin, we stumbled on an
outlying spike bull, evidently kept on the outskirts of the herd by the
master bull. I thought he would alarm all the rest; but, as we stood
motionless, he could not see clearly what we were. He stood, ran, stood
again, gazed at us, and trotted slowly off. We hurried forward as fast
as we dared, and with too little care; for we suddenly came in view of
two cows. As they raised their heads to look, Woody squatted down where
he was, to keep their attention fixed, while I cautiously tried to slip
off to one side unobserved. Favored by the neutral tint of my buckskin
hunting-shirt, with which my shoes, leggings, and soft hat matched, I
succeeded. As soon as I was out of sight I ran hard and came up to a
hillock crested with pinyons, behind which I judged I should find the
herd. As I approached the crest, their strong, sweet smell smote my
nostrils. In another moment I saw the tips of a pair of mighty antlers,
and I peered over the crest with my rifle at the ready. Thirty yards
off, behind a clump of pinyons, stood a huge bull, his head thrown back
as he rubbed his shoulders with his horns. There were several cows
around him, and one saw me immediately, and took alarm. I fired into
the bull’s shoulder, inflicting a mortal wound; but he went off, and
I raced after him at top speed, firing twice into his flank; then he
stopped, very sick, and I broke his neck with a fourth bullet. An elk
often hesitates in the first moments of surprise and fright, and does
not get really under way for two or three hundred yards; but, when once
fairly started, he may go several miles, even though mortally wounded;
therefore, the hunter, after his first shot, should run forward as fast
as he can, and shoot again and again until the quarry drops. In this
way many animals that would otherwise be lost are obtained, especially
by the man who has a repeating-rifle. Nevertheless, the hunter should
beware of being led astray by the ease with which he can fire half a
dozen shots from his repeater; and he should aim as carefully with each
shot as if it were his last. No possible rapidity of fire can atone for
habitual carelessness of aim with the first shot.
The elk I thus slew was a giant. His body was the size of a steer’s,
and his antlers, though not unusually long, were very massive and
heavy. He lay in a glade, on the edge of a great cliff. Standing on its
brink we overlooked a most beautiful country, the home of all homes for
the elk: a wilderness of mountains, the immense evergreen forest broken
by park and glade, by meadow and pasture, by bare hillside and barren
tableland. Some five miles off lay the sheet of water known to the
old hunters as Spotted Lake; two or three shallow, sedgy places, and
spots of geyser formation, made pale green blotches on its wind-rippled
surface. Far to the southwest, in daring beauty and majesty, the grand
domes and lofty spires of the Tetons shot into the blue sky. Too sheer
for the snow to rest on their sides, it yet filled the rents in their
rough flanks, and lay deep between the towering pinnacles of dark rock.
That night, as on more than one night afterward, a bull elk came down
whistling to within two or three hundred yards of the tents, and tried
to join the horse herd. The moon had set, so I could not go after it.
Elk are very restless and active throughout the night in the rutting
season; but where undisturbed they feed freely in the daytime, resting
for two or three hours about noon.
Next day, which was rainy, we spent in getting in the antlers and meat
of the two dead elk; and I shot off the heads of two or three blue
grouse on the way home. The following day I killed another bull elk,
following him by the strong, not unpleasing, smell, and hitting him
twice as he ran, at about eighty yards. So far I had had good luck,
killing everything I had shot at; but now the luck changed, through no
fault of mine, as far as I could see, and Ferguson had his innings. The
day after I killed this bull he shot two fine mountain rams; and during
the remainder of our hunt he killed five elk,--one cow, for meat, and
four good bulls. The two rams were with three others, all old and with
fine horns; Ferguson peeped over a lofty precipice and saw them coming
up it only fifty yards below him. His first two and finest bulls were
obtained by hard running and good shooting; the herds were on the move
at the time, and only his speed of foot and soundness of wind enabled
him to get near enough for a shot. One herd started before he got
close, and he killed the master bull by a shot right through the heart,
as it trotted past, a hundred and fifty yards distant.
As for me, during the next ten days I killed nothing save one cow
for meat; and this though I hunted hard every day from morning till
night, no matter what the weather. It was stormy, with hail and snow
almost every day; and after working hard from dawn until nightfall,
laboriously climbing the slippery mountain-sides, walking through the
wet woods, and struggling across the bare plateaus and cliff-shoulders,
while the violent blasts of wind drove the frozen rain in our faces, we
would come in after dusk wet through and chilled to the marrow. Even
when it rained in the valleys it snowed on the mountain-tops, and there
was no use trying to keep our feet dry. I got three shots at bull elk,
two being very hurried snapshots at animals running in thick timber,
the other a running-shot in the open, at over two hundred yards; and I
missed all three. On most days I saw no bull worth shooting; the two
or three I did see or hear we failed to stalk, the light, shifty wind
baffling us, or else an outlying cow which we had not seen giving the
alarm. There were many blue and a few ruffed grouse in the woods, and
I occasionally shot off the heads of a couple on my way homeward in
the evening. In racing after one elk, I leaped across a gully and so
bruised and twisted my heel on a rock that, for the remainder of my
stay in the mountains, I had to walk on the fore part of that foot.
This did not interfere much with my walking, however, except in going
down-hill.
Our ill success was in part due to sheer bad luck; but the chief
element therein was the presence of a great hunting-party of Shoshone
Indians. Split into bands of eight or ten each, they scoured the
whole country on their tough, sure-footed ponies. They always hunted
on horseback, and followed the elk at full speed wherever they went.
Their method of hunting was to organize great drives, the riders
strung in lines far apart; they signaled to one another by means of
willow whistles, with which they also imitated the calling of the bull
elk, thus tolling the animals to them, or making them betray their
whereabouts. As they slew whatever they could, but by preference cows
and calves, and as they were very persevering, but also very excitable
and generally poor shots, so that they wasted much powder, they not
only wrought havoc among the elk, but also scared the survivors out of
all the country over which they hunted.
Day in and day out we plodded on. In a hunting trip the days of long
monotony in getting to the ground, and the days of unrequited toil
after it has been reached, always far outnumber the red-letter days
of success. But it is just these times of failure that really test a
hunter. In the long run, common sense and dogged perseverance avail him
more than any other qualities. The man who does not give up, but hunts
steadily and resolutely through the spells of bad luck until the luck
turns, is the man who wins success in the end.
After a week at Two-Ocean Pass, we gathered our pack-animals one frosty
morning, and again set off across the mountains. A two-days’ jaunt took
us to the summit of Wolverine Pass, near Pinyon Peak, beside a little
mountain tarn; each morning we found its surface skimmed with black
ice, for the nights were cold. After three or four days, we shifted
camp to the mouth of Wolverine Creek, to get off the hunting grounds of
the Indians. We had used up our last elk-meat that morning, and when we
were within a couple of hours’ journey of our intended halting-place,
Woody and I struck off on foot for a hunt. Just before sunset we came
on three or four elk; a spike bull stood for a moment behind some thick
evergreens a hundred yards off. Guessing at his shoulder, I fired, and
he fell dead after running a few rods. I had broken the luck, after ten
days of ill success.
Next morning Woody and I, with the packer, rode to where this elk lay.
We loaded the meat on a pack-horse, and let the packer take both the
loaded animal and our own saddle-horses back to camp, while we made
a hunt on foot. We went up the steep, forest-clad mountain-side, and
before we had walked an hour heard two elk whistling ahead of us. The
woods were open, and quite free from undergrowth, and we were able to
advance noiselessly; there was no wind, for the weather was still,
clear and cold. Both of the elk were evidently very much excited,
answering each other continually; they had probably been master bulls,
but had become so exhausted that their rivals had driven them from
the herds, forcing them to remain in seclusion until they regained
their lost strength. As we crept stealthily forward, the calling grew
louder and louder, until we could hear the grunting sounds with which
the challenge of the nearest ended. He was in a large wallow, which
was also a lick. When we were still sixty yards off, he heard us, and
rushed out, but wheeled and stood a moment to gaze, puzzled by my
buckskin suit. I fired into his throat, breaking his neck, and down
he went in a heap. Rushing in and turning, I called to Woody, “He’s a
twelve-pointer, but the horns are small!” As I spoke I heard the roar
of the challenge of the other bull not two hundred yards ahead, as if
in defiant answer to my shot.
Running quietly forward, I speedily caught a glimpse of his body. He
was behind some fir-trees about seventy yards off, and I could not
see which way he was standing, and so fired into the patch of flank
which was visible, aiming high, to break the back. My aim was true,
and the huge beast crashed down hill through the evergreens, pulling
himself on his fore legs for fifteen or twenty rods, his hind quarters
trailing. Racing forward, I broke his neck. His antlers were the finest
I ever got. A couple of whiskey-jacks appeared at the first crack of
the rifle with their customary astonishing familiarity and heedlessness
of the hunter; they followed the wounded bull as he dragged his great
carcass down the hill, and pounced with ghoulish bloodthirstiness on
the gouts of blood that were sprinkled over the green herbage.
These two bulls lay only a couple of hundred yards apart, on a broad
game-trail, which was as well beaten as a good bridle-path. We began
to skin out the heads; and as we were finishing we heard another bull
challenging far up the mountain. He came nearer and nearer, and as soon
as we had ended our work we grasped our rifles and trotted toward him
along the game-trail. He was very noisy, uttering his loud, singing
challenge every minute or two. The trail was so broad and firm that we
walked in perfect silence. After going only five or six hundred yards,
we got very close indeed, and stole forward on tiptoe, listening to
the roaring music. The sound came from a steep, narrow ravine, to one
side of the trail, and I walked toward it with my rifle at the ready.
A slight puff gave the elk my wind, and he dashed out of the ravine
like mad; but he was only thirty yards off, and my bullet went into his
shoulder as he passed behind a clump of young spruce. I plunged into
the ravine, scrambled out of it, and raced after him. In a minute I
saw him standing with drooping head, and two more shots finished him.
He also bore fine antlers. It was a great piece of luck to get three
such fine bulls at the cost of half a day’s light work; but we had
fairly earned them, having worked hard for ten days, through rain,
cold, hunger, and fatigue, to no purpose. That evening my home-coming
to camp, with three elk-tongues and a brace of ruffed grouse hung at my
belt, was most happy.
Next day it snowed, but we brought a pack-pony to where the three great
bulls lay, and took their heads to camp; the flesh was far too strong
to be worth taking, for it was just the height of the rut.
This was the end of my hunt; and a day later Hofer and I, with two
pack-ponies, made a rapid push for the Upper Geyser Basin. We traveled
fast. The first day was gray and overcast, a cold wind blowing strong
in our faces. Toward evening we came on a bull elk in a willow thicket;
he was on his knees in a hollow, thrashing and beating the willows with
his antlers. At dusk we halted and went into camp, by some small pools
on the summit of the pass north of Red Mountain. The elk were calling
all around us. We pitched our cosey tent, dragged great stumps for the
fire, cut evergreen boughs for our beds, watered the horses, tethered
them to improvised picket-pins in a grassy glade, and then set about
getting supper ready. The wind had gone down, and snow was falling
thick in large, soft flakes; we were evidently at the beginning of a
heavy snowstorm. All night we slept soundly in our snug tent. When we
arose at dawn there was a foot and a half of snow on the ground, and
the flakes were falling as fast as ever. There is no more tedious work
than striking camp in bad weather; and it was over two hours from the
time we rose to the time we started. It is sheer misery to untangle
picket lines and to pack animals when the ropes are frozen; and by the
time we had loaded the two shivering, wincing pack-ponies, and had
bridled and saddled our own riding-animals, our hands and feet were
numb and stiff with cold, though we were really hampered by our warm
clothing. My horse was a wild, nervous roan, and as I swung carelessly
into the saddle, he suddenly began to buck before I got my right leg
over, and threw me off. My thumb was put out of joint. I pulled it in
again, and speedily caught my horse in the dead timber. Then I treated
him as what the cowboys call a “mean horse,” and mounted him carefully,
so as not to let him either buck or go over backward. However, his
preliminary success had inspirited him, and a dozen times that day he
began to buck, usually choosing a down grade, where the snow was deep,
and there was much fallen timber.
All day long we pushed steadily through the cold, blinding snowstorm.
Neither squirrels nor rabbits were abroad; and a few Clark’s crows,
whiskey-jacks and chickadees were the only living things we saw. At
nightfall, chilled through, we reached the Upper Geyser Basin. Here
I met a party of railroad surveyors and engineers, coming in from
their summer’s field work. One of them lent me a saddle-horse and
a pack-pony, and we went on together, breaking our way through the
snow-choked roads to the Mammoth Hot Springs, while Hofer took my own
horses back to Ferguson.
I have described this hunt at length because, though I enjoyed it
particularly on account of the comfort in which we traveled and the
beauty of the land, yet, in point of success in finding and killing
game, in value of trophies procured, and in its alternations of good
and bad luck, it may fairly stand as the type of a dozen such hunts I
have made. Twice I have been much more successful; the difference being
due to sheer luck, as I hunted equally hard in all three instances.
Thus on this trip I killed and saw nothing but elk; yet the other
members of the party either saw, or saw fresh signs of, not only
blacktail deer, but sheep, bear, bison, moose, cougar, and wolf. Now in
1889 I hunted over almost precisely similar country, only further to
the northwest, on the boundary between Idaho and Montana, and, with the
exception of sheep, I stumbled on all the animals mentioned, and white
goat in addition, so that my bag of twelve head actually included
eight species--much the best bag I ever made, and the only one that
could really be called out of the common. In 1884, on a trip to the
Bighorn Mountains, I killed three bear, six elk and six deer. In laying
in the winter stock of meat for my ranch I often far excelled these
figures as far as mere numbers went; but on no other regular hunting
trip, where the quality and not the quantity of the game was the prime
consideration, have I ever equaled them; and on several where I worked
hardest I hardly averaged a head a week. The occasional days or weeks
of phenomenal luck are more than earned by the many others where no
luck whatever follows the very hardest work. Yet if a man hunts with
steady resolution he is apt to strike enough lucky days amply to repay
him for his trouble.
On this Shoshone trip I fired fifty-eight shots. In preference to
using the knife I generally break the neck of an elk which is still
struggling; and I fire at one as long as it can stand, preferring
to waste a few extra bullets, rather than see an occasional head of
game escape. In consequence of these two traits the nine elk I got
(two running at sixty and eighty yards, the others standing, at from
thirty to a hundred) cost me twenty-three bullets; and I missed three
shots--all three, it is but fair to say, difficult ones. I also cut off
the heads of seventeen grouse, with twenty-two shots; and killed two
ducks with ten shots--fifty-eight in all. On the Bighorn trip I used a
hundred and two cartridges. On no other trip did I use fifty.
To me still-hunting elk in the mountains, when they are calling, is
one of the most attractive of sports, not only because of the size and
stately beauty of the quarry and the grand nature of the trophy, but
because of the magnificence of the scenery, and the stirring, manly,
exciting nature of the chase itself. It yields more vigorous enjoyment
than does lurking stealthily through the grand but gloomy monotony
of the marshy woodland where dwells the moose. The climbing among
the steep forest-clad and glade-strewn mountains is just difficult
enough thoroughly to test soundness in wind and limb, while without
the heart-breaking fatigue of white-goat hunting. The actual grapple
with an angry grisly is of course far more full of strong, eager
pleasure; but bear hunting is the most uncertain, and usually the least
productive, of sports.
As regards strenuous, vigorous work, and pleasurable excitement, the
chase of the bighorn alone stands higher. But the bighorn, grand beast
of the chase though he be, is surpassed in size, both of body and of
horns, by certain of the giant sheep of Central Asia; whereas the
wapiti is not only the most stately and beautiful of American game--far
more so than the bison and moose, his only rivals in size--but is also
the noblest of the stag kind throughout the world. Whoever kills him
has killed the chief of his race; for he stands far above his brethren
of Asia and Europe.