it into groceries, set out for the poor home that soon would be lost to
him, and as he rode he did some hard and gloomy thinking. On his wrist
there hung a wonderful Indian quirt of plaited rawhide and horsehair
with beads on the shaft, and a band of Elk teeth on the butt. It was a
pet of his, and "good medicine," for a flat piece of elkhorn let in the
middle was perforated with a hole, through which the distant landscape
was seen much clearer--a well-known law, an ancient trick, but it made
the quirt prized as a thing of rare virtue, and Josh had refused good
offers for it. Then a figure afoot was seen, and coming nearer, it
turned out to be a friend, Jack Day, out a-gunning with a .22 rifle. But
game was scarce and Jack was returning to Gardiner empty-handed and
disgusted. They stopped for a moment's greeting when Day said: "Huntin's
played out now. How'll you swap that quirt for my rifle?" A month before
Josh would have scorned the offer. A ten-dollar quirt for a five-dollar
rifle, but now he said briefly: "For rifle with cover, tools and
ammunition complete, I'll go ye." So the deal was made and in an hour
Josh was home. He stabled Grizzle, the last of their saddle stock, and
entered.
[Illustration]
Love and sorrow dwelt in the widow's home, but the return of Josh
brought its measure of joy. Mother prepared the regular meal of tea,
potatoes, and salt pork; there was a time when they had soared as high
as canned goods, but those prosperous days were gone. Josh was dandling
baby sister on his lap as he told of his trip, and he learned of two
things of interest: First, the bank must have its money by February;
second, the stable at Gardiner wanted a driver for the Cook City stage.
Then the little events moved quickly. His half-formed plan of getting
back to the Canyon was now frustrated by the new opening, and, besides
this, hope had been dampened by the casual word of one who reported that
"that Silver Fox had not been seen since at the Canyon."
Then began long days of dreary driving through the snow, with a noon
halt at Yancey's and then three days later the return, in the cold, the
biting cold. It was freezing work, but coldest of all was the chill
thought at his heart that February 1st would see him homeless.
[Illustration]
Small bands of Mountain Sheep he saw at times on the slope of Evarts,
and a few Blacktail, and later, when the winter deepened, huge bull Elk
were seen along the trail. Sometimes they moved not more than a few
paces to let him pass. These were everyday things to him, but in the
second week of his winter work he got a sudden thrill. He was coming
down the long hill back of Yancey's when what should he see there,
sitting on its tail, shiny black with yellow eyes like a huge black cat
unusually long and sharp in the nose, but a wonderful Silver Fox!
Possibly the same as the one he saw at the Canyon, for that one he knew
had disappeared and there were not likely to be two in the Park. Yes, it
might be the same, and Josh's bosom surged with mingled feelings. Why
did he not carry that little gun? Why did he not realize? Were the
thoughts that came--$500! A noble chance! broad daylight only
twenty-five yards! and gone!
The Fox was still there when Josh drove on. On the next trip he brought
the little rifle. He had sawed off the stock so he could hide it easily
in his overcoat if need be. No man knew that he carried arms, but the
Foxes seemed to know. The Red ones kept afar and the Black one came no
more. Day after day he drove and hoped but the Black Fox has cunning
measured to his value. He came not, or if he came, was wisely hidden,
and so the month went by, till late in the cold Moon of Snow he heard
old Yancey, say "There's a Silver Fox bin a-hanging around the stable
this last week. Leastwise Dave says he seen him." There were soldiers
sitting around that stove, game guardians of the Park, and still more
dangerous, a scout, the soldiers' guide, a mountaineer. Josh turned not
an inch, he made no sound in response, but his heart gave a jump. Half
an hour later he went out to bed his horses for the night, and peering
around the stable he saw a couple of shadowy forms that silently shifted
until swallowed by the gloom.
Then the soldiers came to bed their horses, and Josh went back to the
stove. His big driving coat hung with the little sawed-off rifle in the
long pocket. He waited till the soldiers one by one went up the ladder
to the general bunk-room. He rose again, got the lantern, lighted it,
carried it out behind the lonely stable. The horses were grinding their
hay, the stars were faintly lighting the snow. There was no one about as
he hung the lantern under the eaves outside so that it could be seen
from the open valley, but not from the house.
[Illustration]
A faint _Yap-yah_, of a Fox was heard on the piney hillside, as he lay
down on the hay in the loft, but there were no signs of life on the
snow. He had come to wait all night if need be, and waited. The lantern
might allure, it might scare, but it was needed in this gloom, and it
tinged the snow with faint yellow light below him. An hour went by, then
a big-tailed form came near and made a little bark at the lantern. It
looked very dark, but it had a paler patch on the throat. This waiting
was freezing work; Josh's teeth were chattering in spite of his
overcoat. Another gray form came, then a much larger black one shaped
itself on the white. It dashed at the first, which fled, and the second
one followed but a little, and then sat down on the snow, gazing at that
bright light. When you are sure, you are _so_ sure--Josh knew him now,
he was facing the Silver Fox. But the light was dim. Josh's hand
trembled as he bared it to lay the back on his lips and suck so as to
make a mousey squeak. The effect on the Fox was instant. He glided
forward intent as a hunting cat. Again he stood in, oh! such a wonderful
pose, still as a statue, frozen like a hiding partridge, unbudging as a
lone kid Antelope in May. And Josh raised--yes, he had come for that--he
raised that fatal gun. The lantern blazed in the Fox's face at twenty
yards; the light was flung back doubled by its shining eyes; it looked
perfectly clear. Josh lined the gun, but, strange to tell, the sights so
plain were lost at once, and the gun was shaking like a sorghum stalk
while the Gopher gnaws its root.
[Illustration]
He laid the weapon down with a groan, cursed his own poor trembling
hand, and in an instant the wonder Fox was gone.
Poor Josh! He wasn't bad-tongued, but now he used all the evil words he
had ever heard, and he was Western bred. Then he reacted on himself.
"The Fox might come back!" Suddenly he remembered something. He got out
a common sulphur match. He wet it on his lips and rubbed it on the
muzzle sight: Then on each side of the notch on the breech sight. He
lined it for a tree. Yes! surely! What had been a blur of blackness had
now a visible form.
A faint bark on a far hillside might mean a coming or a going Fox. Josh
waited five minutes, then again he squeaked on his bare hand. The effect
was a surprise when from the shelter of the stable wall ten feet below
there leaped the great dark Fox. At fifteen feet it paused. Those yellow
orbs were fiery in the light and the rifle sights with the specks of
fire were lined. There was a sharp report and the black-robed fur was
still and limp in the snow.
Who can tell the crack of a small rifle among the louder cracks of green
logs splitting with the fierce frost of a Yellowstone winter's night?
Why should travel-worn, storm-worn travellers wake at each slight,
usual sound? Who knows? Who cares?
* * * * *
And afar in Livingston what did the fur dealer care? It was a great
prize--or the banker? he got his five hundred, and mother found it easy
to accept the Indians' creed: "Who owns wild beasts? The man who kills
them."
"I did not know how it would come," she said; "I only knew it would
come, for I prayed and believed."
We know that it came when it meant the most. The house was saved. It was
the turn in their fortune's tide, and the crucial moment of the change
was when those three bright sulphur spots were lined with the living
lamps in the head of the Silver Fox. Yes! Josh was a poacher. Just once.
[Illustration]
THE VILLAIN IN VELVET--THE MARTEN
This beautiful animal, the Sable of America, with its rich brown fur and
its golden throat, comes naturally after the Silver Fox, for such is the
relative value of their respective coats.
The Fox is a small wild dog; the Marten is a large tree Weasel. It is a
creature of amazing agility, so much so that it commonly runs down the
Red-squirrel among the tree tops.
Its food consists mainly of mice and Squirrels, but it kills Rabbits and
Grouse when it can find them, and sometimes even feasts on game of a far
more noble size.
Tom Newcomb, my old guide, has given me an interesting note on the
Marten, made while he was acting as hunting guide in the Shoshoni
Mountains.
In October, 1911, he was out with Baron D' Epsen and his party, hunting
on Miller Creek east of Yellowstone Park. They shot at a Deer. It ran
off as though unharmed, but turned to run down hill, and soon the snow
showed that it was spurting blood on both sides. They followed for three
or four hundred yards, and then the Deer track was joined by the tracks
of five Marten. In a few minutes they found the Deer down and the five
Marten, a family probably, darting about in the near trees, making their
peculiar soft purr as though in anticipation of the feast, which was
delayed only by the coming of the hunters. These attempts to share with
the killers of big game are often seen.
[Illustration]
THE INDUSTRIOUS BEAVER
In some respects the Beaver is the most notable animal in the West. It
was the search for Beaver skins that led adventurers to explore the
Rocky Mountains, and to open up the whole northwest of the United
States and Canada. It is the Beaver to-day that is the chief incentive
to poachers in the Park, but above all the Beaver is the animal that
most manifests its intelligence by its works, forestalls man in much of
his best construction, and amazes us by the well-considered labour of
its hands.
[Illustration: VII. Beaver: (a) Pond and house; (b) Stumps of tree cut
and removed by Beaver, near Yancey's, 1897
_Photos by E. T. Seton_]
[Illustration: VIII. Mule-deer
_Photo by E. T. Seton_]
[Illustration]
There was a time when the Beaver's works and wisdom were so new and
astounding that super-human intelligence was ascribed to this fur-clad
engineer. Then the scoffers came and reduced him to the low level of his
near kin, and explained the accounts of his works as mere fairy tales.
Now we have got back to the middle of the road. We find him a creature
of intelligence far above that of his near kinsmen, and endowed with
some extraordinary instincts that guide him in making dams, houses,
etc., that are unparalleled in the animal world. Here are the principal
deliberate constructions of the Beaver: First the lodge. The Beaver was
the original inventor of reinforced concrete. He has used it for a
million years, in the form of mud mixed with sticks and stones, for
building his lodge and dam. The lodge is the home of the family; that
is, it shelters usually one old male, one old female and sundry
offspring. It is commonly fifteen to twenty feet across outside, and
three to five feet high. Within is a chamber about two feet high and six
feet across, well above water and provided with a ventilator through the
roof, also two entering passages under water, one winding for ordinary
traffic, and one straight for carrying in wood, whose bark is a staple
food. This house is kept perfectly tidy, and when the branch is stripped
of all eatable parts, it is taken out and worked into the dam, which is
a crooked bank of mud and sticks across the running stream. It holds the
water so as to moat the Beaver Castle.
[Illustration]
But the canal is one of this animal's most interesting undertakings. It
is strictly a freight canal for bringing in food-logs, and is dug out
across level ground toward the standing timber.
Canals are commonly three or four hundred feet long, about three feet
wide and two feet deep. There was a small but good example at Yancey's
in 1897; it was only seventy feet long. The longest I ever saw was in
the Adirondacks, N. Y.; it was six hundred and fifty-four feet in length
following the curves, two or three feet wide and about two feet deep.
Three other Beaver structures should be noticed. One, the dock or plunge
hole, which is a deep place by a sharply raised bank, both made with
careful manual labour. Next, the sunning place, generally an ant-hill
on which the Beaver lies to enjoy a sun-bath, while the ants pick the
creepers out of his fur. Third, the mud-pie. This is a little patty of
mud mixed with a squeeze of the castor or body-scent glands. It answers
the purpose of a register, letting all who call know that so and so has
recently been here.
The chief food of the Beaver, at least its favourite food, is aspen,
also called quaking asp or poplar; where there are no poplars there are
no Beavers.
THE DAM
Usually the Beavers start a dam on some stream, right opposite a good
grove of poplars. When these are all cut down and the bark used for
food, the Beaver makes a second dam on the same stream, always with a
view to having deep water for safety, close by poplars for food. In this
way I found the Beavers at Yancey's in 1897 had constructed thirteen
dams in succession. But when I examined the ground again in 1912, the
dams were broken, the ponds all dry. Why? The answer is very simple. The
Beavers had used up all the food. Instead of the little aspen groves
there were now nothing but stumps, and the Beavers had moved elsewhere.
[Illustration: Beaver using his Tail as a Trowel]
Similarly in 1897 the largest Beaver pond in the Park was at Obsidian
Cliff. I should say the dam there was over four hundred yards long. But
now it is broken and the pond is drained. And the reason as before--the
Beavers used all the food and moved on. Of course the dam is soon broken
when the hardworking ones are not there in their eternal vigilance to
keep it tight.
There are many good Beaver ponds near Yancey's now and probably made by
the same colonies of Beavers as those I studied there.
Last September I found a fine lots of dams and dammers on the southeast
side of Yellowstone Lake where you may go on a camera hunt with
certainty of getting Beaver pictures. Yes, in broad daylight.
Let me correct here some popular errors about the Beaver:
It does not use its tail as a trowel.
It does not use big logs in building a dam.
It does not and cannot drive stakes.
It cannot throw a tree in any given way.
It finishes the lodge outside with sticks, not mud.
THE OTTER AND HIS SLIDE
[Illustration]
Every one of us that ever was a small boy and rejoiced in belly-bumping
down some icy hill, on a sled of glorious red, should have a brotherly
sympathy for the Otter.
While in a large sense this beautiful animal belongs to the Weasel
family, it has so far progressed that it is one of the merriest,
best-natured, unsanguinary creatures that ever caught their prey alive.
This may be largely owing to the fact that it has taken entirely to a
fish diet; for without any certain knowledge of the reason, we observe
that fisherfolk are gentler than hunterfolk, and the Otter among his
Weasel kin affords a good illustration of this.
We find the animals going through much the same stages as we do. First,
the struggle for food, then for mates, and later, when they have no
cause to worry about either, they seek for entertainment. Quite a number
of our animals have invented amusements. Usually these are mere games of
tag, catch, or tussle, but some have gone farther and have a regular
institution, with a set place to meet, and apparatus provided. This is
the highest form of all, and one of the best illustrations of it is
found in the jovial Otter. Coasting is an established game with this
animal; and probably every individual of the species frequents some
Otter slide. This is any convenient steep hill or bank, sloping down
into deep water, prepared by much use, and worn into a smooth shoot
that becomes especially serviceable when snow or ice are there to act as
lightning lubricants. And here the Otters will meet, old and young, male
and female, without any thought but the joy of fun together, and shoot
down one after the other, swiftly, and swifter still, as the hill grows
smooth with use, and plump into the water and out again; and chase each
other with little animal gasps of glee, each striving to make the shoot
more often and more quickly than the others. And all of this charming
scene, this group and their merry game, is unquestionably for the simple
social joy of being together in an exercise which gives to them the
delicious, exhilarating sensation of speeding through space without
either violence or effort. In fact, for the very same reason that you
and I went coasting when we were boys.
Do not fail to get one of the guides to show you the Otter slides as you
travel about the lake. Some of them are good and some are poor. The very
best are seen after the snow has come, but still you can see them with
your own eyes, and if you are very lucky and very patient you may be
rewarded by the sight of these merry creatures indulging in a game which
closely parallels so many of our own.
* * * * *
IV
Horns and Hoofs and Legs of Speed
* * * * *
IV
Horns and Hoofs and Legs of Speed
THE BOUNDING BLACKTAIL
When Lewis and Clark reached the Big Sioux River in Dakota, on their
famous journey up the Missouri, one hundred and ten years ago, they met,
on the very edge and beginning of its range, the Mule Deer, and added
the new species to their collection.
It is the characteristic Deer of the rough country from Mexico to
British Columbia, and from California to Manitoba; and is one of the
kinds most easily observed in the Yellowstone Sanctuary.
[Illustration]
Driving from Gardiner, passing under the Great Tower of Eagle Rock on
which an Osprey has nested year after year as far back as the records
go, and wheeling into the open space in front of the Mammoth Hot Springs
Hotel, one is almost sure to come on a family of Deer wandering across
the lawn, or posing among the shrubbery, with all the artless grace of
the truly wild creature. These are the representatives of several
hundred that collect in fall on and about this lawn, but are now
scattered for the summer season over the adjoining hills, to come again,
no doubt in increased numbers, when the first deep snow shall warn them
to seek their winter range.
Like the other animals, these are natives of the region and truly wild,
but so educated by long letting alone that it is easy to approach within
a few yards.
The camera hunter should not fail to use this opportunity, not only
because they are wild and beautiful things, but because he can have the
films developed at the hotel over night, and so find out how his camera
is behaving in this new light and surroundings.
[Illustration]
This is the common Blacktailed Deer of the hill country, called Mule
Deer on account of its huge ears and the shape of its tail. In Canada I
knew it by the name of "Jumping Deer," from its gait, and in the Rockies
it is familiar as the "Bounding Blacktail"--"Bounding" because of the
wonderful way in which it strikes the ground with its legs held stiffly,
then rises in the air with little apparent effort, and lands some ten or
fifteen feet away. As the hunters say, "The Blacktail hits only the high
places in the landscape." On the level it does not run so well as the
Antelope or the Whitetailed Deer, and I often wondered why it had
adopted this laborious mode of speeding, which seemed so inferior to the
normal pace of its kin. But at length I was eyewitness of an episode
that explained the puzzle.
THE MOTHER BLACKTAIL'S RACE FOR LIFE
[Illustration]
In the fall of 1897 I was out for a Wolf hunt with the Eaton boys in the
Badlands near Medora, N. D. We had a fine mixed pack of dogs, trailers,
runners, and fighters. The runners were thoroughbred greyhounds, that
could catch any four-foot on the plains except perhaps a buck Antelope;
that I saw them signally fail in. But a Wolf, or even the swift Coyote,
had no chance of getting away from them provided they could keep him in
view. We started one of these singers of the plains, and at first he set
off trusting to his legs, but the greyhounds were after him, and when he
saw his long start shrinking so fearfully fast he knew that his legs
could not save him, that now was the time for wits to enter the game.
And this entry he made quickly and successfully by dropping out of sight
down a brushy canyon, so the greyhounds saw him no more.
Then they were baffled by Prairie-dogs which dodged down out of reach
and hawks which rose up out of reach, and still we rode, till, rounding
a little knoll near a drinking place, we came suddenly on a mother
Blacktail and her two fawns. All three swung their big ears and eyes
into full bearing on us, and we reined our horses and tried to check our
dogs, hoping they had not seen the quarry that we did not wish to harm.
But Bran the leader gave a yelp, then leaping high over the sage,
directed all the rest, and in a flash it was a life and death race.
Again and frantically the elder Eaton yelled "Come back!" and his
brother tried to cut across and intercept the hounds. But a creature
that runs away is an irresistible bait to a greyhound, and the chase
across the sage-covered flat was on, with every nerve and tendon
strained.
[Illustration: X. Blacktail Family
_Photo by E. T. Seton_]
Away went the Blacktail, bounding, bounding at that famous beautiful,
birdlike, soaring pace, mother and young tapping the ground and sailing
to land, and tap and sail again. And away went the greyhounds, low
coursing, outstretched, bounding like bolts from a crossbow, curving but
little and dropping only to be shot again. They were straining hard; the
Blacktail seemed to be going more easily, far more beautifully. But
alas! they were losing time. The greyhounds were closing; in vain we
yelled at them. We spurred our horses, hoping to cut them off, hoping to
stop the ugly, lawless tragedy. But the greyhounds were frantic now. The
distance between Bran and the hindmost fawn was not forty feet. Then
Eaton drew his revolver and fired shots over the greyhounds' heads,
hoping to scare them into submission, but they seemed to draw fresh
stimulus from each report, and yelped and bounded faster. A little more
and the end would be. Then we saw a touching sight. The hindmost fawn
let out a feeble bleat of distress, and the mother, heeding, dropped
back between. It looked like choosing death, for now she had not twenty
feet of lead. I wanted Eaton to use his gun on the foremost hound, when
something unexpected happened. The flat was crossed, the Blacktail
reached a great high butte, and tapping with their toes they soared some
fifteen feet and tapped again; and tapped and tapped and soared, and so
they went like hawks that are bounding in the air, and the greyhounds,
peerless on the plain, were helpless on the butte. Yes! rush as they
might and did, and bounded and clomb, but theirs was not the way of the
hills. In twenty heartbeats they were left behind. The Blacktail mother
with her twins kept on and soared and lightly soared till lost to view,
and all were safely hidden in their native hills.
[Illustration: XI. Blacktail mother with her twins
_Photo by E. T. Seton_]
THE BLACKTAIL'S SAFETY IS IN THE HILLS
That day I learned the reason for the bounding flight, so beautiful, but
not the best or swiftest on the plain, yet the one that gives them
dominion and safety on the hills, that makes of them a hill folk that
the dangers of the plain can never reach.
So now, O traveller in the Park, if you approach too near the Blacktail
feeding near the great hotel, and so alarm them--for they are truly
wild--they make not for the open run as do the Antelope and the Hares,
not for the thickest bottomland as do the Whitetail and the Lynxes, but
for the steeper hillsides. They know right well where their safety lies,
and on that near and bushy bank, laying aside all alarm, they group and
pose in artless grace that tempts one to a lavish use of films and gives
the chance for that crowning triumph of the art, a wild animal group,
none of which is looking at the camera.
One more characteristic incident: In 1897 I was riding, with my wife,
from Yancey's over to Baronett's Bridge, when we came on a young buck
Blacktail. Now, said I, "I am going to show you the most wonderful and
beautiful thing to be seen in the way of wild life speeding. You shall
now see the famous bounding of the Blacktail." Then I spurred out after
the young buck, knowing that all he needed was a little alarm to make
him perform. Did he take alarm and run? Not at all. He was in the
Yellowstone Sanctuary. He knew nothing of guns or dogs; he had lived all
his life in safety. He would trot a few steps out of my way, then turn
and gaze at me, but run, bound, and make for the high land, not a bit of
it. And to this day my fair companion has not seen the Blacktail
bounding up the hills.