Going to Water.

American Big-Game Hunting

The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club

EDITORS
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL

NEW-YORK
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING CO.
1901
Copyright, 1893, by the
Forest and Stream Publishing Co.

Contents

Page
The Boone and Crockett Club [9]
The Editors.
A Buffalo Story [19]
George S. Anderson.
The White Goat and his Country [26]
Owen Wister.
A Day with the Elk [61]
Winthrop Chanler.
Old Times in the Black Hills [73]
Roger D. Williams.
Big Game in the Rockies [90]
Archibald Rogers.
Coursing the Prongbuck [129]
Theodore Roosevelt.
After Wapiti in Wyoming [140]
F. C. Crocker.
In Buffalo Days [155]
George Bird Grinnell.
Nights with the Grizzlies [212]
W. D. Pickett.
The Yellowstone Park as a Game Reservation [240]
Arnold Hague.
A Mountain Fraud [271]
Dean Sage.
Blacktails in the Bad Lands [287]
Bronson Rumsey.
Photographing Wild Game [299]
W. B. Devereux.
Literature of American Big-Game Hunting [319]
Our Forest Reservations [326]
The Club Exhibit at the World's Fair [334]
Constitution and By-Laws of the Club [337]
List of Members [340]

The sketches entitled Big Game in the Rockies, and In Buffalo Days, have already appeared in Scribner's Magazine, and are here reprinted by kind permission of Charles Scribner's Sons. Nights with the Grizzlies has appeared in the Forest and Stream, and is reprinted by permission of the Forest and Stream Publishing Co.

List of Illustrations

Going to Water [Frontispiece]
From Scribner's Magazine.
Facing page
The Master of the Herd [19]
From Scribner's Magazine.
On the Slide Rock [46]
Photographed from nature in the Chief Mountain country, Montana, by William H. Seward, Jr.
From the Forest and Stream.
On the Heights [91]
From Scribner's Magazine.
Stalking the Stalker [99]
From Scribner's Magazine.
Studying the Strangers [105]
From Scribner's Magazine.
Crossing a Drift [115]
From Scribner's Magazine.
Two Pairs [117]
From Scribner's Magazine.
At Mid-day [160]
From Scribner's Magazine.
Blackfoot Indian Piskun [184]
From Scribner's Magazine.
Through the Mist [197]
From Scribner's Magazine.
Prospecting for Grub [214]
From Scribner's Magazine.
The Buffalo of the Timber [240]
Photographed from life in the Yellowstone
National Park by John Fossam. From the
Forest and Stream.
A Mountain Pasture [254]
Photographed from life in the Yellowstone National Park by W. H. Weed.
Buffalo Cows and Calves [264]
Photographed from life in the Yellowstone National Park by John Fossam. From the Forest and Stream.
Resting [294]
Photographed from life by T. G. Ingersoll. From the Forest and Stream.

The illustrations from Scribner's Magazine are reproduced by kind permission of Charles Scribner's Sons; those from the Forest and Stream by permission of the Forest and Stream Publishing Company.

The Boone and Crockett Club

The aims of The Boone and Crockett Club are sufficiently set forth in Article II of its Constitution, which reads as follows:

The objects of the Club shall be:

1. To promote manly sport with the rifle.

2. To promote travel and exploration in the wild and unknown, or but partially known, portions of the country.

3. To work for the preservation of the large game of this country, and, so far as possible, to further legislation for that purpose, and to assist in enforcing the existing laws.

4. To promote inquiry into and to record observations on the habits and natural history of the various wild animals.

5. To bring about among the members the interchange of opinions and ideas on hunting, travel, exploration, on the various kinds of hunting-rifles, on the haunts of game animals, etc.

The Club is organized primarily to promote manly sport with the rifle among the large game of the wilderness, to encourage travel and exploration in little-known regions of our country, and to work for game and forest preservation by the State. Attention has been paid to all three points by the Club, but especially to sport and protection. Nevertheless exploration has not been neglected. In a trip after wilderness game the hunter is perforce obliged to traverse and explore little-known regions, at least when he is in search of the rarer animals, or is desirous of reaching the best hunting-grounds; and in addition to such exploration, which is merely incidental to the ordinary hunting trip, members of the Club have done not a little original exploration for its own sake, including surveying, and geographical and geological map-making. The results of these explorations, when sufficiently noteworthy, have appeared in periodicals devoted to such subjects, or in Government reports. The present volume is devoted to big-game hunting and to questions of game preservation.

In behalf of game protection the Club works through the State for the procuring and setting apart of reservations where forests and game alike shall be protected at all seasons by the law. These great forest reservations thus become the nurseries and breeding-grounds of game and of the large wild animals which are elsewhere inevitably exterminated by the march of settlement. Already several such reservations have been established in different States, both by National and by State action—for instance, the Adirondack Reserve in New York, the Colorado Cañon Reserve in Arizona, the big timber reserves in Colorado and Washington, the island set apart in Alaska as an undisturbed breeding-ground for salmon and sea-fowl, the Yosemite Valley and the Sequoia Parks in California. The most important reservation, however, is the Yellowstone Park, which is owned by the National Government, and is the last refuge of the buffalo in this country, besides being the chief home of the elk and of many other wild beasts. This is the most striking and typical of all these reserves, and has been thought well worth special description in the present volume, with reference to its effects upon the preservation of game.

The enactment of laws prohibiting the killing of game anywhere, save at certain seasons and under certain conditions, must be left largely to the States themselves; and among the States there is the widest possible difference both as to the laws and as to the way they are enforced. It is enforcement which needs most attention. Very many of the States have good game laws, but in very few are they rigidly enforced. Maine offers a striking instance of how well they work when properly framed and administered with honesty and efficiency. There are undoubtedly many more moose, caribou, and deer in Maine now than there were twenty-five years ago; and if the Maine Legislature will see that the good work is continued, these noble beasts of the chase will continue to increase, to the delight, not only of the hunter, but of every lover of nature and of the hardy life of the wilderness, and to the very great pecuniary profit of the people of the State. In other States—Colorado, for instance—good has come from the enactment and enforcement of game laws; but in no other State have the governmental authorities acted with the wisdom displayed by those of Maine, and in no other State have the results been so noteworthy. It is greatly to be wished that such States as Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, which inclose the best hunting-grounds now existing in the United States, would follow Maine's lead.

Another means by which the Club hopes to bring about a proper spirit for the preservation of our big game is by frowning on and discouraging among sportsmen themselves all unsportsmanlike proceedings and all needless slaughter. The Club has persistently discouraged anything tending to glorify the making of big bags of game, and it strives to discourage the killing of the females of any game species save under rigid limitations. No harm comes to any species from the destruction of a moderate number of bulls, bucks, or rams, and these are the legitimate objects for the hunter's skill. Only legitimate methods of sport should be followed; torch hunting and the slaughter of game in deep snow or in the water are held to be unsportsmanlike.

Hunting big game in the wilderness is, above all things, a sport for a vigorous and masterful people. The rifle-bearing hunter, whether he goes on foot or on horseback, whether he voyages in a canoe or travels with a dog-sled, must be sound of body and firm of mind, and must possess energy, resolution, manliness, self-reliance, and capacity for hardy self-help. In short, the big-game hunter must possess qualities without which no race can do its life-work well; and these are the very qualities which it is the purpose of this Club, so far as may be, to develop and foster.

Theodore Roosevelt.
George Bird Grinnell.

American Big-Game Hunting

The Master of the Herd.
Photographed from life. From Forest and Stream.

A Buffalo Story

On the last day of September, 1871, I joined my regiment, then in camp near Fort Hays, Kansas. At that time the different troops of the regiment had not been assigned to their winter quarters. My own was on its way north from Texas, where it had been stationed since the close of the war. I was extremely anxious to learn what its destination was, for I had never killed any of the large game of the country; in fact, had never fired a rifle except at a target. Should my troop be ordered to Fort Riley, or Fort Harker, east of Fort Hays, or to Fort Dodge, south of Hays, I feared that my chance of meeting with large game would be doubtful. To my great delight, however, I found that my assignment was to Fort Lyon, situated on the northern bank of the Arkansas River in eastern Colorado.

On October 12 about 10 a. m., we broke camp and took up our line of march for the west, following the old Smoky Hill stage-route. The autumn thus far had been very mild. The great migration of the buffalo to their winter range in Texas had not yet begun, and I had some lingering doubts as to whether we might not reach our destination before the head of their column would cross our road. We had gone only about ten miles from camp, however, when I espied a solitary old bull, and instantly I was all excitement, to the great amusement of my companions. Taking an orderly from the ranks, I put spurs to my horse, and was soon in hot pursuit of this decrepit outcast. This was sport new both to my horse and myself. We were both excited and equally timid. At a range of fifty yards, or more, I emptied my revolver at the poor, tottering, old body, and a chance shot hit him and brought him to bay. It was now his turn to take up the chase. With some difficulty I recharged my weapon, and one or two more shots brought my first buffalo to earth. He was old and lean and mangy, and yet I was loath to allow one pound of his flesh to be wasted, and wanted to carry it all back to camp. The orderly said, with a cynical smile, "Lieutenant, he ain't no good to eat, but you might take his tongue." His smile was changed to smothered laughter when he saw me attempting to carve up the corners of the animal's mouth in order to take the tongue out between the teeth. He dismounted, and with a single cut beneath the under jaw showed me how to take out the tongue properly.

As evening came on, small groups of buffalo were seen dotting the plain. At sunrise we saw hundreds where the night before there had been only dozens. From this point on to Fort Wallace, we were never out of sight of these nomads of the "Great American Desert." From the higher points of our route, when the horizon was distant from ten to twenty miles, hundreds of thousands were visible at the same instant. They were not bunched together as cattle are, in droves, but were spread out with great regularity over the entire face of the land.

On the third day of our march, a severe snow-storm set in, accompanied by a fierce north wind—a genuine "norther." This night we were compelled to leave the road and go to the Smoky Hill River for water. We made our camp at the mouth of a small ravine that led down to the stream through the bluffs, which there form its banks. Millions of buffalo were driven before the storm, and, being prevented by the high banks of the river from crossing either above or below this point, were huddled together in a dense mass which threatened to overwhelm our little command. By placing our camp a little to one side of this living tide, and under the friendly shelter of the bluff, we passed the night in security, while the countless horde kept up its ceaseless tramp.

For six days we continued our way through this enormous herd, during the last three of which it was in constant motion across our path. I am safe in calling this a single herd, and it is impossible to approximate the millions that composed it. At times they pressed before us in such numbers as to delay the progress of our column, and often a belligerent bull would lower and shake his shaggy head at us as we passed him a few feet distant. Of course our fare was principally buffalo meat during this trip, and killing them soon ceased to be a sport.

The next year—the winter of '72 and '73—this herd, during its southward migration, extended as far west as Fort Lyon, or some seventy miles farther west than its route of previous years. It was probably driven to this course by the extension westward of settlements in Kansas and Nebraska. This was the last great migration of the southern herd of buffalo. Millions and millions were killed this season, and their hides and tongues shipped east over the Union Pacific, Kansas Pacific, and Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé railroads, and this leads me to the short story I have to tell.

The winter had been especially severe. The entire country north of the Arkansas valley was deeply covered with snow, while the valley itself was comparatively open. The quarters in which I lived faced the south. The yard in the rear of my house was inclosed by a board fence about seven feet high, and a wide gate afforded means for entrance.

One night, in the late winter, or early spring, the region was visited by one of those terrific storms for which this section is so justly celebrated. The wind blew with a violence such as I had never before experienced, the air was filled with drifting snow, and the temperature was in the neighborhood of zero.

About the break of dawn I was awakened by my servant, who said to me: "Lieutenant, the wind blew your back gate open last night, and a buffalo has come in and taken refuge under the shelter of the fence."

It was only necessary for me to raise myself in bed and look out of the window, which was at its foot, to verify this fact. I directed that my gun and a few cartridges should be brought me, and while my servant held up the window, I, still lying in bed, gave this solitary old bull a broadside at fifty yards range. At the salutation, he started out through the gate, and before I could reload, was out of sight behind the fence, so I rolled over to resume my morning's nap.

Two or three hours later, word was brought me that I had killed the buffalo, and that his body was lying about two hundred yards back on the plain. I went out to him and took his tongue as my reward. Investigation showed that I had shot him through the lungs, and that he had been able to go thus far before succumbing to his mortal wound.

Poor, miserable, old tramp! He had evidently been driven out of the herd to die, having become a useless member of its society, and in killing him I spared him a few days of further suffering, and scored a record of buffalo-killing rarely or never paralleled.

George S. Anderson.

The White Goat and his Country

In a corner of what is occasionally termed "Our Empire of the Northwest," there lies a country of mountains and valleys where, until recently, citizens have been few. At the present time certain mines, and uncertain hopes, have gathered an eccentric population and evoked some sudden towns. The names which several of these bear are tolerably sumptuous: Golden, Oro, and Ruby, for instance; and in them dwell many colonels and judges, and people who own one suit of clothes and half a name (colored by adjuncts, such as Hurry Up Ed), and who sleep almost anywhere. These communities are brisk, sanguine, and nomadic, full of good will and crime; and in each of them you will be likely to find a weekly newspaper, and an editor who is busy writing things about the neighboring editors. The flume slants down the hill bearing water to the concentrator; buckets unexpectedly swing out from the steep pines into mid-air, sailing along their wire to the mill; little new staring shanties appear daily; somebody having trouble in a saloon upsets a lamp, and half the town goes to ashes, while the colonels and Hurry Up Eds carouse over the fireworks till morning. In a short while there are more little shanties than ever, and the burnt district is forgotten. All this is going on not far from the mountain goat, but it is a forlorn distance from the railroad; and except for the stage line which the recent mining towns have necessitated, my route to the goat country might have been too prolonged and uncertain to attempt.

I stepped down one evening from the stage, the last public conveyance I was to see, after a journey that certainly has one good side. It is completely odious; and the breed of sportsmen that takes into camp every luxury excepting, perhaps, cracked ice, will not be tempted to infest the region until civilization has smoothed its path. The path, to be sure, does not roughen until one has gone along it for twenty-eight hundred miles. You may leave New York in the afternoon, and arrive very early indeed on the fifth day at Spokane. Here the luxuries begin to lessen, and a mean once-a-day train trundles you away on a branch west of Spokane at six in the morning into a landscape that wastes into a galloping consumption. Before noon the last sick tree, the ultimate starved blade of wheat, has perished from sight, and you come to the end of all things, it would seem; a domain of wretchedness unspeakable. Not even a warm, brilliant sun can galvanize the corpse of the bare ungainly earth. The railroad goes no further,—it is not surprising,—and the stage arranges to leave before the train arrives. Thus you spend sunset and sunrise in the moribund terminal town, the inhabitants of which frankly confess that they are not staying from choice. They were floated here by a boom-wave, which left them stranded. Kindly they were, and anxious to provide the stranger with what comforts existed.

Geographically I was in the "Big Bend" country, a bulk of land looped in by the Columbia River, and highly advertised by railroads for the benefit of "those seeking homes." Fruit and grain no doubt grow somewhere in it. What I saw was a desert cracked in two by a chasm sixty-five miles long. It rained in the night, and at seven next morning, bound for Port Columbia, we wallowed northward out of town in the sweating canvas-covered stage through primeval mud. After some eighteen miles we drew out of the rain area, and from around the wheels there immediately arose and came among us a primeval dust, monstrous, shapeless, and blind. First your power of speech deserted you, then your eyesight went, and at length you became uncertain whether you were alive. Then hilarity at the sheer discomfort overtook me, and I was joined in it by a brother American; but two Jew drummers on the back seat could not understand, and seemed on the verge of tears. The landscape was entirely blotted out by the dust. Often you could not see the roadside,—if the road had any side. We may have been passing homes and fruit-trees, but I think not. I remember wondering if getting goat after all—But they proved well worth it.

Toward evening we descended into the sullen valley of the Columbia, which rushes along, sunk below the level of the desert we had crossed. High sterile hills flank its course, and with the sweeping, unfriendly speed of the stream, its bleak shores seemed a chilly place for home-seekers. Yet I blessed the change. A sight of running water once more, even of this overbearing flood, and of hills however dreary, was exhilaration after the degraded, stingy monotony of the Big Bend. The alkali trails in Wyoming do not seem paradises till you bring your memory of them here. Nor am I alone in my estimate of this impossible hole. There is a sign-post sticking up in the middle of it, that originally told the traveler it was thirty-five miles to Central Ferry. But now the traveler has retorted; and three different hand-writings on this sign-post reveal to you that you have had predecessors in your thought, comrades who shared your sorrows:

Forty-five miles to water.
Seventy-five miles to wood.

And then the last word:

Two and one-half miles to hell.

Perhaps they were home-seekers.

We halted a moment at the town of Bridgeport, identified by one wooden store and an inchoate hotel. The rest may be seen upon blue-print maps, where you would suppose Bridgeport was a teeming metropolis. At Port Columbia, which we reached by a land-slide sort of road that slanted the stage over and put the twin Jew drummers in mortal fear, we slept in one of the two buildings which indicate that town. It is another important center,—in blue print,—but invisible to the naked eye. In the morning, a rope ferry floated the new stage and us travelers across the river. The Okanagon flows south from lakes and waters above the British line, and joins the Columbia here. We entered its valley at once, crossed it soon by another rope ferry, and keeping northward, with the river to the east between us and the Colville Reservation, had one good meal at noon, and entering a smaller valley, reached Ruby that evening. Here the stage left me to continue its way to Conconally, six miles further on. With the friends who had come to meet me, I ascended out of Ruby the next day over the abrupt hill westward, and passing one night out in my blankets near a hospitable but limited cabin (its flowing-haired host fed us, played us the fiddle, and would have had us sleep inside), arrived bag and baggage the fourth day from the railroad at the forks of the Methow River—the next tributary of the Columbia below the Okanagon.

Here was a smiling country, winning the heart at sight. An ample beauty was over everything Nature had accomplished in this place; the pleasant trees and clear course of the stream, a fertile soil on the levels, the slopes of the foot-hills varied and gentle, unencumbered by woods, the purple cloak of forest above these on the mountains, and rising from the valley's head a crown of white, clean frozen peaks. These are known to some as the Isabella Range and Mount Gardner, though the maps do not name them. Moreover, I heard that now I was within twenty-five miles of goats; and definite ridges were pointed out as the promised land.

Many things were said to me, first and last. I remember a ragged old trapper, lately come over the mountains from the Skagit River. Goats, did I say? On top there the goats had tangled your feet walking in the trail. He had shot two in camp for staring at him. Another accurate observer had seen three hundred on a hill just above Early Winter as he was passing by. The cabined dwellers on the Methow tied their horses to the fence and talked to me—so I had come from the East after goats, had I?—and in the store of the Man at the Forks I became something of a curiosity. Day by day I sat on the kegs of nails, or lay along the counter devoted to his dry-goods, and heard what passed. Citizens and denizens—for the Siwash with his squaws and horses was having his autumn hunt in the valley—knocked at the door to get their mail, or buy tobacco, or sell horns and fur, or stare for an hour and depart with a grunt; and the grave Man at the Forks stood behind one counter while I lay on the other, acquiring a miscellaneous knowledge. One old medical gentleman had slain all wild animals without weapons, and had been the personal friend of so many distinguished historical characters that we computed he was nineteen about the time of Bunker Hill. They were hospitable with their information, and I followed my rule of believing everything that I hear. And they were also hospitable with whatever they possessed. The memory of those distant dwellers among the mountains, young and old, is a friendly one, like the others I carry, whether of Wind or Powder Rivers, or the Yellowstone, or wherever Western trails have led me.

Yet disappointment and failure were the first things. There was all the zeal you could wish. We had wedged painfully into a severe country—twelve miles in two days, and trail-cutting between—when sickness turned us back, goatless. By this time October was almost gone, and the last three days of it went in patching up our disintegrated outfit. We needed other men and other horses; and while these were being sought, nothing was more usual than to hear "if we'd only been along with So-and-So, he saw goats" here and there, and apparently everywhere. We had, it would seem, ingeniously selected the only place where there were none. But somehow the services of So-and-So could not be procured. He had gone to town; or was busy getting his winter's meat; or his married daughter had just come to visit him, or he had married somebody else's daughter. I cannot remember the number of obstacles always lying between ourselves and So-and-So.

At length we were once more in camp on a stream named the Twispt. In the morning—new stroke of misfortune—one of us was threatened with illness, and returned to the Forks. We three, the guide, the cook, and myself, went on, finally leaving the narrow valley, and climbing four hours up a mountain at the rate of about a mile an hour. The question was, had winter come in the park above, for which we were heading? On top, we skirted a bare ridge from which everything fell precipitously away, and curving round along a steep hollow of the hill, came to an edge and saw the snow lying plentifully among the pines through which we must go down into the bottom of the park. But on the other side, where the sun came, there was little or none, and it was a most beautiful place. At the head of it was a little frozen lake fringed with tamarack, and a stream flowed down from this through scattered birches and pines, with good pasture for the horses between. The park sank at its outlet into a tall impassable cañon through which the stream joined the Twispt, miles below. It was a little lap of land clear at the top of the mountains, the final peaks and ridges of which rose all around, walling it in completely. You must climb these to be able to see into it, and the only possible approach for pack-horses was the pine-tree slant, down which we came. Of course there was no trail.

We prospected before venturing, and T——, the guide, shook his head. It was only a question of days—possibly of hours—when snow must shut the place off from the world until spring. But T—— appreciated the three thousand miles I had come for goats; and if the worst came to the worst, said he, we could "make it in" to the Forks on foot, leading the horses, and leaving behind all baggage that weighed anything. So we went down. Our animals slipped a little, the snow balling their feet; but nothing happened, and we reached the bottom and chose a camp in a clump of tamarack and pine. The little stream, passing through shadows here, ran under a lid of frozen snow easily broken, and there was plenty of wood, and on the ground only such siftings of snow as could be swept clean for the tent. The saddles were piled handily under a tree, a good fireplace was dug, we had a comfortable supper; and nothing remained but that the goats should be where they ought to be—on the ridges above the park.

I have slept more soundly; doubt and hope kept my thoughts active. Yet even so, it was pleasant to wake in the quiet and hear the bell on our horse, Duster, occasionally tankle somewhere on the hill. My watch I had forgotten to place at T——'s disposal, so he was reduced to getting the time of day from the stars. He consulted the Great Bear, and seeing this constellation at an angle he judged to indicate five o'clock, he came back into the tent, and I heard him wake the cook, who crawled out of his blankets.

"Why, it's plumb night," the cook whined.

"Make the breakfast," said T——.

I opened my eyes, and shut them immediately in despair at the darkness that I saw. Presently I heard the fire and the pans, and knew that the inevitable had come. So I got my clothes on, and we looked at my watch. It was only 4.30 a. m. T—— and the Great Bear had made half an hour's miscalculation, and the face of the cook was so grievous that I secretly laughed myself entirely awake. "Plumb night" lasted some time longer. I had leisure to eat two plates of oatmeal and maple syrup, some potato-and-onion soup, bacon, and coffee, and digest these, before dawn showed.

T—— and I left camp at 6.40 a. m. The day was a dark one. On the high peaks behind camp great mounds of cloud moved and swung, and the sky was entirely overcast. We climbed one of the lower ridges, not a hard climb nor long, but very sliding, and often requiring hands and feet to work round a ledge. From the top we could see the open country lying comfortably below and out of reach of the howling wind that cut across the top of the mountain, straight from Puget Sound, bringing all that it could carry of the damp of the Pacific. The ridges and summits that surrounded our park continually came into sight and disappeared again among the dense vapors which bore down upon them.

We went cautiously along the narrow top of crumbling slate, where the pines were scarce and stunted, and had twisted themselves into corkscrews so they might grip the ground against the tearing force of storms. We came on a number of fresh goat-tracks in the snow or the soft shale. These are the reverse of those of the mountain sheep, the V which the hoofs make having its open end in the direction the animal is going. There seemed to be several, large and small; and the perverted animals invariably chose the sharpest slant they could find to walk on, often with a decent level just beside it that we were glad enough to have. If there were a precipice and a sound flat top, they took the precipice, and crossed its face on juts that did not look as if your hat would hang on them. In this I think they are worse than the mountain sheep, if that is possible. Certainly they do not seem to come down into the high pastures and feed on the grass levels as the sheep will.

T—— and I hoped we should find a bunch, but that was not to be, in spite of the indications. As we continued, I saw a singular-looking stone lying on a little ledge some way down the mountain ahead. I decided it must be a stone, and was going to speak of it, when the stone moved, and we crouched in the slanting gravel. T—— had been making up his mind it was a stone. The goat turned his head our way, but did not rise. He was two hundred yards across a split in the mountain, and the wind blowing hard. T—— wanted me to shoot, but I did not dare to run such a chance. I have done a deal of missing at two hundred yards, and much nearer, too. So I climbed, or crawled, out of sight, keeping any stone or little bush between me and the goat, till I got myself where a buttress of rock hid me, and then I ran along the ridge and down and up the scoop in it made by the split of the mountain, and so came cautiously to where I could peer over and see the goat lying turned away from me, with his head commanding the valley. He was on a tiny shelf of snow, beside him was one small pine, and below that the rock fell away steeply into the gorge. Ought I to have bellowed at him, and at least have got him on his legs? I know it would have been more honorable. He looked white, and huge, and strange; and somehow I had a sense of personality about him more vivid than any since I watched my first silver-tip lift a rotten log, and, sitting on his hind legs, make a breakfast on beetles, picking them off the log with one paw.

I fired, aiming behind the goat's head. He did not rise, but turned his head round. The white bead of my Lyman sight had not showed well against the white animal, and I thought I had missed him. Then I fired again, and he rolled very little—six inches—and lay quiet. He could not have been more than fifty yards away, and my first shot had cut through the back of his neck and buried itself in mortal places, and the second in his head merely made death instantaneous. Shooting him after he had become alarmed might have lost him over the edge; even if a first shot had been fatal, it could not have been fatal soon enough. Two struggles on that snow would have sent him sliding through space. As it was, we had a steep, unsafe scramble down through the snow to where he lay stretched out on the little shelf by the tree.

He was a fair-sized billy, and very heavy. The little lifting and shoving we had to do in skinning him was hard work. The horns were black, slender, slightly spreading, curved backward, pointed, and smooth. They measured six inches round the base, and the distance from one point to the other, measured down one horn, along the skull, and up the other, was twenty-one and a half inches. The hoofs were also black and broad and large, wholly unlike a tame goat's. The hair was extraordinarily thick, long, and of a weather-beaten white; the eye large and deep-brown.

I had my invariable attack of remorse on looking closely at the poor harmless old gentleman, and wondered what achievement, after all, could be discerned in this sort of surprise and murder. We did not think of securing any of his plentiful fat, but with head and hide alone climbed back up the ticklish slant, hung the trophies on a tree in a gap on the camp side of the ridge, and continued our hunt. It was not ten o'clock yet, and we had taken one hour to skin the goat. We now hunted the higher ridges behind camp until 1 p. m., finding tracks that made it seem as if a number of goats must be somewhere near by. But the fog came down and shut everything out of sight; moreover, the wind on top blew so that we could not have seen had it been clear.

We returned to camp, and found it greatly improved. The cook had carpentered an important annex to the tent. By slanting pine-logs against a ridge-pole and nailing them, he had built a room, proof against wind and rain, and in it a table. One end was against the opening of the tent, the other at the fire. The arrangement was excellent, and timely also. The storm revived during the night, and it rained fitfully. The roar of the wind coming down from the mountain into our park sounded like a Niagara, and its approach was tremendous. We had built up a barrier of pine-brush, and this, with a clump of trees, sheltered us well enough; but there were wild moments when the gust struck us, and the tent shuddered and strained, until that particular breeze passed on with a diminishing roar down the cañon.

The next morning the rain kept us from making an early start, and we did not leave camp until eight. Now and then a drizzle fell from the mist, and the banks of clouds were still driving across the higher peaks, but during the day the sun slowly got the better of them. Again we saw a solitary goat, this time far below down the ridge we had chosen. Like the sheep, these animals watch the valley. There is no use in attempting to hunt them from there. Their eyes are watchful and keen, and the chances are that if you are working up from below and see a goat on the hill, he will have been looking at you for some time. Once he is alarmed, ten minutes will be enough for him to put a good many hours of climbing between himself and you. His favorite trick is to remain stock-still, watching you till you pass out of his sight behind something, and then he makes off so energetically that when you see him next he will be on some totally new mountain. But his intelligence does not seem to grasp more than the danger from below. While he is steadfastly on the alert against this, it apparently does not occur to him that anything can come down upon him. Consequently from above you may get very near before you are noticed. The chief difficulty is the noise of falling stones your descent is almost sure to make. The character of these mountain-sides is such that even with the greatest care in stepping we sent a shower rattling down from time to time. We had a viciously bad climb. We went down through tilted funnels of crag, avoiding jumping off places by crossing slides of brittle slate and shale, hailing a dead tree as an oasis. And then we lost count, and T—— came unexpectedly on the goat, which was up and away and was shot by T—— before I could get a sight of him. I had been behind some twenty yards, both of us supposing we had to go considerably further. T—— was highly disgusted. "To think of me managing such a botch as that," he said, "when you've come so far"; and he wanted me to tell the people that I had shot the goat myself. He really cared more than I did.

This goat was also a billy, and larger than the first. We sat skinning him where he had fallen at the edge of a grove of tamarack, and T—— conversed about the royal family of England. He remarked that he had always rather liked "that chap Lorne."

I explained to him that "that chap Lorne" had made himself ridiculous forever at the Queen's Jubilee. Then, as T—— did not know, I told him how the marquis had insisted on riding in the procession upon a horse, against which the Prince of Wales, aware of the tame extent of his horsemanship, had warned him. In the middle of the pageant, the Queen in her carriage, the crowned heads of Europe escorting her on horseback, and the whole world looking on—at this picturesque moment, Lorne fell off. I was not sure that T—— felt fully how inappropriate a time this was for a marquis to tumble from his steed.

"I believe the Queen sent somebody," I continued.

"Where?" said T——.

"To him. She probably called the nearest king and said: 'Frederick, Lorne's off. Go and see if he's hurt.'"

"'And if he ain't hurt, hurt him,'" said T——, completing her Majesty's thought.

On the Slide-Rock.
Photographed from nature by William H. Seward, Jr. From Forest and Stream.

This second billy seemed to me twice the size of a domestic goat. He was certainly twice the weight. His hide alone weighed thirty pounds, as far as one could determine by balancing it against weights that we knew, such as a sack of flour or sugar. But I distrust the measurements of wild animals made by guesswork on a mountain-top during the enthusiastic state of the hunter's mind which follows at once upon a lucky shot. Therefore, I can positively vouch for this only, that all the goats which I have seen struck me as being larger and heavier animals than the goat of civilization. After all, the comparison is one into which we are misled by the name. This is an antelope; and though, through certain details of his costume, he is able to masquerade as a goat, it must be remembered that he is of a species wholly distinct.

We took the web tallow, and the tallow of one kidney. The web was three quarters of an inch thick.

Neither elk, nor any animal I have seen, except bear, has such quantities of fat, and I do not think even a bear has a thicker hide. On the rump it was as thick as the sole of my boot, and the masses of hair are impenetrable to anything but modern firearms. An arrow might easily stick harmless; and I am told that carnivorous animals who prey upon the deer in these mountains respectfully let the goat alone. Besides his defensive armor, he is an ugly customer in attack. He understands the use of his thin, smooth horns, and, driving them securely into the belly of his enemy, jumps back and leaves him a useless, ripped-open sack. Male and female have horns of much the same size; and in taking a bite out of one of either sex, as T—— said, a mountain lion would get only a mouthful of hair.

But modern firearms have come to be appreciated by the wild animals; and those which were once unquestionably dangerous to pioneers, now retreat before the Winchester rifle. Only a bear with cubs to defend remains formidable.

I said this to T——, who told me a personal experience that tends to destroy even this last chance for the sportsman to be doughty. T—— came on a bear and cubs in the spring, and of course they made off, but his dog caught and held one little cub which cried out like a child—and its contemptible mama hurried straight on and away.

Not so a goat mama of which T—— also told me. Some prospectors came on a bunch of goats when the kids were young enough to be caught. One of the men captured a kid, and was walking off with it, when the mother took notice and charged furiously down on him. He flew by in ignominious sight of the whole camp with the goat after him, till he was obliged to drop the kid, which was then escorted back to its relatives by its most competent parent.

Yet no room for generalizing is here. We cannot conclude that the Ursus family fails to think blood as thick as other people do. These two incidents merely show that the race of bears is capable of producing unmaternal females, while, on the other hand, we may expect occasionally to find in a nanny-goat a Mother of the Gracchi.

I wished to help carry the heavy hide of the second billy; but T—— inflicted this upon himself, "every step to camp," he insisted, "for punishment at disappointing you." The descent this day had been bad enough, taking forty minutes for some four hundred yards. But now we were two hours getting up, a large part of the way on hands and knees. I carried the two rifles and the glass, going in front to stamp some sort of a trail in the sliding rocks, while T—— panted behind me, bearing the goat-hide on his back.

Our next hunt was from seven till four, up and down, in the presence of noble and lonely mountains. The straight peaks which marshal round the lake of Chelan were in our view near by, beyond the valley of the Twispt, and the whole Cascade range rose endlessly, and seemed to fill the world. Except in Switzerland, I have never seen such an unbroken area of mountains. And all this beauty going begging, while each year our American citizens of the East, more ignorant of their own country and less identified with its soil than any race upon earth, herd across the sea to the tables d'hôte they know by heart! But this is wandering a long way from goats, of which this day we saw none.

A gale set in after sunset. This particular afternoon had been so mellow, the sun had shone so clear from a stable sky, that I had begun to believe the recent threats of winter were only threats, and that we had some open time before us still. Next morning we waked in midwinter, the flakes flying thick and furious over a park that was no longer a pasture, but a blind drift of snow. We lived in camp, perfectly comfortable. Down at the Forks I had had made a rough imitation of a Sibley stove. All that its forger had to go on was my unprofessional and inexpert description, and a lame sketch in pencil; but he succeeded so well that the hollow iron cone and joints of pipe he fitted together turned out most efficient. The sight of the apparatus packed on a horse with the panniers was whimsical, and until he saw it work I know that T—— despised it. After that, it commanded his respect. All this stormy day it roared and blazed, and sent a lusty heat throughout the tent. T—— cleaned the two goat-heads, and talked Shakspere and Thackeray to me. He quoted Henry the Fourth, and regretted that Thackeray had not more developed the character of George Warrington. Warrington was the man in the book. When night came the storm was gone.

By eight the next morning we had sighted another large solitary billy. But he had seen us down in the park from his ridge. He had come to the edge, and was evidently watching the horses. If not quick-witted, the goat is certainly wary; and the next time we saw him he had taken himself away down the other side of the mountain, along a spine of rocks where approach was almost impossible. We watched his slow movements through the glass, and were both reminded of a bear. He felt safe, and was stepping deliberately along, often stopping, often walking up some small point and surveying the scenery. He moved in an easy, rolling fashion, and turned his head importantly. Then he lay down in the sun, but saw us on our way to him, and bounced off. We came to the place where he had jumped down sheer twenty feet at least. His hoof-tracks were on the edge, and in the gravel below the heavy scatter he made in landing; and then,—hasty tracks round a corner of rock, and no more goat that day.

I had become uneasy about the weather. It was all sunshine again, and though our first goat was irretrievably gone, we had the afternoon before us. Nevertheless, when I suggested we should spend it in taking the shoes off the horses, so they might be able to walk homeward without falling in the snow, T—— thought it our best plan. We wanted to find a bunch of goats now, nannies and kids, as well as billies. It had been plain that these ridges here contained very few, and those all hermits; males who from age, or temperament, or disappointment in love, had retired from society, and were spending the remainder of their days in a quiet isolation and whatever is the goat equivalent for reading Horace. It was well enough to have begun with these philosophers, but I wanted new specimens.

We were not too soon. A new storm had set in by next morning, and the unshod horses made their journey down the mountain, a most odious descent for man and beast, in the sliding snow. But down on the Twispt it was yet only autumn, with no snow at all. This was a Monday, the 7th of November, and we made haste to the Forks, where I stopped a night to read a large, accumulated mail, and going on at once, overtook my outfit, which had preceded me on the day before.

Our new camp—and our last one—was up the Methow, twenty-three miles above the Forks, in a straight line. Here the valley split at right angles against a tall face of mountain, and each way the stream was reduced to a brook one could cross afoot. The new valley became steep and narrow almost at once, and so continued to the divide between Columbia water and tributaries of the Skagit. We lived comfortably in an old cabin built by prospectors. The rain filtered through the growing weeds and sand on the roof and dropped on my head in bed; but not much, and I was able to steer it off by a rubber blanket. And of course there was no glass in the windows; but to keep out wind and wet we hung gunny sacks across those small holes, and the big stone fireplace was magnificent.

By ten next morning T—— and I saw "three hundred" goats on the mountain opposite where we had climbed. Just here I will risk a generalization. When a trapper tells you he has seen so many hundred head of game, he has not counted them, but he believes what he says. The goats T—— and I now looked at were a mile away in an air-line, and they seemed numberless. The picture which the white, slightly moving dots made, like mites on a cheese, inclined one to a large estimate of them, since they covered the whole side of a hill. The more we looked the more we found; besides the main army there were groups, caucuses, families sitting apart over some discourse too intimate for the general public; and beyond these single animals could be discerned, moving, gazing, browsing, lying down.

"Megod and Begod," said T—— (he occasionally imitated a brogue for no hereditary reason), "there's a hundred thousand goats!"

"Let's count'em," I suggested, and we took the glasses. There were thirty-five.

We found we had climbed the wrong hill, and the day was too short to repair this error. Our next excursion, however, was successful. The hill where the goats were was not two miles above camp,—you could have seen the animals from camp but for the curve in the cañon,—yet we were four hours and a half climbing the ridge, in order to put ourselves above them. It was a hard climb, entirely through snow after the first. On top the snow came at times considerably above the knees. But the judicious T—— (I have never hunted with a more careful and thorough man) was right in the route he had chosen, and after we had descended again to the edge of the snow, we looked over a rock, and saw, thirty yards below us, the nanny and kid for which we had been aiming. I should have said earlier that the gathering of yesterday had dispersed during the night, and now little bunches of three and four goats could be seen up and down the cañon. We were on the exact ground they had occupied, and their many tracks were plain. My first shot missed—thirty yards!—and as nanny and kid went bounding by on the hill below, I knocked her over with a more careful bullet, and T—— shot the kid. The little thing was not dead when we came up, and at the sight of us it gave a poor little thin bleat that turns me remorseful whenever I think of it. We had all the justification that any code exacts. We had no fresh meat, and among goats the kid alone is eatable; and I justly desired specimens of the entire family.

We carried the whole kid to camp, and later its flesh was excellent. The horns of the nanny, as has been said before, are but slightly different from those of the male. They are, perhaps, more slender, as is also the total makeup of the animal. In camp I said to T—— that I desired only one more of those thirty-five goats, a billy; and that if I secured him the next day, that should be the last. Fortune was for us. We surprised a bunch of several. They had seen me also, and I was obliged to be quick. This resulted in some shots missing, and in two, perhaps three, animals going over ledges with bullets in them, leaving safe behind the billy I wanted. His conduct is an interesting example of the goat's capacity to escape you and die uselessly, out of your reach.

I had seen him reel at my first shot, but he hurried around a corner, and my attention was given to others. As I went down, I heard a shot, and came round the corner on T——, who stood some hundred yards further along the ledge beside a goat. T—— had come on him lying down. He had jumped up and run apparently unhurt, and T—— had shot him just as he reached the end of the ledge. Beyond was a fall into inaccessible depths. Besides T——'s shot we found two of mine—one clean through from the shoulder—the goat had faced me when I fired first—to the ham, where the lead was flat against the bone. This goat was the handsomest we had, smaller than the other males, but with horns of a better shape, and with hair and beard very rich and white. Curiously enough, his lower jaw between the two front teeth had been broken a long time ago, probably from some fall. Yet this accident did not seem to have interfered with his feeding, for he was in excellent plump condition.

This completely satisfied me, and I willingly decided to molest no more goats. I set neither value nor respect on numerical slaughter. One cannot expect Englishmen to care whether American big game is exterminated or not; that Americans should not care is a disgrace. The pervading spirit of the far West as to game, as to timber, as to everything that a true American should feel it his right to use and his duty to preserve for those coming after, is—"What do I care, so long as it lasts my time?"

There remain a few observations to make, and then I have said the little that I know about goats. Their horns are not deciduous, so far at least as I could learn, and the books say this also. But I read a somewhat inaccurate account of the goat's habits in winter-time. It was stated that at that season, like mountain sheep, he descends and comes into the valleys. This does not seem to be the case. He does not depend upon grass, if indeed he eats grass at all. His food seems to be chiefly the short, almost lichen-like moss that grows on the faces and at the base of the rocks and between them in the crevices. The community of goats I watched was feeding; afterward, when on the spot where they had been, I found there was no grass growing anywhere near, and signs pointed to its having been the moss and rock plants that they had been eating. None of the people in the Methow country spoke of seeing goats come out of the mountains during winter. I have not sufficient data to make the assertion, but I am inclined to believe that the goat keeps consistently to the hills, whatever the season may be, and in this differs from the mountain sheep as he differs in appearance, temperament, and in all characteristics excepting the predilection for the inclined plane; and in this habit he is more vertical than the sheep.

Lest the region I hunted in may have remained vague to Eastern readers, it is as well to add that in an air-line I was probably some thirty miles below the British border, and some hundred and twenty east of Puget Sound.

Owen Wister.

A Day with the Elk

Early in September of 1890, we were in camp in the northern part of Colorado, an easy day's ride from the Wyoming line. Our party, eight in all, consisted of myself, three friends, three packers, and a cook. We had been out nearly a month, and after the first week our success had been good. We were taking life very easily—hunting a little, fishing now and then, and doing a great deal of healthy "lying round camp."

Game was very plentiful. There were black-tail and elk all around us. The antelope, than whom the ammunition manufacturer has no truer friend, were within easy reach. One of the party had bagged two bears, and a packer had found a dead one, whose fore-paws and ears were sufficiently preserved to be worth a $10 bounty to the finder.

The outfit with two exceptions was content. Our cook, having surreptitiously drunk all the whisky, was struggling with an increasing thirst provoked by an empty demi-john. My cup of happiness, unlike the cook's, had never been emptied, but it was far from full. I had not shot an elk. They were all round us, and had been for a fortnight. I had hunted them alone and in company. I had had many chances at young bulls, but had hitherto held my hand, waiting in vain for a good head. We had plenty of meat—a condition of things forbidding useless slaughter. Spike bulls and cows were therefore sacred, and seemed to know it, for they gave me every chance to take advantage of their youthful inexperience or sex. Twice I had stumbled on a large band in timber. I had heard the musical challenges of the young bulls answered by the patriarch, with his squealing whistle ending in a deep grunt of conscious superiority. The young bulls were provokingly plentiful—but the patriarchs always invisible. Of course every other member of the outfit saw the "biggest bull yet" whenever I happened to be absent. Each of my three friends had a good head or two to his score, and their accounts were closed. Our time was nearly up, and I began to despair of getting what I wanted. For two days I sulked in my tent, and then one morning Robert Bruce's historic spider fell into my lap from the tent-pole, and I arose and went forth for a last try.

Our camp was by a stream in an aspen grove, on the edge of one of those open spaces which, be they large or small, are known in Colorado as parks. Behind us to the south lay heavily timbered ridges, alternating with little valleys full of shade-trees, long, sweet grass, and pleasant brooks. There, I thought, was as good a place as any in which to find the "faultless monster that the world ne'er saw," and thither I accordingly went.

It was about noon when I started, and my intention was to work away to the south, and then hunt back to camp toward evening. I know that there are those who say that if you want to kill game you must get up early. They are perfectly right, and I agree with them entirely. But there are others who maintain with equal truth that toward sundown is the best time. One time is as good as the other, and inasmuch as an empty belly and the dark before the dawn are bitter things to me, and to be avoided if possible, I prefer the evening shooting. So, fortified with a good night's rest, and a breakfast calculated to last me till the morrow, I set forth alone and on foot.

In hunting, as in most cases where real work is to be done, one is best alone. Two people are apt to talk just at the wrong time. And even if you do not talk at all, four feet make—of necessity—more noise than two, and two bodies are easier seen than one. I left my horse behind, because I did not wish to burden myself with an extra responsibility. A horse can be a dreadful nuisance. You may want to go where he cannot, and so you must either leave him tied up somewhere, or else suit your way to his. Again, you lose valuable time in dismounting and tying up, before stalking or shooting your game. And both time and temper suffer when you can't find the place where you left your horse. Some men have the true woodsman's instinct, and never get lost or turned round. These are fortunate beings, and worthy of respectful admiration. But woe to him who, unendowed by nature with their gifts, seeks to imitate them. For my part I have always had quite enough to do to keep my head and feet agreed as to the direction of camp. Any extra strain, such as the necessity of looking for a mislaid horse, is sure to cause a disagreement between the members, and so bring on a catastrophe.

I had been out several hours. It was getting on toward evening, and I was well on my way home. There was no lack of elk in the neighborhood, for my more fortunate friends had proved that they were easy to find. I could see that bands had roved that very morning over the country through which my path lay. I could see where some great bull had thrashed the young sapling with his horns till the tender bark was stripped off, or hung in long, wet ribbons from the wounded tree. And in the pools where the big fellows had wallowed, the mud had scarce settled. In places the grass was trampled and littered as if by a bunch of cattle. The "sign" was plentiful and fresh. Still I heard no whistle, nor saw a living thing, save now and then when a big-eyed black-tail doe would gaze at me with mild wonder until she got my wind, and then away she would bounce through the timber, followed by her startled fawn.

But the shadows were getting longer and the air cooler; the sun was going rapidly down hill. I knew that now was the time when the elk were sure to be moving down out of the timber for their evening feed in the open glades. I was making my way quietly along a little stream, whose timbered banks afforded good cover, and at the same time a view of the small parks running up to the wooded ridges on either side. Suddenly my heart went to my throat, and I dropped in my tracks. There—to the left and within a few yards of me—was a cow coming down through the timber to drink. Close behind her was another cow, and then a young spike bull. I lay still and breathless, praying to all the gods that the band, which I felt sure was behind, might pass my hiding-place. There would surely be a big bull or two among them, and at that distance if I missed—. I was already thinking whether the neck or the shoulder was the best chance. The cow bent her head to the water, and began to drink. Her two companions paused on the brink. Nothing else showed. The cow raised her dripping muzzle. I was so near that I could hear the drops tinkle as they fell back into the stream. And then a puff of wind, soft as a sigh, fanned my cheek, and with a snort and a bound the two cows and their youthful escort vanished back into the wood. They had got my wind, for see me they could not, and no log could have lain more still.

Then arose a mighty trampling on the other side of the stream. The trio had evidently rejoined the band, startling them by their sudden retreat. I crept across the stream, and crawled through the thicket to spy out the land beyond. A thick, low clump of trees thrust itself like a venomous green tongue out into the open park which stretched away in front of me to the right and left. Beyond the park was a heavily wooded ridge, whither I felt sure the band had gone. But no—not all! Further on, at the extreme end of the green tongue of timber, in full view and broadside on, stood a young bull. He was evidently the last of the herd. He stood gazing about him as if he wondered what had startled the others, and why they had left him so unceremoniously. What a picture he made, as he stood outlined against the green hillside, turning his lordly head slowly from side to side with watchful eye and spreading nostril! I had seen plenty as good as he, and had held my hand. But then it might be my last chance. He was only a ten-pointer. But I had gone home so often empty handed, and he was only seventy or eighty yards away. Instinctively my rifle went to my shoulder, my finger pressed the trigger, the elk plunged forward and fell on his knees. As he struggled to rise, I shot him again. And then—what are mere words to describe what I felt! On my left, beyond the accursed green tongue, went with a rush a great band of cows and calves. And in their very midst rolled the great-grandfather of all the elk in the State of Colorado,—a perfect monster! His back was as broad and as yellow as the Tiber in spring. His horns were as thick as a strong man's arm, and spread like the branches of an oak. Across the park and up the hill he went, his wives and children thronging round him so close that I could not shoot for fear of doing useless harm. Up and over the ridge and into the timber he went, and I saw him no more. It was all over in a moment; then I remembered the young bull I had shot, and went and sat down by him. I expressed my profound regret for what had occurred, and explained how it had all happened. His grandpapa should have shown himself a moment sooner, or at least should have had the decency to separate himself from the ladies when running away. And then, having performed the necessary rites, I left him where he lay, and started for camp to get a packer and a horse.

My way lay over the very ridge the elk had crossed in their flight. Thinking that I might get another chance at the big fellow, I went carefully along, keeping a sharp lookout ahead. For about an hour I kept on through the woods. It was getting dark fast, but I was very near home, and could see the great park on the edge of which our camp lay. As I walked, I could hear from time to time the whistling of bulls on all sides; some far off, and some seemingly quite near at hand. In crossing a large open patch of burnt timber, I was stopped by a very loud whistle close in front; and, on creeping up, saw on the far edge of the clearing three bulls standing. They were between me and camp, and not two hundred yards away. They seemed to hear or see me, but stood perfectly still, probably mistaking me in the dusk for one of their number. One was a big fellow, I could see, as he stood out against the sky. What horns he had! The failing light made him seem gigantic. I crawled on till within easy range, and still he never moved. He was standing breast on, apparently watching me. Aiming for where his great shaggy throat joined his broad breast I fired. The rifle blazed out in the dusk; the elk gave a bound, and turned his quarter toward me; the other two dashed off into the woods. Again I fired; this time for his shoulder. The flash of the rifle half blinded me for an instant, but I could see that he was down. I started for him at a run. Up he got, and went lurching heavily down hill toward camp. I was now quite close to him, and fired once more. Again he fell, but, the slope aiding him, he struggled up and went stumbling along. There was no need of another shot. He was nearly spent, and my only thought was to get him as near camp as possible. Forgetting all about the danger of going too near a wounded elk, I was close at his quarter, hurling sticks and stones at him to drive him home, as one would an ox. The hill was steep; my second shot had broken his shoulder; he pitched rather than walked down the slope; and finally fell forward in a heap and breathed his last.

He was not the monster I had lost, but he was a grand big one; as big as any we had killed on that trip. I had what I wanted at last, and having marked well the spot where he lay, I heaved a sigh of satisfaction and started for camp.

In half an hour I was stowing away a well-earned supper, and fighting my battle over again for the benefit of all who chose to listen. About nine o'clock I went back with two packers and a horse to where my prize lay stiff and cold. By the light of a roaring fire we cut him up, and then, loading the horse with what we wanted, we left the remainder for the bears and coyotes, and betook ourselves to camp.

Two days later I had the melancholy satisfaction of assisting at the decapitation of the monster who had escaped me. I devoutly believe it was the same elk, and though of course I cannot swear to his identity, yet I am sure he must have been a full brother to old Yellow Back. My friend had stalked and shot him while superintending the luncheons, siestas and gambols of his numerous family. When I saw him I groaned in spirit, and congratulated the lucky sportsman. We took only his head, for he was too much married by far to be good eating. His mighty body was left as a memento mori to the valiant bull who succeeded him in the affections of his widows and offspring.

Winthrop Chanler.

Old Times in the Black Hills.

In the spring of '75 I found myself one of a party of six occupying a rude but strongly fortified stockade on French Creek, in the Black Hills, almost under the shadow of Calamity Peak, and not far from where Custer City was afterward built.

I had left Denver the previous fall, quite a tenderfoot, and, like Lord Lovel of milk-white steed fame, wanting "strange countries for to see," I determined to join a party that I heard was outfitting at Cheyenne to go into the Black Hills upon a hunting and prospecting tour, under the guidance of old California Joe, one of the most noted scouts and hunters in the West. At this time the presence of gold in the Black Hills was hardly known, and the country; being an Indian reservation, had not even been explored by white men, or surveyed by the government. The plans of the party in question suited my ideas exactly, and I soon found myself on the back of a "cayuse," followed by a good stout packhorse, equipped for a journey of several months, en route to Cheyenne, probably one hundred miles due north. After two days of hard riding I reached Cheyenne, and found that the party had started two days before, intending to cross the Platte River at Fort Laramie, another hundred miles north. Undaunted, I pushed on without delay, not even stopping to take a shot at any of the numerous bands of antelope that continually crossed my path. I reached the post the second day, only to learn from a "bull-whacker"—I dared not disclose my purpose to the officers—that the party I was looking for had been turned back by the troops as trespassers on Indian territory, and were supposed to have gone in the direction of Fort Fetterman. Though somewhat disheartened, I lost no time in following them, and soon rode into their camp, after dark, in a blinding snow-storm.

My welcome was anything but cordial. They regarded my story that I, a tenderfoot, had ridden through from Denver in four days to join them as suspicious, and believed, as I afterward ascertained, that I had been sent out from the post to spy upon their movements. As I rode into camp I noticed they were just finishing supper. During the argument that followed my arrival and proposition to join them, I observed a large, powerfully built man, dressed in buckskin, seated apart from the rest. He was eating the meat from a section of ribs he had scraped out from among the coals and ashes. He took no part in the conversation until, in answer to a question, I stated that I was a Kentuckian. At this he rose and settled the matter by saying that if I was a Kentuckian he would vouch for my honesty of purpose, and that I would stand fire in the scrimmages that we were certain to have with the Sioux. This was California Joe, who for years had been chief of scouts with General Custer. He afterward informed me that he was from near Danville, Kentucky, that his name was Mose Milner, and that he had gone West in the forties. I mention this from the fact that I have since read an account referring to him as one of the most noted characters in the West, whose life was surrounded by mystery, as he always refused to tell his real name or whence he came.

After waiting a couple of days for the river to fall, we forded just above the junction of the Laramie and the Platte. I came very near losing my packhorse and entire outfit, one horse being drowned in the treacherous quicksands in spite of our strenuous efforts to rescue him. At the end of a two weeks' journey through the best game country I ever hunted in, we entered the Black Hills proper, through Red Cañon, the place where the Metz party and many prospectors en route to the new Eldorado were afterward killed by the Indians. Old Joe had several opportunities to verify his good opinion of my ability to stand fire, as we were attacked by roving bands of Sioux at Alkali Springs, Hat Creek, and Red Cañon. Our first action was to erect a couple of log cabins and surround them with a strong stockade, with a bastion at each corner. We spent the entire winter here, feeling secure of our ability to stand off any bands of Indians that might attempt to dislodge us. We were utterly oblivious of the fact that the Indians had reported our presence, and that the government had sent out troops from both Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies to bring us in; one command, under Lieutenant Mix, returning after several weeks' unsuccessful search with a large percentage of the men suffering from frozen extremities.

In the early part of the winter game was plentiful; it was a perfect hunter's paradise, it being necessary only to sit in the stockade gate and shoot deer coming down to water. We frequently had eight or ten carcasses swung to our corner-poles, and did not deign to eat other than the choice pieces, throwing the remainder over the stockade walls to attract wolves at night. These we shot for their pelts. In the early spring the Indians coming in for "tepee" poles burned the country for miles around us, and quite a little jaunt became necessary to find game. We generally took turn about at supplying the table with meat, and it eventually proved anything but a sinecure.

On one such hunt I met with a rather curious misadventure. It being my turn to replenish the larder, which, by the way, had for several weeks contained absolutely nothing but meat,—not even coffee,—I placed a rawhide hackamore and a pack on "Coffee," an extra bronco I had bought, filled my pouch with a good supply of jerked bear-meat, and calling two of the dogs,—Kentuck, a greyhound, and Maida, a deerhound,—I struck out just as the sun was peeping over the hills. I decided to go to the foot-hills in the direction of Buffalo Gap, in the hope of finding antelope in some of the valleys. Noon found me near Point of Rocks and still tramping, "Coffee" trailing leisurely along, at times dropping entirely out of sight while looking for unburned grass, then whinnying and scampering after me full tilt, like a boy just out from school. I had seen several deer and a couple of sheep, but none within range.

Here I came upon some cottontail rabbits, the first and only ones I ever saw in that part of the country. They were not frightened by my presence, evidently never having been disturbed by man. I tried a shot at one very near me, and as I was using 107 grains of powder, entirely overshot him. Although the smoke of the gun reached him, he did not budge an inch; a second shot literally scattered him to the winds. The dogs, returning at this point, quickly despatched several.

Leaving "Coffee" in the valley, I decided to give up antelope and take my chances on deer and sheep on the mountain-side. When about winded from my exertions, I dropped upon a fallen pine, somewhat disgusted with my ill luck. Presently I heard the distinct bark of a deer very close to me. Peering cautiously from behind a huge granite boulder that obstructed my view ahead, my heart beat faster in an incipient buck-fever, for not sixty yards from me, on a small plateau, stood a big buck, while at his feet lay a doe. His head was slightly turned toward me, his nostrils were quivering and distended, and he looked as if prepared to bound away. He was evidently alarmed by the noise of the dogs I had left in the cañon, which were now making their way up the steep sides of the mountain. He seemed utterly oblivious of my presence; and there was a look of proud defiance in his eye that gave him a most noble, majestic appearance as he stood impatiently striking the hard ground with his fore foot. I had long been anxious to kill two deer with one shot, a feat I had twice seen accomplished by others, so I paused a minute with rifle at full cock, hoping the doe would arise alongside of him. I had not long to wait; his note of warning aroused her, and she jumped to her feet.

Taking a quick aim just back of his shoulder, I fired. As soon as the smoke cleared from in front of my eyes, I saw him still standing erect; he shook his antlers, paused a moment, then rearing to his full height he pitched forward upon his head, apparently stone dead. Forgetting in the excitement of the moment to take a second shot at the doe, which was now bounding off seemingly uninjured, I ran exultingly forward to the buck, dropping my rifle on the edge of the plateau as I reached for my hunting-knife to cut his throat. To my amazement he bounded to his feet and made straight at me, meeting my advance with a charge as sudden as it was unexpected. His onslaught was irresistible, and striking me squarely, he sent me whirling heels over head, fortunately landing me near my rifle, for in reaching for my knife I discovered it was missing. Scrambling to my feet, I arose with my rifle in my hand, and not a minute too soon, for the now thoroughly enraged buck was upon me, with eyes gleaming like coals of fire. I clubbed my gun and struck at his lowered head, hitting the bur of his antlers; and the rifle flew out of my hands, broken in two at the grip. I grasped him by the antlers, and the tussle we then had would have been an interesting and thrilling one to a spectator. I myself would have much preferred the rôle of spectator to that of participant, but unfortunately I had no choice in the matter.

The dogs, now coming up, fortunately divided his attention. Kentuck promptly seized him by the ear and hung on bravely, notwithstanding the sharp hoofs of the buck were cutting him frightfully at each stroke of his deadly fore feet; Maida, in the mean time, was unable to secure a hold that would assist us. In my efforts to hold his head down I slipped and fell, and buck, dogs, and myself mingled in a confused heap. As I fell I lost my hold on the antlers and scrambled for my mutilated rifle; but before I found whether it could be used or not, the buck lunged forward, falling with Kentuck beneath him. It was his last effort; he was dead. Completely winded from my continued and violent exertions in the light air,—being almost up to timber-line,—I sank upon the ground, and could not refrain from smiling at the forlorn appearance we presented.

Blowing like porpoises, their tongues lolling out, covered with blood from their own and the buck's wounds, the dogs lay extended at full length. An examination revealed that Kentuck's mouth was split almost to his ears, and there was a hole in his abdomen from which his entrails protruded, besides several minor cuts. Maida was more bloody than hurt, having lost several patches of skin, and hair enough to pad a saddle. As for myself, my antelope-skin shirt and overalls were ripped and bloody, one sole was torn from my heavy hunting-boots, elbows and knees were skinned by the sharp ledges of slate and loose quartz scattered about, and I had a badly cut lip and several loose teeth. I considered my greatest injury the damage to my rifle. It was one that I had made to order by Freund, of Denver, being a 45-caliber, heavy octagon barrel, Springfield needle-gun movement, with set triggers and curled maple pistol-grip stock. I considered this the best all-round sporting-rifle I had ever owned. I was three hundred miles from a gunsmith, virtually unarmed, and carrying my life in my hand.

An examination of the dead buck proved him indeed a grand specimen. He had eight points to each antler, and their condition and his numerous scars proved conclusively that he had ever been willing to defend his title as monarch of the woods. I never would have believed that any deer could attain so large a size, and though I have hunted them from Arizona to Montana, I have never seen his equal either as to size or condition. This fact determined me to carry him into camp whole; in fact, I had no other alternative, being without a knife. I found the task of cutting his throat with sharp pieces of slate a tedious one indeed, and I had a terrible time getting the carcass on "Coffee," who, although the best packhorse I ever saw, had never overcome his horror of a dead animal, and did not even relish the rabbits I had strapped on him at noon. It may seem a simple thing, but I found loading that buck without assistance one of the hardest tasks I ever undertook, and more than once was on the point of giving it up. However, my desire to substantiate my claim of having bagged the largest deer of any of the party sharpened my wits. Snubbing "Coffee's" nose up tight against a tree growing at the base of a ledge on to which I had succeeded in dragging and rolling the carcass, I blindfolded him with my hunting-shirt, and then managed to roll the buck on the pack from the ledge.

By the time this was accomplished, the sun was sinking behind the mountain. Returning slowly to the valley, no course was left me but to camp for the night, for I was at least fifteen miles from the stockade. I may have been a fit subject for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, but "Coffee" spent that night in the embrace of a "diamond hitch," holding the buck securely on his back. After making a hearty supper off the bear-meat, and dressing the wounds of the dogs,—which, by the way, healed rapidly, considering their terrible nature and the fact that I had nothing but bear's-grease to dress them with,—I hobbled "Coffee," and, being thoroughly exhausted, rolled myself up in a buffalo-robe, and was soon fast asleep: only to be awakened in a few hours by the nasty yelping of the wretched coyotes. Though there were probably less than a half-dozen of them, it sounded as though the whole canine race was present. I did not dare make a fire large enough to run them off. When I had finally come to the conclusion that the best thing I could do was to grin and bear it, the shrill cry of a mountain-lion aroused the dogs and also put to flight the coyotes, and I spent the remainder of the night in comparative peace and quietness.

Kentuck's cold nose coming in contact with my neck, in his efforts to share my robe, aroused me about daylight; and, not waiting for an extensive toilet and dainty breakfast, I broke camp and set out for home. Ten o'clock found me crossing Slate Creek, a few miles from the stockade. Looking down the creek, I saw a doe feeding at the mouth of a small gulch several hundred yards away, and quickly led "Coffee" and the dogs out of sight, with the intention of stalking her, forgetting at the moment the condition of my rifle. Just then I saw her start, look down the creek, toss her tail up, and dart into the bushes. Wondering what could have so startled her, I cautiously crept from out the coulée by which I was approaching her, and to my surprise saw, a couple of hundred yards still further down the creek, an Indian on foot. He crossed fearlessly, almost carelessly, and walked up on to a high point of ground jutting out into the valley or creek bottom he had just crossed. After a swift glance up and down the creek he turned, parted the bushes in front of him, and disappeared. I readily recognized him even at that distance as an Ogallala Sioux. After waiting probably ten minutes to assure myself there were no others with him, knowing it was seldom if ever they are seen alone on foot, I proceeded down the creek, intending to learn if he was heading in the direction of the stockade.

When just at the identical spot where I had last seen the Indian, an unearthly screech sounded in the chaparral a few feet in front of me, followed instantly by the bang of a gun, and I felt a blow on my side which nearly turned me around. What thoughts chased themselves through my excited imagination as I felt that terrible bullet plowing its way through my vitals will never be told. Then, as visions of the whole Sioux tribe dancing around my scalpless body vanished, I realized the truth. A disturbed sand-hill crane, that had alighted there during my detour, had screeched almost in my ear, and my stockless rifle, which I was carrying at full cock, had been discharged, nearly fracturing my ribs by the recoil. I felt truly thankful that California Joe was not present, for if my hair did not actually stand on end, I certainly had all the sensations of this once experienced never to be forgotten feeling.

With a sigh of relief I went back to "Coffee" and the dogs, and after cinching up the former until he looked like a wasp, and arranging the compress on Kentuck, I struck out for French Creek at a trot that hustled both the crippled dogs and overloaded "Coffee" to keep up with. Upon coming down into French Creek valley, about two miles above the stockade, another and greater surprise awaited me; for there I found encamped a party of prospectors, arrived from Fort Fetterman. As I had not for months set eyes upon any white man except my own immediate party, this was a treat as pleasant as it was unexpected. The fact that "Coffee" boldly deserted me here did not deter me from staying to dinner, especially when I saw they had both coffee and flapjacks,—delicacies that I had not reveled in for some weeks past. After spending an hour with them, I started down the creek, leaving poor Kentuck thoroughly exhausted from loss of blood, and unable to walk another step. To the astonishment of the boys, I walked into the stockade with a piece of bacon swinging in one hand and a sack of flour on my back. I doubt if they would have been more surprised had I walked in with General Grant and Queen Victoria on either arm.

"Coffee" had made a bee-line for home, anxious to be relieved of a load he had carried continuously for almost twenty-four hours. As I was so long in following him, they were beginning to feel alarmed at the continued absence of "Blue Grass,"—a name given me by Joe, and one that clung to me throughout my stay in the Black Hills.

That night we went up to the new camp and sat around a blazing log-heap, listening to the news from "the States" until long after midnight. Kentuck we swung in a blanket, taking turn about carrying him home, and it was many weeks before he was again in condition to accompany me on a hunt.

Roger D. Williams.

Big Game in the Rockies

Some eight or ten years ago it was by no means difficult, for one who knew where to go and how to hunt, to get excellent shooting in northwestern Wyoming. Large game was then moderately abundant, with the exception of buffalo. The latter had just been exterminated, but, bleaching in the sun, the ghastly evidences of man's sordid and selfish policy lay exposed at every step.

Indian troubles of a very formidable character did a great deal toward keeping the game intact in this portion of the country by keeping the white man out, and while other parts of Wyoming grew, and towns sprang up with rapid growth to become in an incredibly short time cities, involving in destruction, as the past sad history shows, the wild animals in their vicinity, this Northwestern portion remained unsettled, and acted as an asylum to receive within its rocky mountain-ranges and vast sheltering forests the scattering bands of elk and deer fleeing from annihilation and the encroaching haunts of men. As soon as it was safe then, and in some instances unquestionably before, cattlemen, not inaptly styled pioneers of civilization, began to drift down along the valley of the Big Horn, and, like the patriarchs of old, "brought their flocks with them," settling here and there, wherever they could find advantageous sites for their ranches.

On the Heights.
From Scribner's Magazine.

And now, as I propose to give some hunting experiences of those days, if you will accompany me to Billings, on the Northern Pacific Railway, the nearest town to my ranch and the Mecca to which the devout cattleman drives his wagon for supplies, I will introduce you to the foot-hills and mountains, and some of the adventures therein.

After four days on a sleeping-car, it is a delightful release to tumble out on a frosty September morning, and, being guided to where the ranch-wagon and crew are bivouacked just outside the limits of the rapidly growing town, to get one's breakfast on terra firma. No time is now to be wasted; the mules are hitched up; the little band of horses are rounded together, and when we have jumped into our saddles, the cook, who always handles the reins, gives a crack of his whip, and we take our departure from civilization. A couple of miles brings us to a primitive wire-rope ferry, where we cross the Yellowstone River, which at this season of the year is low and clear; in a few minutes we are over, and, ascending the bluffs on the other side, take our last look at the beautiful valley we are leaving behind.

By night we reach Pryor's Creek, and picking out as good a camping-place as possible, the mules are soon unhitched and with the horses turned loose to graze. While the cook is preparing the evening meal, I bag a few prairie-chickens to give variety to the fare. Breakfasting at daylight the next morning, we are soon under way again, with Pryor's Mountains in the distance as our goal for this day's journey. Toward evening the white tepees of an Indian camp are visible clustered in a picturesque group close to Pryor's Mountains. Passing them, not without paying a slight tribute in the way of tobacco and such other gifts as our copper-colored friends generally demand, we fairly enter Pryor's Gap, and there, in a beautiful amphitheater, we again make camp. This evening we must have trout for supper, so all hands go to work, and we are soon rewarded with a fine mess of trout from the head waters of Pryor's Creek.

The next day, as we reach the summit of the gap, one of the most beautiful views in the country opens out. The great main range of the Rocky Mountains stretches before us, its rugged, snow-capped peaks glistening in the morning sun, and we long to be there, but many a long mile still intervenes, and forty-four miles of desert has to be crossed to-day. This is always an arduous undertaking. It is monotonous in the extreme, and men and animals are sure to suffer for want of good water, for after leaving Sage Creek on the other side of the gap, there is no water to be had until Stinking Water River[A] is reached. But all things must have an end, and at last, late in the evening, we find ourselves encamped on the banks of that stream, beautiful despite its unfortunate name.

[A] Bancroft, in his account of the early explorations of Wyoming, refers to this river as follows: "It is a slander to use this non-descriptive name for an inoffensive stream. The early trappers took it from the Indians, who, in their peculiar fashion, called it 'the river that ran by the stinking water,' referring to bad-smelling hot springs on its banks."

Fording the river the next morning, not a very terrifying operation in its present low stage, we climb the steep bank and soon begin our long ascent of the divide that separates us from our ranch and Greybull River. Accompanied by an immense amount of expletives, and very bad language, the mules are finally induced to gain the summit. Here even the most casual observer could not fail to be impressed with the magnificent and apparently indefinite expanse of mountain scenery, that, turn which way he will, meets his view. However, we have no time to linger, and picking our way among the countless buffalo wallows which indent the level surface of the summit, the wagon, with its wheels double locked, is soon groaning and creaking down the descent, which leads to the merrily rushing Meeteetse, following which, down to its junction with Greybull, we are soon inside our own fence, and are joyously welcomed by the dogs. Here, too, I find my trusty friend and companion of all my hunting trips, Tazwell Woody, a grizzled veteran of the mountains, who once long ago claimed Missouri as his home. From the ranch to the mountains is a comparatively short trip, for one day's travel to the westward would place you well up on their slopes.

Let me say of this portion of the range that it is the most rugged, broken, and precipitous of its whole extent, and the charm of overcoming its apparent inaccessibility can only be appreciated by one who has toiled and sweated in surmounting the difficulties of mountain travel from a pure love of nature in its wildest and grandest form.

Experience having taught me long ago that it was well nigh impossible to get good specimens of all the different varieties of big game on any one trip, I made up my mind to devote a certain amount of time each year to one variety. By this means their habits could be studied more closely, and the main point never lost sight of. In a short paper like this I may best take up the chief of these varieties one by one, and, without regard to the time of their occurrence, tell something of my experiences with each. And first, as to perhaps the shyest, the Rocky Mountain sheep.

In the pursuit of Rocky Mountain sheep, the hunter, to be successful, must have a fondness for the mountains, a sure foot, good wind, and a head which no height will turn. These requisites, with patience and perseverance, will, sooner or later, as the hunter gains experience, reward him with ample returns. Sometimes, however, the unexpected will happen, and the following tale may serve as an example.

We were camping well up in the mountains, and almost any hour of the day sheep could be seen with the glasses. I was after sheep; it was my intent, business, and purpose to get some if possible, and all my energies were concentrated in that direction.

There were two fine rams in particular that we could see about a mile and a half from camp occupying the slope of a rocky point or promontory that jutted out from a spur of the range. These two had a commanding position, for, while it seemed impossible to get to them from above, they could see every movement from below or on each side of them. However, after studying the country for two days, I found that by ascending the mountain behind them and coming down again I could still keep above them, though there was a very narrow ledge of rocks, rather a hazardous place, that had to be crossed to get to the point they were on. This narrow ledge they had to come back on to get to the main part of the mountain; so, stationing my companion there, and taking off my shoes, and putting on an extra pair of heavy stockings, I proceeded to crawl toward the sheep.

With due care, and not making a sound, I made a most successful stalk. Peering over the ledge, I raised my head just enough to be sure my game was still there. They were there, sure enough, within seventy-five yards of me, totally unconscious of danger, when all of a sudden they sprang to their feet and dashed away from below me as though possessed of a devil. I fired hastily, but of course missed, and turning, tried to run back to head them off, wondering what had started them, as I knew I had made no noise. But running over broken rock in one's stocking feet is a very different thing from the slow, deliberate movements that brought me there, and besides, in a few seconds I had the mortification of seeing my would-be victims bounding across the narrow ledge that separated them from the mountain. However, I thought with satisfaction that at least one would meet its death from my companion in hiding; but, alas! although the rams almost knocked him down, his cartridge missed fire, and the game ran safely by.

Regaining my shoes, which was a great relief, I soon joined my companion, and then discovered the curious adventure I had been made the subject of. It seems that when I had reached a point well down on the promontory I must have disturbed a cougar, which was evidently there for the same purpose I was, and which had stealthily followed me as I proceeded toward the sheep. Old Woody described it as highly amusing—I sneaking down after the rams, and the panther sneaking down upon me. As soon as the beast got an opportunity, it turned off, and, making the descent, alarmed the rams and thus made my hunt a failure.

Stalking the Stalker.
From Scribner's Magazine.

For several days I watched this point, but those rams never came back to it again. However, not long after this I was amply rewarded, and secured a fine specimen. From one of the high ledges I was looking down into a sort of amphitheater shut in by massive rocky heights. In this secluded retreat a little band of ewes, with one grand old patriarch as their master, could be seen every day disporting themselves with many a curious gambol. After many unsuccessful attempts, I was enabled to get a shot, and great was my delight at depriving the little band of their supercilious protector. Upon another occasion I was camping away back up in the mountains, where there were about eighteen inches of snow on the ground. The weather had been villainous; there was no meat in the camp, and I determined to see if I could not get a deer. The prospect was not very cheering, for shortly after starting a heavy fog shut down, hiding all objects from view. I had not proceeded far, however, when I struck the fresh track of a ram, and, following it cautiously for about a mile through the open, it led into a dense patch of pine on the side of the mountain. Proceeding very carefully now, I soon made out the outline of a fine old ram that had wandered off here in the timber to be by himself. Giving him no time to run, for I was close upon him, certainly not farther than twenty-five yards, I planted a shot just back of the shoulder, but he did not seem to mind it. I gave him another when he started to walk slowly off. One more shot in the same place, and down he came. Even then he died hard. Such is the vitality of an old ram; for upon examining him I found his heart all torn to pieces. This was a good head of nearly sixteen inches circumference of horns, and the girth of chest was forty-six inches. In returning to camp for horses to pack him on, I jumped five more sheep, but having done well enough, they were allowed to disappear in safety.

Sheep have a wonderfully keen vision, and it is absolutely useless to try to get to them if they once see you, unless you happen to be above them and on their favorite runway; then they huddle together and try to break back past you. The only safe rule is to travel high and keep working up above their feeding-grounds. In the spring of the year they are much easier to kill than in the fall, for then the heavy winter snows have driven them out of the mountains, and they come low down after the fresh green grass. The rams are then in bands, having laid aside the hostility that later in the year seems to possess each and every one of them.

I was much interested once in watching a band of eight rams, all of them old fellows. They would feed early in the morning and then betake themselves to a large rock which stood on a grassy slope, where they would play for hours. One of them would jump on the rock and challenge the others to butt him off. Two or three would then jump up, and their horns would come together with a clash that I could hear from my position, which was fully a quarter of a mile away. On one occasion I saw them suddenly stop their play and each ram became fixed; there the little band stood as though carved out of stone. They remained that way for quite half an hour without a movement. I could not detect with the glasses the slightest motion, when, presently, three strange rams made their appearance. Here was the explanation that I was looking for. They had seen them long before I had. The three visitors were not very well received, but were compelled to beat an ignominious and hasty retreat up the mountain side.

As summer draws near, and the winter snow begins to disappear, bands of elk may be seen migrating toward their favorite ranges. The bulls are now together in bands of greater or less extent. Their horns are well grown out, but are soft and in the velvet. The cows and calves stick closely to the thick timber. As the season advances and the flies become troublesome, the bulls will get up as high as they can climb and seem to delight in standing on the brink of some mountain precipice. I have often wondered, in seeing them standing thus, whether they were insensible of the magnificent scenery that surrounded them.

Reader, what would you have given to have seen, as I have, a band of two hundred and fifty bull-elk collected together on a beautiful piece of green grassy turf at an elevation of nine thousand feet? Here was a sight to make a man's nerves tingle. This was the largest band of bulls, by actual count, that I have ever seen, though my cousin and partner once saw in the fall of the year, including bulls, cows, and calves, fifteen hundred. This was on the memorable occasion when the only elk ever killed by any of my men gave up his life, and we have all concluded that this particular elk was frightened to death; for though three men shot at him and each was confident he hit him, they always asserted afterward that no bullet-mark could be found on him.

Generally, in August, in each band of bulls there will be found one or two barren cows. About the end of August, after the bulls have rubbed the velvet off their antlers, they will come back to the vicinity of the bands of cows. I have seen bulls as late as September 4 peaceably feeding or resting among the bands of cows. Usually, in a band of fifty cows, there would be three or four males, including, possibly, one or two spike-bulls.[A] I have seen these spike-bulls in the velvet as late as September 4, though by that time the older bulls had mostly rubbed the velvet off. A little later, about September 7, the bulls begin to challenge each other,—in hunting parlance, "to whistle." This, on a clear, frosty night, is sometimes extremely melodious, and it is one of the most impossible sounds to imitate. Hunting elk, if I may be pardoned for saying it, I do not consider very exciting sport to a man thoroughly versed in the woods. They are far too noble an animal to kill unnecessarily, and if one hunts them in September, when they are whistling, it is a very easy matter, guided by the sound, to stalk them successfully.

[A] A spike-bull is a young elk carrying his first or dag antlers. These are single-tined, though in rare instances they are bifurcated.

Studying the Strangers.
From Scribner's Magazine.

Elk, like the rest of the deer family, are excessively fond of saline matter. Their trails may be seen leading from every direction to the great alkaline licks that abound in certain parts of their mountain-ranges. Among other favorite resorts are springs, which make, on steep wooded slopes, delightful, boggy wallowing places. The bulls revel in these from August to the middle of September. It is not an uncommon thing to kill them just as they emerge from their viscous bath coated with mud. The elk has a great deal of natural curiosity, and I have seen extraordinary instances of this where they had been but little hunted or alarmed. My friend Phillips, of Washington, who was with me, will vouch for the veracity of this story, which I give as an example: We were wandering along the top of the mountain, some nine thousand feet up, trying to stalk some elk, not to shoot them, but to photograph them. We jumped a small band of bulls, numbering about sixteen. They trotted off slowly, frequently stopping to look back, until all but two large bulls had disappeared. These walked slowly back to within fifty yards of where we were standing, and stopped, facing us.

It was truly one of the most charming sights one could have wished for, to have those graceful, sleek creatures almost close enough to caress. Presently, with a defiant snort, and with a succession of short barks, they would move away and come back again, repeating these manœuvers over and over again, until we got tired of trying to look like a brace of marble posts and sat down. We thought this would frighten them, but it did not, and once I thought they were going to proceed from curiosity to more offensive operations, so close did they come to us. Even my caterwauling, as my friend unfeelingly characterized my attempt to imitate their challenges, did not seem to alarm them, and not until a full half-hour had elapsed did this pair of inquisitive worthies at length jog off.

Elk are vigorous fighters, and while it seems that their combats seldom terminate fatally, the broken points of their antlers, and their scarred and bruised bodies, bear testimony to the severity of their encounters. A full-grown elk stands about sixteen hands high, is about eight feet two inches long from nose to tip of tail, and with a girth around the chest of about six feet.

It was on the head of Wind River that I secured my largest head. The regularity of the points was somewhat marred, as the bull had evidently been fighting only a short time before I killed him. These horns were not very massive, but the length, measured along the outside curve, is sixty-three and seven eighths inches. The circumference between bay and tray is from seven and one half to eight inches, and the greatest spread between antlers is forty-nine inches.

Probably more horrible lies have been told by bear-hunters than any other class of men, except, perhaps, fishermen, who are renowned for their yarns. However, I trust that in the case of the few instances I have to give of my experience I can keep fairly within the bounds of truth and not try the reader's credulity.

Bear-hunting, as a general rule, I do not think would appeal to most sportsmen. It is rather slow work, and one is often very inadequately rewarded for the amount of time and trouble spent in hunting up Bruin. There is hardly a portion of the mountains where there are not evidences of bears, but I do not believe that in any locality they are especially abundant. They have been hunted and trapped so long that those which survive are extremely cautious. In my experience there is no animal gifted with a greater amount of intelligence, and, in this region, the hunter's chief virtue, patience to wait and stay in one spot, is sure to be rewarded, sooner or later, with a good shot which should mean success.

Let me say that the danger and ferocity of the bear is, I think, very much over-stated, yet there is just enough of the element of danger to make the pursuit of this animal exciting. Naturalists do not now apparently recognize more than two varieties of bear in the Rocky Mountains; that is, they class the cinnamon, silver-tip, and grizzly as grizzly bear. The other variety, of course, is the black bear. I am by no means sure that the grizzly bear will not be further subdivided after careful comparisons of collections of skulls.

Much has been said and written about the size and weight of the grizzly bear, and in most instances this has been mere guesswork. Lewis and Clark made frequent mention of this animal, and yet their estimates of the weight fall far below that of other writers. Only a few instances have come to my knowledge where the weight has been ascertained absolutely. A good-sized grizzly killed in Yellowstone Park one summer by Wilson, the Government scout, weighed six hundred pounds. Colonel Pickett, who has a neighboring ranch to mine, and who has killed more bears than any man I know of, weighed his largest, which, if I remember rightly, weighed eight hundred pounds. One will, of course, occasionally see a very large skin, and from its size it would seem impossible that the animal that once filled it out, if in good condition, could have weighed less than twelve hundred pounds. But I think it may be safely set down that the average weight of most specimens that one will get in the mountains will be under, rather than over, five hundred pounds.

To me, bear-hunting possesses a great fascination, and for years I have hunted nothing else. Personally I prefer to go after them in the spring. Their skins are then in their prime, the hair long and soft, and their claws (if valued as they should be) are long and sharp from disuse. Bears seek their winter quarters in Bad Lands and in the mountains. Those that adopt the former come out much earlier; consequently if the hunter is on the ground soon enough, by beginning first in the lower lands and working toward the mountains, he may be reasonably sure of securing good skins as late as June. In the spring, too, bears are much more in the open, and travel incessantly in search of food.

It is highly interesting to watch them, when one has the chance, turning over stones, tearing open fallen trees, or rooting like a pig in some favorite spot. Acres upon acres even of hard, stony ground they will turn up, and in other places it would be difficult to find a stone or rock they had not displaced. They will undermine and dig out great stumps. Ant-hills you will find leveled, and the thrifty squirrels, who have labored all the previous fall to make a cache of pine nuts, are robbed on sight.

One spring, the work on the ranch being done, Woody and I took our pack-horses and proceeded to the mountains after bears. I had no sooner picked out a good camping-ground than it began to snow, and for four days we could not stir from camp. However, it finally cleared off, the sun came out bright and warm, and the little stream that we were on began boiling, tearing, and rushing along, full to the banks, causing us to move our camp back to higher ground. After breakfast, as we proposed to take a long day's trip, we took our horses with us. Riding up to the head of the stream we were on, looking for bears, no signs were to be seen, though plenty of sheep were in sight all the time. Riding on, away above the cañon some six or eight miles we could see some elk. We closely scanned the neighboring heights, but still no sign of bears. Finally, we turned off and worked our way clear up on top of the mountain, determined to see the country anyway. Slowly we climbed upward, skyward, dragging our weary horses after us, until at noon we were nearly up and concluded to lunch at the little rill of melted snow that came from a big drift on the mountain-side.

To get to it, though, we were obliged to cross the drift, and Woody led the way with his favorite horse, old Rock, in tow; and here was where my laugh came in, to see those two floundering through that drift. At times, all I could see of Rock was the tips of his ears. The crust was just strong enough to hold Woody up if he went "easy," but he could not go easy with the horse plunging on top of him, and they would both break through. However, they had to go ahead in spite of themselves, and they were finally landed half-drowned and smothered on dry ground. Of course, profiting by this experience, I circumnavigated the drift, and we sat down to our dry bread and bacon, washed down by a long pull from the handy snow-water. Ten minutes and a pipe was all that we allowed ourselves before resuming our toil—for that is really the way to designate the ascent of these mountains.

We saw six fine rams which did not seem to regard us with any uneasiness, permitting us to get within murderous distance, and I looked at their leader with some longing. He had such a noble head of curling, graceful, well-rounded horns. He must have been a powerful adversary when it came to butting. Stifling the desire, I passed by without disturbing them, and at last reached the top of the divide, and was repaid by a glorious and most extended view.

At that time Nature was not in her most smiling garb. It had been steadily growing colder, ominous clouds were gathering in the west, and an ugly rolling of thunder warned us that no genial spring day with shirt-sleeve accompaniment was to gladden and cheer us. Still we must look for bears; so buttoning up our coats and turning up our collars we surveyed the country. At the same time it was impossible to forego a study of the grandeur of the view displayed before us.

Those who have seen the mountains and foot-hills only in the fall of the year, when every blade of grass is parched and brown and dry, can form no adequate idea of the change that presents itself in the spring. Especially is one surprised when, standing on the top of some mountain height surrounded by everlasting snow, he looks down over the valleys and sees the richness and vividness of the green growing grasses which seem to roll up almost to his feet. As we stood there we had a glorious panorama. The vast gathering cloud was behind us, and the sun, though not shining for us, was lighting up the broad valley below. Greybull River stretched away until it joined the Big Horn beyond. The whole range of the Big Horn Mountains was visible, their snow-tops glistening like a bank of silver clouds, and the main range we were standing on was brought out in all its dazzling grandeur. Snow-drift upon snow-drift, with gracefully curling crests, stretched away as far as the eye could reach, for miles and miles. Still we saw no bears, and while we were enjoying all this wonderful scenery we neglected the storm, and were soon enveloped in a raging tempest of wind and snow with a demoniacal accompaniment of lightning and crashing thunder.

We hunched up our backs and stumbled along the ridge before the blast, and were soon brought up by a drift. However, here was luck for once. We saw the print of two fresh bear-tracks crossing the drift. All thoughts of the storm were lost in our delight at the vicinity of bears, for the sign was very fresh. Alas, though, we lost the tracks after crossing the drift, and could not find them again upon the rugged soil of these ridges where the wind had blown the snow off. We circled round and round, studying every patch of snow, and my companion, Woody, looked and spoke doubtfully. At last I caught the trail again. Only a half-dozen tracks, but enough to show the right direction, and as we ascended the ridge the tracks were on, I saw the two rascals across the gulch on an enormous snow-drift, tearing and chewing at something, I could not make out what.

Crossing a Drift.
From Scribner's Magazine.

It was still snowing hard, but it was only a squall and nearly over. The wind was wrong; it unfortunately blew toward the bears and the only direction in which we could stalk them. Still an attempt had to be made. We took the bridles from our horses and let down our hacamores, to let them feed comfortably and out of sight, while we crawled up the ridge to where it joined the one the bears were on. We had to creep up a beastly snow-drift, which was soft and no telling how deep.

It was deep enough, for we went through sometimes to our armpits. But what mattered it when we were at concert-pitch, and bears for the tune? We were now on the same ridge as the bears. Cautiously, with the wind just a little aslant, we crawled down toward our prey, crossing another miserable snow-drift, into which we went up to our necks, where we brought up, our feet having touched bottom. We floundered out behind a small rock, and then looked up over at the bears. Too far to shoot with any certainty, and I said to Woody, "I must get closer." And so back we crawled.

Making a little detour we bobbed up again, not serenely, for the wind was blowing on the backs of our necks straight as an arrow to where the bears were. But we were a little higher up on the ridge than they and our taint must have gone over them, for when I looked up again one of them was chewing a savory morsel, and the other was on his hind legs blinking at the sun, which was just breaking through the clouds. Wiping the snow and drops of water and slush from our rifles and sights, and with a whispered advice from Woody not to be in a hurry if they came toward us, but to reserve fire in order to make sure work,—for no sheltering tree awaited us as a safe retreat, nothing but snowy ridges for miles,—I opened the ball with the young lady who was sitting down.

Two Pairs.
From Scribner's Magazine.

She dropped her bone, clapped one of her paws to her ribs, and to my happiness waltzed down the snow-bank. As she now seemed to be out of the dance, I turned to her brother, for such I afterward judged him to be, who, with great affection, had gone down with her until she stuck her head in the snow. Not understanding this, he smelled around his fallen relative, when a hollow three-hundred-and-thirty-grain chunk of lead nearly severed one hip and smashed the other. He did not stop to reason, but promptly jumped on his relative, and then and there occurred a lively bit of a scrimmage. Over and over they rolled, slapping, biting, and making the best fight of it they could, considering the plight they were in. Each probably accused the other of the mishap.

The snow was dyed a crimson hue. It was like the scene of a bloody battle-ground. At last the lady first aggrieved gave up, and plunged her head back into the snow, while her brother, not having any one to fight with, went off a short distance and lay down. We cautiously approached, bearing in mind that a snow-drift is a hard thing for pedestrians in a hurry to travel on, and when we got about ten feet from the first bear, I told my companion to snowball her and see what effect that would have, for she looked too innocent to be finished for and dead.

But instead of doing so, he discarded his rifle and reached for her tail. Ah, I thought so! for, as he gave a yank, up came her head, her jaws flew open like clockwork, and a snort came forth. But right between the eyes went the deadly messenger, smashing her skull and ending any prolonged suffering for any of us. Her end accomplished, we turned to the other partner. He had been taking it all in, and was ready for a fight. He seemed pretty fit, too. Fortunately, he could not come up to us; the snow-drift was too steep, and he had only two serviceable legs to travel with. Still he had true grit, and faced us; but it was an unequal battle.

Again the bullet reached its victim, and brother ba'r lay quietly on his back with his legs in the air. No need to trifle with this bear's tail, as any fool could see that he was dead. However, we pelted him with a lot of snowballs, and then Woody went around to his stump of a tail and pulled it while I stood guard at his head. We took off our coats, and soon had the skins off the pair of them. These skins proved to be in the finest condition, though the bears themselves were poor. I should judge one was a three-year-old and the other a two-year-old. Still they were good-sized grizzlies.

Those skins seemed to grow in size and weight as each of us lugged one up the side of the mountain over shelving rock, snow, and loose gravel to where we left our horses. Of course they were not there, and we had to go on, carrying the skins, which were growing heavier and heavier every minute, until we tracked our horses to where they were feeding, and, in Western vernacular, "we had a circus" packing those skins on my horse. It was done at last, though, and to stay, by means of blindfolding him with a coat; and after a little while he settled down to work as though he had carried bears all his many years of service. I had a very nasty time in getting down the mountain after my horse slipped and fell down a gap in the crown rock. We could not get the other down, so I took charge of my horse and skins and made the rest of the descent in safety, though it looked squally for a bit when the old rascal's feet slid out from under him, knocking me down in the snow, and he on top, and I could feel that even with the fleecy covering the rocks were still very hard.

However, it was deep enough for me to crawl out, more scared than hurt, and soon we had sage-brush and grass under our feet, with an easy trail to camp, where a square meal inside of a stomach that sorely needed it soon made amends for all hardships. Wondering what those bears had been at work at, I went back the next day and found that they had been tearing up a sheep that had died of scab, a disease that wild sheep are subject to.

To a thorough sportsman, killing bear after a successful stalk is by long odds the best and most exciting method, but the country must be such as permits of this,—as, for instance, when there are long stretches of high mountains, plateaus or ridges above, or devoid of, timber, where the bears resort to root, and where the hunter from some elevated post can look over a large area with the aid of glasses. The general procedure, though, is to put out bait—that is, to have the carcass of some animal to attract the bear, and many a noble elk or timorous deer has been thus sacrificed. To avoid this needless destruction it has been my custom to take along on my hunting-trips aged and worn-out horses, which answer admirably when it comes to drawing bears to a carcass. Of course, this is not always a sure way, for the bear, if alarmed or disturbed, will only visit the carcass at night, and then, if the hunter is persistent and determined to get a shot, he may expect many weary hours of watching from a friendly pine.

I think I hear the reader say, "What's the fun in shooting a bear from a tree?—there is no risk in that." True, there is not; but it is when you come down from your perch that you may not feel quite so safe, as with limbs benumbed from cold and lack of circulation you climb down, knowing that perhaps several pairs of watchful eyes or cunning nostrils are studying your movements. Involuntarily your thoughts travel in the vein of your gloomy surroundings as you go stumbling on your way to camp: what if the bear should prefer live goose-flesh to dead horse?

One spring morning I was knocking around under the base of the mountains and found myself, about dinner-time, so close to Colonel Pickett's cozy log-cabin that I determined to pay him a long-postponed visit. After an ample repast, including some delicious home-made butter, which I had not tasted for a month, Woody and I, with our little pack-train, regretfully filed off, and, fording the river, took up our wanderings, not expecting to see our cheery host again for a year.

We had not proceeded far, though, when we met an excited "cow-puncher," who evidently had news to tell. He had been up on the side of the mountain, which was here a long grassy slope as smooth as any of our well-tended lawns, extending upward to where it joined the dense pine-forest which covered the upper portion of the mountain. Our friend was the horse-wrangler for a neighboring ranch, and was out looking for horses. Did any one ever see a horse-wrangler who was not looking for missing stock?

When skirting the timber he surprised, or was surprised by, a good-sized grizzly, which promptly chased him downward and homeward, and evidently for a short distance was well up in the race. Gathering from his description that the bear had been at work on the carcass of a steer that had died from eating poison-weed, I determined to go back and camp, and see if another skin could not be added to the score. It did not take long to pick out an ideal camping-spot, well sheltered, with plenty of dry wood, and trout from the little stream almost jumping into the frying-pan.

Our horses had been having pretty rough times lately, and they lost no time in storing away as much of the rich grass as they could hold. They had plenty of society, too, for the slope was dotted here and there with bunches of range cattle and bands of horses, not to mention the recent additions to the families of each in the shape of frolicsome calves and frisky foals, all busily at work. Bruin seemed rather out of place in such a pastoral scene, and yet, as one looked higher beyond the somber heights of the forest toward the frowning crown rock that resembled some mighty fortress forbidding further progress, or the everlasting snow-peaks above, one could well fancy that wild animals must be up there somewhere, either in the dense woods or in the still higher and safer retreats.

We at once examined the ground, and found the carcasses of two steers, one of which was untouched, but the other was very nearly devoured. All the signs pointed to more than one bear, and the ground was fairly padded down round the carcass they were using. Unfortunately, though, there seemed to be no place to watch from,—not a bush or rock to screen one while awaiting a shot. To cut a long story short, I watched that bait every afternoon and evening for a week, and though it was visited every night I never got a sight of the prowlers. Bears will very often, when going to a carcass, take the same trail, but when leaving, wander off in almost any direction. Taking advantage of this, and being satisfied that they were up in the timber through the day, we hunted for their trail, and found it on an old wood-road that led through the timber. To make sure, we placed the hind quarters of one of the steers just on the edge of the forest, and awaited developments. That night the bears found it, and, dragging it off, carefully cached it; so we determined to watch here.

As the daylight faded that night I was much disappointed to find that if I was to get a shot it would have to be in the dark; so as soon as I found I could not see to shoot with any degree of safety, I got up in a pine-tree that commanded the road and was just over the bait. It was weary work watching, and to make it still more uncomfortable, a heavy thunder-storm swept by, first pelting one with hail, then with a deluge of rain and snow.

It was pitch-dark, except when the black recesses of the forest seemed to be rent asunder during the vivid lightning. The whole effect was weird and uncanny, and I wished myself back under my soft, warm blankets. I could not well repress thinking of the early admonition of "Never go under a tree during a thunder-storm."—But what's that? One swift surge of blood to the heart, an involuntary tightening of the muscles that strongly gripped the rifle. I seemed to feel, rather than see, the presence of three strange objects that appeared to have sprung from the ground under me.

I had not heard a sound; not a twig had snapped, and yet, as I strained my eyes to penetrate the gloom, there, right at my feet, almost touching them in fact, I made out the indistinct forms of three bears all standing on their hind legs. Oh, what a chance it was if it had not been so dark! I could not even see the end of my rifle; but I knew I could hit them, they were so close. But to hit fatally? Well, there is no use thinking about it now the bears are here. Trust to luck and shoot!

Hardly daring to breathe, I fired; the scuffling on the ground, and the short, sharp snorting, told me I had not missed; but I could see nothing, and could only hear the bear rolling over and over and growling angrily. Presently there was quiet, and then with angry, furious champing of jaws the wounded animal charged back directly under me; but I could not see to shoot again, worse luck. From sundry sounds I gathered the bear was not far off, but had lain down in a thicket which was about one hundred yards from my tree. I could hear an occasional growl, and the snap of dead branches, broken as she turned uneasily. I did not know exactly what to do. To descend was awkward, and to stay where I was, wet and chilled to the bone, seemed impossible. It was most unlikely the other bears would come back; however, thinking it would be prudent to stay aloft a little while longer, I made up my mind to stick it out another half hour. During this wait I fancied I could see shadowy forms moving about, and I could surely hear a cub squalling. The light was now a little better, and the darkness, though still very black, was not so intense.

Just as I had screwed up courage to descend, another bear came up under the tree and reared up. This time I made no mistake, and almost simultaneously with the rifle's report a hoarse bawl proved to me that I had conquered. Glad at almost any cost to get out of my cramped position I sung out to Woody to lend a hand, as I proposed descending, and as he came up I came down, and then we discussed the situation. The proximity of the wounded bear was not pleasant, but then the dead one must be opened in order to save the skin. But what if the latter were not dead? Hang this night-work! why can't the bears stick to daylight! But to work,—there was the motionless form to be operated on. Inch by inch we crept up with our rifles at full-cock stuck out ahead of us until they gently touched the inanimate mass. It was all right, for the bear was stone-dead. Hastily feeling in the dark, as neatly as possible the necessary operations were nearly concluded when simultaneously we both dropped our knives and made for the open.... It makes me perspire even now when I think of that midnight stampede from an enraged and wounded grizzly.

Archibald Rogers.

Coursing the Prongbuck

The prongbuck is the most characteristic and distinctive of American game animals. Zoölogically speaking, its position is unique. It is the only hollow-horned ruminant which sheds its horns. We speak of it as an antelope, and it does of course represent on our prairies the antelopes of the Old World, and is a distant relative of theirs; but it stands apart from all other horned animals. Its position in the natural world is almost as lonely as that of the giraffe.

The chase of the prongbuck has always been to me very attractive, but especially so when carried on by coursing it with greyhounds. Any man who has lived much in the cow-country, and has wandered about a good deal over the great plains, is of course familiar with this gallant little beast, and has probably had to rely upon it very frequently for a supply of fresh meat. On my ranch it has always been the animal which yielded us most of the fresh meat we had in the spring and summer. Of course at such times we killed only bucks, and even these only when we positively needed the flesh.

In all its ways and habits the prongbuck differs as much from deer and elk as from goat and sheep. Now that the buffalo has gone, it is the only game really at home on the wide plains. It is a striking-looking little creature, with its big bulging eyes, single-pronged horns, and the sharply contrasted coloration of its coat; this coat, by the way, being composed of curiously coarse and brittle hair. In marked contrast to deer, antelope never seek to elude observation; all they care for is to be able to see themselves. As they have good noses and wonderful eyes, and as they live by preference where there is little or no cover, shots at them are usually obtained only at far longer range than is the case with other game; and yet, as they are easily seen, and often stand looking at the hunter just barely within very long rifle-range, they are always tempting their pursuer to the expenditure of cartridges. More shots are wasted at antelope than at any other game. They would be even harder to secure were it not that they are subject to fits of panic, folly, or excessive curiosity, which occasionally put them fairly at the mercy of the rifle-bearing hunter.

Prongbucks are very fast runners indeed, even faster than deer. They vary greatly in speed, however, precisely as is the case with deer; in fact, I think that the average hunter makes altogether too little account of this individual variation among different animals of the same kind. Under the same conditions different deer and antelope vary in speed and wariness, exactly as bears and cougars vary in cunning and ferocity. When in perfect condition a full-grown buck antelope, from its strength and size, is faster and more enduring than an old doe; but a fat buck, before the rut has begun, will often be pulled down by a couple of good greyhounds much more speedily than a flying yearling or two-year-old doe. Under favorable circumstances, when the antelope was jumped near by, I have seen one overhauled and seized by a single first-class greyhound; and, on the other hand, I have more than once seen a pronghorn run away from a whole pack of just as good dogs. With a fair start, and on good ground, a thoroughbred horse, even though handicapped by the weight of a rider, will run down an antelope; but this is a feat which should rarely be attempted, because such a race, even when carried to a successful issue, is productive of the utmost distress to the steed.

Ordinary horses will sometimes run down an antelope which is slower than the average. I had on my ranch an under-sized old Indian pony named White Eye, which, when it was fairly roused, showed a remarkable turn of speed, and had great endurance. One morning on the round-up, when for some reason we did not work the cattle, I actually ran down an antelope in fair chase on this old pony. It was a nursing doe, and I came over the crest of a hill, between forty and fifty yards away from it. As it wheeled to start back, the old cayuse pricked up his ears with great interest, and the minute I gave him a sign was after it like a shot. Whether, being a cow-pony, he started to run it just as if it were a calf or a yearling trying to break out of the herd, or whether he was overcome by dim reminiscences of buffalo-hunting in his Indian youth, I know not. At any rate, after the doe he went, and in a minute or two I found I was drawing up to it. I had a revolver, but of course did not wish to kill her, and so got my rope ready to try to take her alive. She ran frantically, but the old pony, bending level to the ground, kept up his racing lope and closed right in beside her. As I came up she fairly bleated. An expert with the rope would have captured her with the utmost ease; but I missed, sending the coil across her shoulders. She again gave an agonized bleat, or bark, and wheeled around like a shot. The cow-pony stopped almost, but not quite, as fast, and she got a slight start, and it was some little time before I overhauled her again. When I did I repeated the performance, and this time when she wheeled she succeeded in getting on some ground where I could not follow, and I was thrown out.

I have done a good deal of coursing with greyhounds at one time or another, but always with scratch packs. The average frontiersman seems to have an inveterate and rooted objection to a dog with pure blood. If he gets a greyhound, his first thought is to cross it with something else, whether a bull mastiff, or a setter, or a foxhound. There are a few men who keep leashes of greyhounds of pure blood, bred and trained to antelope-coursing, and who do their coursing scientifically, carrying the dogs out to the hunting-grounds in wagons and exercising every care in the sport; but these men are rare. The average man who dwells where antelope are sufficiently abundant to make coursing a success, simply follows the pursuit at odd moments, with whatever long-legged dogs he and his neighbors happen to have; and his methods of coursing are apt to be as rough as his outfit. My own coursing has been precisely of this character. At different times I have had on my ranch one or two high-class greyhounds and Scotch deer-hounds, with which we have coursed deer and antelope, as well as jack-rabbits, foxes, and coyotes; and we have usually had with them one or two ordinary hounds, and various half-bred dogs. I must add, however, that some of the latter were very good. I can recall in particular one fawn-colored beast, a cross between a greyhound and a foxhound, which ran nearly as fast as the former, though it occasionally yelped in shrill tones. It could also trail well, and was thoroughly game; on one occasion it ran down and killed a coyote single-handed.

On going out with these dogs, I rarely chose a day when I was actually in need of fresh meat. If this was the case, I usually went alone with the rifle; but if one or two other men were at the ranch, and we wanted a morning's fun, we would often summon the dogs, mount our horses, and go trooping out to the antelope-ground. As there was a good deer-country between the ranch bottom and the plains where we found the prongbuck, it not infrequently happened that we had a chase after black-tail or white-tail on the way. Moreover, when we got out to the ground, before sighting antelope, it frequently happened that the dogs would jump a jack-rabbit or a fox, and away the whole set would go after it, streaking through the short grass, sometimes catching their prey in a few hundred yards, and sometimes having to run a mile or so. In consequence, by the time we reached the regular hunting-ground, the dogs were apt to have lost a good deal of their freshness. We would get them in behind the horses and creep cautiously along, trying to find some solitary prongbuck in a suitable place, where we could bring up the dogs from behind a hillock, and give them a fair start after it. Usually we failed to get the dogs near enough for a good start; and in most cases their chases after unwounded prongbuck resulted in the quarry running clean away from them. Thus the odds were greatly against them; but, on the other hand, we helped them wherever possible with the rifle. We often rode well scattered out, and if one of us put up an antelope, or had a chance at one when driven by the dogs, he would always fire, and the pack were saved from the ill effects of total discouragement by so often getting these wounded beasts. It was astonishing to see how fast an antelope with a broken leg could run. If such a beast had a good start, and especially if the dogs were tired, it would often lead them a hard chase, and the dogs would be utterly exhausted after it had been killed; so that we would have to let them lie where they were for a long time before trying to lead them down to some stream-bed. If possible, we carried water for them in canteens.

There were red-letter days, however, in which our dogs fairly ran down and killed antelope,—days when the weather was cool, and when it happened that we got our dogs out to the ground without their being tired by previous runs, and found our quarry soon, and in favorable places for slipping the hounds. I remember one such chase in particular. We had at the time a mixed pack, in which there was only one dog of my own, the others being contributed from various sources. It included two greyhounds, a rough-coated deerhound, a foxhound, and the fawn-colored crossbred mentioned above.

We rode out in the early morning, the dogs trotting behind us; and, coming to a low tract of rolling hills, just at the edge of the great prairie, we separated and rode over the crest of the nearest ridge. Just as we topped it, a fine buck leaped up from a hollow a hundred yards off, and turned to look at us for a moment. All the dogs were instantly spinning toward him down the grassy slope. He apparently saw those at the right, and, turning, raced away from us in a diagonal line, so that the left-hand greyhound, which ran cunningly and tried to cut him off, was very soon almost alongside. He saw her, however,—she was a very fast bitch,—just in time, and, wheeling, altered his course to the right. As he reached the edge of the prairie, this alteration nearly brought him in contact with the crossbred, which had obtained a rather poor start, on the extreme right of the line. Around went the buck again, evidently panic-struck and puzzled to the last degree, and started straight off across the prairie, the dogs literally at his heels, and we, urging our horses with whip and spur, but a couple of hundred yards behind. For half a mile the pace was tremendous, when one of the greyhounds made a spring at his ear, but, failing to make good his hold, was thrown off. However, it halted the buck for a moment, and made him turn quarter round, and in a second the deerhound had seized him by the flank and thrown him, and all the dogs piled on top, never allowing him to rise.

Later in the day we again put up a buck not far off. At first it went slowly, and the dogs hauled up on it; but when they got pretty close, it seemed to see them, and letting itself out, went clean away from them almost without effort.

Once or twice we came upon bands of antelope, and the hounds would immediately take after them. I was always rather sorry for this, however, because the frightened animals, as is generally the case when beasts are in a herd, seemed to impede one another, and the chase usually ended by the dogs seizing a doe, for it was of course impossible to direct them to any particular beast.

It will be seen that with us coursing was a homely sport. Nevertheless we had very good fun, and I shall always have enjoyable memories of the rapid gallops across the prairie, on the trail of a flying prongbuck.

Theodore Roosevelt.

After Wapiti in Wyoming

I went into camp, one night in September, on one of the many branches of the upper Snake River, in northwestern Wyoming. It was after a most severe and perplexing day's pack,—one of those days in which "things" go wrong. The packs turned, the cinches refused to hold, and the fresh little Indian pony—for which we had traded a sore-backed packhorse, one cup of sugar, and a half-dozen cartridges, three days previous, with some Bannack Indians who came to my camp-fire on the Snake River—fancied she could put everybody in good temper by having a bucking fit. She had managed to settle one side of her pack on a sharp stub when she came down from a flight, and to punch a fair-sized hole in the canvas cover, which immediately began to flow granulated sugar; but by good luck we managed to catch her lariat and rearrange her pack, minus about one half our supply of sweets. The day was finished with eight horses thoroughly tired, and three men in a condition which admitted of only the fewest words with the longest possible intervals between. Gloom overhung the outfit.

These feelings disappeared as soon as we had finished our supper, and we had just lighted our pipes when, close by our camp-fire, we heard clearly the call of a bull elk. Up to that time I had not had a shot at this, the grandest of all the deer family, and I was quickly on my feet, rifle in hand. Wading the brook, I stalked as hurriedly as I dared toward an opening some forty rods beyond. It was just the last glimmer of daylight, and I made time until I came to the bank, over which I could look into the open park where I felt the royal beast was. What a picture greeted my gaze! The park was perhaps four hundred yards across, and nearly oval in shape, and from the opposite side ran out, nearly to the middle, a plateau some thirty feet in height. On the point of this, standing as immovable as one of Barye's bronzes, was a bull elk with antlers that would please the most fastidious sportsman in the world. In a moment he elevated his head and gave a call ending with those liquid flute-notes that make the blood run quickly in the most phlegmatic hunter's veins. A quick glance showed me that I could not approach him any nearer, and putting up my sight, as I thought, high enough, I pressed the trigger, and saw the bullet strike just under his belly. He whirled and made for cover, and out of pure desperation I gave him another shot, without result. In a shorter time than I have spent in telling this, the twilight had entirely disappeared, and I wended my way back to camp with only the memory of what I had seen to repay me for the wetting which my hurried crossing of the brook had given me.

For three days we had climbed mountains, wallowed through mud-holes, and tobogganed down clay banks, hunting for elk which the Indians had frightened away from the Snake River by their noisy mode of hunting. There were four lodges of Bannacks, and they had some eighty horses of various kinds and colors. They said they had spent six weeks there jerking elk-meat for their winter's food. The country which we crossed during these three days was completely checkered with elk trails, mud-wallows, slivered trees, and many other evidences that large bands of elk had occupied the country for months; and my packer insisted that we would surely find them if we continued hunting in the rough mountains which lay to the east.

Early the next day, while at the brook making my morning toilet, I heard Stewart say to the cook that the horses had gone out of the country; and after two minutes of very vehement remarks, he informed me that five horses had taken the back trail, and that Worth must go with him to head them off. So, each taking a horse, they rode away, leaving me to keep camp with only old Scoop Shovel, a split-eared packhorse, for company.

Always having loved nature, I concluded that a little prospecting on my own hook would be preferable to lounging about camp waiting for the return of the men and horses; so, saddling old Scoop Shovel, I forded the brook and, crossing the scene of my bad shooting the previous evening, climbed a small range of hills. On the opposite side I found a good-sized stream, which I thought was the main Coulter Creek. Following it up some two miles, I suddenly heard a bull elk call, and fastening my horse, I crept toward the sound. Coming out of some thick woods, I saw across the stream a band of seven elk and three or four calves. They were feeding away from me, and I decided that if I crossed the stream and reached the top of a little hill before they could walk out of the woods and get into the middle of an open park, some half-mile across, I might be able to get a shot. The stream was quite rapid and fairly deep, and while I did not care for wet feet, I hoped to escape a wet jacket. However, as I stepped boldly in, the current whirled me off my feet, and the water opened its gates and let me find a resting-place on the slippery, smooth stones of its bottom.

On gaining the opposite bank, I broke into a run for my game. I have always been a fair sprinter, but before I had reached the hill, fifty or sixty rods away, I was completely pumped, and had to stop. Fortunately I was running toward game, rather than being chased by a grizzly, for I had shot my bolt. The high altitude had put me out of the race. However, a rest for a few minutes got me in order, and slowly climbing the hill, I looked over and saw that the band, a hundred yards away, had stopped feeding, and with elevated heads were trying to catch the scent of possible danger. I decided to chance a shot, and with lungs well filled covered the bull. At the report, I heard the shot strike, and with three leaps he came to his knees, but only quickly to regain his feet and trot away. I started on the run toward him, and he having then reached the brook, leaped for the opposite bank. Firing while he was in the air, I saw him fall on his head on landing, and hurried up just as he was having his last struggle. My first shot had been too far back; the second went in at the flank, ranging forward and breaking his shoulder.

His harem were somewhat dazed, and did not evince much fear, but stood crowded together looking at me. I shouted at them, and as that did not frighten them away, waved my hat and walked toward the band; they only trotted a few yards and halted, facing me. I then fired a shot over their heads, and running at full speed toward them, they broke into a trot, crossed a small piece of thin timber, slowed down to a walk, crossed the open park, and, occasionally stopping to look back, finally disappeared up the mountain-side. The bull was a magnificent specimen, with a head royal, twelve good points, and remarkably even and symmetrical. I killed other bulls with more points, but none which was in all respects so perfect as this.

The next night I camped within two hundred yards of this elk, and was awakened by hearing some large animal feeding on his carcass; but the night was dark, and as I was without any light but firebrands, I did not make the attempt to see if it was a grizzly—which the next day proved it to have been. I asked my packer if he wanted to go and interview the visitor; he said he had not lost any grizzlies, and we concluded that our blankets were more comfortable than the unknown quantity of a grizzly in the dark.

The next day, on Piñon Mountain, hearing several bulls call from the same place, I stalked the band and counted thirty-odd head, with five bulls in sight, all within eighty yards. With my glass I counted the points on each head, and selecting the finest, fired but one shot, and the bull did not go more than twenty feet before falling. I think, with my repeating-rifle, I could have killed three or four more, but I refrained from doing so; in fact, I did not kill a cow during the trip. The band did not go far; for, while skinning out this head, I could hear the bulls call within a few hundred yards down the mountain-side. I spent two days in the little park at the foot of Piñon Mountain, and saw and heard a great many elk, in bands of three to thirty, but refrained from shooting. Bear signs were fairly abundant; but I did not see a single live bear then. Later, I saw a fine one inside the Yellowstone Park line; and as I had promised Captain Harris I would not shoot inside the park, I told the bear to move on, which he did at a particularly slow pace. This was a black bear; possibly a grizzly would have been more neighborly.

I enjoyed one triumph over my men, who, with the usual freedom of Westerners, had dubbed me "Pilgrim"—Stewart, in particular, fancied a man from the East could not teach him anything regarding sport. One Sunday morning he said he would go out and catch a string of trout, that we might have a change of diet. He spent an hour and a half at the brook, and returned with one small Rocky Mountain trout, about four inches in length, saying there were plenty of trout, but they were so wild he could not catch them. I had noticed, on crossing the brook, that the fish would run for a hiding-place, being easily frightened; so, after he had exhausted all his art, I said I would try them. With a fish-pole, a brown hackle, and a bit of elk-meat on the point of the hook, I crawled through the grass, and without showing myself, snapped my fly on to the water, felt a pull, and whisked out a trout. I continued my practice until I had all I wanted, and returned to camp, remarking to the cook as I threw them down:

"Stewart don't know anything about fishing; he ought to take some lessons. There are plenty of trout in the brook only waiting to be caught"; which piqued Stewart so much that he sulked for the balance of the day, highly displeased at being beaten by a tenderfoot at the simple game of fishing.

Northwestern Wyoming is a magnificent country, and the weather equals the country. On our trip we had but two hours' rain; at night the thermometer went below freezing, but during the middle of the day it ran as high as seventy. One of the curious facts is that the elk trails could not be better located by human mind or hand to overcome the difficulties of the broken country, and they are used almost entirely by hunters and pack-trains in passing from one point to another. The elk has an eye to the beautiful as well, for I often found well-beaten lookouts on the extreme edge of precipices, showing that they enjoy resting at these points to view the beautiful scenery. It was a veritable paradise for big game, and there must have been hundreds of elk within a few miles of my camp. There was some sign of moose, and the Bannack Indians told me that they had killed one with "heap big horns."

Much against my wishes we decided to break camp and move north, when from the Piñon Mountain we could see the higher peaks north of us covered with snow; for we feared that we might be caught by a heavy snowfall, and have trouble in getting out. My intention was to have gone south to Buffalo Fork, looking for bear, but this I was obliged to postpone to some future date; so we bade good-by to the charming little park where we were camped, and journeyed north, lowering our altitude many hundred feet as we dropped down on the head waters of the next creek. Its valley and the surrounding mountains were as well supplied with elk as the country from which we had just come. I saw bear signs quite frequently, and many of them fresh, but did not spend much time looking for the animal, as I found the usual and most successful way was to bait with an elk carcass and watch through the day, hoping that a bear would scent the bait and come to feed on the flesh. This is slow business, and I preferred more activity. One night I distinctly heard the cry of a mountain-lion, or panther, several times.

Going up Snake River, I passed within the boundaries of the park, and camped one night close by a little pond just under Mount Sheridan, some two miles south of Heart Lake. As I was eating my supper, half an hour before sunset, a fine band of elk came out on the mossy shores of the pond and frisked and played for some time. The old bull would hook and prod the cows, and occasionally call, getting answers from nearly every point of the compass. The next day we skirted Heart Lake on the westerly side as far as the inlet, then through and over the curious hot-spring formation for a couple of miles.

Heart Lake is a charming sheet of water, nestling as it does among these heavily timbered mountains, and it is said to have an abundance of fine trout. While riding along the shore I often saw a good-sized fish shoot from the shallow out into deep water. There were a great many ducks and geese in and about the inlet, and one flock of geese offered a most tempting shot. My pack from Heart Lake to the Hot Springs on the shores of Yellowstone Lake was very tedious, as we found no drinking-water on the trail. The day was warm, and I looked forward to my arrival at Yellowstone Lake with anticipated pleasure in the drink of spring water which I was to have that night; but on arriving I found the spring dried up and nothing but lake water to drink. That was warm, with a sulphurous flavor, owing to the hot springs close by the shore and under the water as well, besides holding many wigglers. I strained a bottleful of water through some linen and hung it on the limb of a tree, waiting for it to cool, and looking at it with the hungry eye of a wolf watching meat hung out of reach.

My Indian pony had a new experience the following morning. After starting our pack-train, we skirted the shores of Yellowstone Lake, and coming to a quick-running stream, which in its clearness looked very inviting, the Indian pony succeeded in loosing her trail-rope, and pushed her head nearly up to her eyes into this clear water. Withdrawing it quickly with a scream, she cut such capers that for a while our pack-train was more or less disarranged. The water had run only a short distance from a boiling spring, and the heat had taken off a good deal of the hair from her face. For twenty-four hours I could not induce her to drink.

On the trail to the outlet of Yellowstone Lake, I saw several bands of elk, and rode within thirty yards of them. They did not show signs of fear, but quietly walked off into the bushes, with the exception of one bull accompanied by three cows. They were lying down, and when I came to them, the cows moved off; but the bull stood there, and for a few minutes I thought he was going to charge. He pawed the ground, shook his head, and kept alternately taking a few steps toward me, and then backing a little, ripping up the soil with his antlers, and breaking the small bushes, in token of challenge. I concluded to retreat rather than fight, so quietly withdrew, leaving him in possession of the field.

While in camp one day, on Lizard Creek, I climbed Wild Cat Mountain, hunting up a trail that would lead to the eastward; and coming out on the southern point of the mountain, a magnificent view opened to my gaze. On the south, immediately at the foot of this mountain, was a park; it was dotted with clumps and groves of fine trees, through which ran a good-sized stream. The meadow ran a half-mile to the foot-hills, well covered with long grass, which in the sunlight, moving with a gentle breeze, rose and fell like the billows of the ocean. For miles beyond were mountains piled on mountains; and I could see clearly the grand Teton range springing up from Jackson's Lake: Mount Hayden, some fourteen thousand feet high, with Mount Moran just north of it,—Hayden rising majestically from the surface of the lake thousands of feet, with sharp slopes and walls of bare rock above, and its base buried in a darkness of pine and spruce. Their snow-covered summits and immense glaciers must impress any beholder with a strong sense of sublimity. It is said that on the summit of one of the Tetons there is an inclosure made of rocks several feet in height, built by what long-vanished and forgotten race of builders no man will ever know.

F. C. Crocker.

In Buffalo Days

On the floor, on either side of my fireplace, lie two buffalo skulls. They are white and weathered, the horns cracked and bleached by the snows and frosts and the rains and heats of many winters and summers. Often, late at night, when the house is quiet, I sit before the fire, and muse and dream of the old days; and as I gaze at these relics of the past, they take life before my eyes. The matted brown hair again clothes the dry bone, and in the empty orbits the wild eyes gleam. Above me curves the blue arch; away on every hand stretches the yellow prairie, and scattered near and far are the dark forms of buffalo. They dot the rolling hills, quietly feeding like tame cattle, or lie at ease on the slopes, chewing the cud and half asleep. The yellow calves are close by their mothers; on little eminences the great bulls paw the dust, and mutter and moan, while those whose horns have grown one, two, and three winters are mingled with their elders.

Not less peaceful is the scene near some river-bank, when the herds come down to water. From the high prairie on every side they stream into the valley, stringing along in single file, each band following the deep trail worn in the parched soil by the tireless feet of generations of their kind. At a quick walk they swing along, their heads held low. The long beards of the bulls sweep the ground; the shuffling tread of many hoofs marks their passing, and above each long line rises a cloud of dust that sometimes obscures the westering sun.

Life, activity, excitement, mark another memory as vivid as these. From behind a near hill mounted men ride out and charge down toward the herd. For an instant the buffalo pause to stare, and then crowd together in a close throng, jostling and pushing one another, a confused mass of horns, hair, and hoofs. Heads down and tails in air, they rush away from their pursuers, and as they race along herd joins herd, till the black mass sweeping over the prairie numbers thousands. On its skirts hover the active, nimble horsemen, with twanging bowstrings and sharp arrows piercing many fat cows. The naked Indians cling to their naked horses as if the two were parts of one incomparable animal, and swing and yield to every motion of their steeds with the grace of perfect horsemanship. The ponies, as quick and skilful as the men, race up beside the fattest of the herd, swing off to avoid the charge of a maddened cow, and, returning, dart close to the victim, whirling hither and yon, like swallows on the wing. And their riders, with the unconscious skill, grace, and power of matchless archery, are drawing their bows to the arrow's head, and driving the feathered shaft deep through the bodies of the buffalo. Returning on their tracks, they skin the dead, then load the meat and robes on their horses, and with laughter and jest ride away.

After them, on the deserted prairie, come the wolves to tear at the carcasses. The rain and the snow wash the blood from the bones, and fade and bleach the hair. For a few months the skeleton holds together; then it falls apart, and the fox and the badger pull about the whitening bones and scatter them over the plain. So this cow and this bull of mine may have left their bones on the prairie, where I found them and picked them up to keep as mementos of the past, to dream over, and in such reverie to see again the swelling hosts which yesterday covered the plains, and to-day are but a dream.

So the buffalo passed into history. Once an inhabitant of this continent from the Arctic slope to Mexico, and from Virginia to Oregon, and, within the memory of men yet young, roaming the plains in such numbers that it seemed as if it could never be exterminated, it has now disappeared as utterly as has the bison from Europe. For it is probable that the existing herds of that practically extinct species, now carefully guarded in the forests of Grodno, about equal in numbers the buffalo in the Yellowstone Park; while the wild bison in the Caucasus may be compared with the "wood" buffalo which survive in the Peace River district. In view of the former abundance of our buffalo, this parallel is curious and interesting.

The early explorers were constantly astonished by the multitudinous herds which they met with, the regularity of their movements, and the deep roads which they made in traveling from place to place. Many of the earlier references are to territory east of the Mississippi, but even within the last fifteen years buffalo were to be seen on the Western plains in numbers so great that an entirely sober and truthful account seems like fable. Describing the abundance of buffalo in a certain region, an Indian once said to me, in the expressive sign-language of which all old frontiersmen have some knowledge: "The country was one robe."

Much has been written about their enormous abundance in the old days, but I have never read anything that I thought an exaggeration of their numbers as I have seen them. Only one who has actually spent months in traveling among them in those old days can credit the stories told about them. The trains of the Kansas Pacific Railroad used frequently to be detained by herds which were crossing the tracks in front of the engines; and in 1870, trains on which I was traveling were twice so held, in one case for three hours. When railroad travel first began on this road, the engineers tried the experiment of running through these passing herds; but after their engines had been thrown from the tracks they learned wisdom, and gave the buffalo the right of way. Two or three years later, in the country between the Platte and Republican rivers, I saw a closely massed herd of buffalo so vast that I dared not hazard a guess as to its numbers; and in later years I have traveled, for weeks at a time, in northern Montana without ever being out of sight of buffalo. These were not in close herds, except now and then when alarmed and running, but were usually scattered about, feeding or lying down on the prairie at a little distance from one another, much as domestic cattle distribute themselves in a pasture or on the range. As far as we could see on every side of the line of march, and ahead, the hillsides were dotted with dark forms, and the field-glass revealed yet others stretched out on every side, in one continuous host, to the most distant hills. Thus was gained a more just notion of their numbers than could be had in any other way, for the sight of this limitless territory occupied by these continuous herds was far more impressive than the spectacle of a surging, terrified mass of fleeing buffalo, even though the numbers which passed rapidly before the observer's gaze in a short time were very great.

At Mid-day.
From Scribner's Magazine.