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                         OUTDOOR PASTIMES OF AN
                            AMERICAN HUNTER




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[Illustration:

  _Copyright, 1908, by P.A. Juley, New York._
]




                            OUTDOOR PASTIMES
                                 OF AN
                            AMERICAN HUNTER


                                   BY

                           THEODORE ROOSEVELT

                              ILLUSTRATED

                        NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION


                                NEW YORK
                        CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
                                  1908




                 COPYRIGHT, 1893, 1895, 1897, 1904, BY
                  FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING COMPANY

                        COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY THE
                           MACMILLAN COMPANY

                    COPYRIGHT, 1905, 1907, 1908, BY
                        CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS


                         _All rights reserved_

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                     INTRODUCTION TO SECOND EDITION


Chapters XII and XIII relate to experiences that occurred since the
first edition of this volume was published. The photographs in Chapter
XII were taken by Dr. Alexander Lambert; those in Chapter XIII by Mrs.
Herbert Wadsworth and Mr. Clinedinst.

                                                     THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

  THE WHITE HOUSE, January 1, 1908.




                                   TO
                             JOHN BURROUGHS


Dear Oom John:—Every lover of outdoor life must feel a sense of
affectionate obligation to you. Your writings appeal to all who care for
the life of the woods and the fields, whether their tastes keep them in
the homely, pleasant farm country or lead them into the wilderness. It
is a good thing for our people that you should have lived; and surely no
man can wish to have more said of him.

I wish to express my hearty appreciation of your warfare against the
sham nature-writers—those whom you have called “the yellow journalists
of the woods.” From the days of Æsop to the days of Reinecke Fuchs, and
from the days of Reinecke Fuchs to the present time, there has been a
distinct and attractive place in literature for those who write avowed
fiction in which the heroes are animals with human or semi-human
attributes. This fiction serves a useful purpose in many ways, even in
the way of encouraging people to take the right view of outdoor life and
outdoor creatures; but it is unpardonable for any observer of nature to
write fiction and then publish it as truth, and he who exposes and wars
against such action is entitled to respect and support. You in your own
person have illustrated what can be done by the lover of nature who has
trained himself to keen observation, who describes accurately what is
thus observed, and who, finally, possesses the additional gift of
writing with charm and interest.

You were with me on one of the trips described in this volume, and I
trust that to look over it will recall the pleasant days we spent
together.

                                         Your friend,
                                                     THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

  THE WHITE HOUSE, October 2, 1905.




                                CONTENTS


                               CHAPTER I

                                                        PAGE
           WITH THE COUGAR HOUNDS                          1


                              CHAPTER II

           A COLORADO BEAR HUNT                           68


                              CHAPTER III

           WOLF-COURSING                                 100


                              CHAPTER IV

           HUNTING IN THE CATTLE COUNTRY; THE PRONGBUCK  133


                               CHAPTER V

           A SHOT AT A MOUNTAIN SHEEP                    181


                              CHAPTER VI

           THE WHITETAIL DEER                            193


                              CHAPTER VII

           THE MULE-DEER OR ROCKY MOUNTAIN BLACKTAIL     224


                             CHAPTER VIII

           THE WAPITI OR ROUND-HORNED ELK                256


                              CHAPTER IX

           WILDERNESS RESERVES; THE YELLOWSTONE PARK     287


                               CHAPTER X

           BOOKS ON BIG GAME                             318


                              CHAPTER XI

           AT HOME                                       339


                              CHAPTER XII

           IN THE LOUISIANA CANEBRAKES                   360


                             CHAPTER XIII

           SMALL COUNTRY NEIGHBORS                       391

                  *       *       *       *       *

        ⁂ Seven of these Chapters have been recently written;
        the others have been revised and added to since they
        originally appeared in the publications of the Boone and
        Crockett Club and in Mr. Caspar Whitney’s “Deer Family.”




                             ILLUSTRATIONS


         THEODORE ROOSEVELT                      _Frontispiece_
            _Photogravure from a photograph._

                                                    FACING PAGE
         GOFF AND THE PACK                                    5

         TURK AND A BOBCAT IN TOP OF A PINYON                12

         BOBCAT IN PINYON                                    16

         STARTING FOR A HUNT                                 33

         THE FIRST COUGAR KILLED                             37

         AFTER THE FIGHT                                     44

         COUGAR IN A TREE                                    50

         BARKING TREED                                       63

         STARTING FOR CAMP                                   68

         AT DINNER                                           74

         THE PACK STRIKES THE FRESH BEAR TRAIL               77

         DEATH OF THE BIG BEAR                               83

         STEWART AND THE BOBCAT                              86

         THE PACK BAYING THE BEAR                            88

         A DOILY BEAR                                        91

         THE BIG BEAR                                        94

         STARTING TOWARD THE WOLF GROUNDS                   101

         GREYHOUNDS RESTING AFTER A RUN                     104

         AT THE TAIL OF THE CHUCK WAGON                     108

         THE BIG D COW PONY                                 112

         ABERNETHY AND COYOTE                               116

         ABERNETHY RETURNS FROM THE HUNT                    125

         BONY MOORE AND THE COYOTE                          129

         ON THE LITTLE MISSOURI                             138

         CAMPING ON THE ANTELOPE GROUNDS                    156

         RANCH WAGON RETURNING FROM HUNT                    182

         ELKHORN RANCH                                      216

         THE RANCH HOUSE                                    238

         THE RANCH VERANDA                                  248

         THE PACK TRAIN                                     264

         TROPHIES OF A SUCCESSFUL HUNT                      277

         TROPHIES IN THE WHITE HOUSE DINING-ROOM            284

         ANTELOPE IN THE STREETS OF GARDINER                294

         BLACKTAIL DEER ON PARADE GROUND                    299

         ELK IN SNOW                                        304

         OOM JOHN                                           309

         BEARS AND TOURISTS                                 311

         GRIZZLY BEAR AND COOK                              314

         THE BEAR AND THE CHAMBERMAID                       316

         THE NORTH ROOM AT SAGAMORE HILL                    324

         RENOWN                                             341

         HIS FIRST BUCK                                     343

         ALGONQUIN AND SKIP                                 344

         PETER RABBIT                                       346

         THE GUINEA PIGS                                    348

         FAMILY FRIENDS                                     350

         JOSIAH                                             354

         BLEISTEIN JUMPING                                  356

         THE BEAR HUNTERS                                   366

         LISTENING FOR THE PACK                             376

         AUDREY TAKES THE BARS                              396

         THE STONE WALL                                     402

         ROSWELL BEHAVES LIKE A GENTLEMAN                   414

         ROSWELL FIGHTS FOR HIS HEAD                        418

                  *       *       *       *       *

        ⁂ The cuts for Chapter I are from photographs taken by
        Philip B. Stewart; those in Chapter II, from photographs
        taken by Dr. Alexander Lambert and Philip B. Stewart;
        those in Chapter III, from photographs taken by Dr.
        Lambert and Sloan Simpson; those in Chapter IX were
        obtained through Major Pitcher; most of the others are
        from photographs taken by me or by members of my family.




                          OUTDOOR PASTIMES OF
                           AN AMERICAN HUNTER




                               CHAPTER I
                         WITH THE COUGAR HOUNDS


In January, 1901, I started on a five weeks’ cougar hunt from Meeker in
Northwest Colorado. My companions were Mr. Philip B. Stewart and Dr.
Gerald Webb, of Colorado Springs; Stewart was the captain of the
victorious Yale nine of ’86. We reached Meeker on January 11th, after a
forty mile drive from the railroad, through the bitter winter weather;
it was eighteen degrees below zero when we started. At Meeker we met
John B. Goff, the hunter, and left town the next morning on horseback
for his ranch, our hunting beginning that same afternoon, when after a
brisk run our dogs treed a bobcat. After a fortnight Stewart and Webb
returned, Goff and I staying out three weeks longer. We did not have to
camp out, thanks to the warm-hearted hospitality of the proprietor and
manager of the Keystone Ranch, and of the Mathes Brothers and Judge
Foreman, both of whose ranches I also visited. The five weeks were spent
hunting north of the White River, most of the time in the neighborhood
of Coyote Basin and Colorow Mountain. In midwinter, hunting on horseback
in the Rockies is apt to be cold work, but we were too warmly clad to
mind the weather. We wore heavy flannels, jackets lined with sheepskin,
caps which drew down entirely over our ears, and on our feet heavy
ordinary socks, german socks, and overshoes. Galloping through the brush
and among the spikes of the dead cedars, meant that now and then one got
snagged; I found tough overalls better than trousers; and most of the
time I did not need the jacket, wearing my old buckskin shirt, which is
to my mind a particularly useful and comfortable garment.

It is a high, dry country, where the winters are usually very cold, but
the snow not under ordinary circumstances very deep. It is wild and
broken in character, the hills and low mountains rising in sheer slopes,
broken by cliffs and riven by deeply cut and gloomy gorges and ravines.
The sage-brush grows everywhere upon the flats and hillsides. Large open
groves of pinyon and cedar are scattered over the peaks, ridges, and
table-lands. Tall spruces cluster in the cold ravines. Cottonwoods grow
along the stream courses, and there are occasional patches of scrub-oak
and quaking asp. The entire country is taken up with cattle ranges
wherever it is possible to get a sufficient water-supply, natural or
artificial. Some thirty miles to the east and north the mountains rise
higher, the evergreen forest becomes continuous, the snow lies deep all
through the winter, and such Northern animals as the wolverene, lucivee,
and snowshoe rabbit are found. This high country is the summer home of
the Colorado elk, now woefully diminished in numbers, and of the
Colorado blacktail deer, which are still very plentiful, but which,
unless better protected, will follow the elk in the next few decades. I
am happy to say that there are now signs to show that the State is
waking up to the need of protecting both elk and deer; the few remaining
mountain sheep in Colorado are so successfully protected that they are
said to be increasing in numbers. In winter both elk and deer come down
to the lower country, through a part of which I made my hunting trip. We
did not come across any elk, but I have never, even in the old days,
seen blacktail more abundant than they were in this region. The bucks
had not lost their antlers, and were generally, but not always, found in
small troops by themselves; the does, yearlings, and fawns—now almost
yearlings themselves—went in bands. They seemed tame, and we often
passed close to them before they took alarm. Of course at that season it
was against the law to kill them; and even had this not been so none of
our party would have dreamed of molesting them.

Flocks of Alaskan long-spurs and of rosy finches flitted around the
ranch buildings; but at that season there was not very much small bird
life.

The midwinter mountain landscape was very beautiful, whether under the
brilliant blue sky of the day, or the starlight or glorious moonlight of
the night, or when under the dying sun the snowy peaks, and the light
clouds above, kindled into flame, and sank again to gold and amber and
sombre purple. After the snow-storms the trees, almost hidden beneath
the light, feathery masses, gave a new and strange look to the
mountains, as if they were giant masses of frosted silver. Even the
storms had a beauty of their own. The keen, cold air, the wonderful
scenery, and the interest and excitement of the sport, made our veins
thrill and beat with buoyant life.

In cougar hunting the success of the hunter depends absolutely upon his
hounds. As hounds that are not perfectly trained are worse than useless,
this means that success depends absolutely upon the man who trains and
hunts the hounds. Goff was one of the best hunters with whom I have ever
been out, and he had trained his pack to a point of perfection for its
special work which I have never known another such pack to reach. With
the exception of one new hound, which he had just purchased, and of a
puppy, which was being trained, not one of the pack would look at a deer
even when they were all as keen as mustard, were not on a trail, and
when the deer got up but fifty yards or so from them. By the end of the
hunt both the new hound and the puppy were entirely trustworthy; of
course, Goff can only keep up his pack by continually including new or
young dogs with the veterans. As cougar are only plentiful where deer
are infinitely more plentiful, the first requisite for a good cougar
hound is that it shall leave its natural prey, the deer, entirely alone.
Goff’s pack ran only bear, cougar, and bobcat. Under no circumstances
were they ever permitted to follow elk, deer, antelope or, of course,
rabbit. Nor were they allowed to follow a wolf unless it was wounded;
for in such a rough country they would at once run out of sight and
hearing, and moreover if they did overtake the wolf they would be so
scattered as to come up singly and probably be overcome one after
another. Being bold dogs they were always especially eager after wolf
and coyote, and when they came across the trail of either, though they
would not follow it, they would usually challenge loudly. If the
circumstances were such that they could overtake the wolf in a body, it
could make no effective fight against them, no matter how large and
powerful. On the one or two occasions when this had occurred, the pack
had throttled “Isegrim” without getting a scratch.

[Illustration:

  GOFF AND THE PACK

  From a photograph by Philip B. Stewart
]

As the dogs did all the work, we naturally became extremely interested
in them, and rapidly grew to know the voice, peculiarities, and special
abilities of each. There were eight hounds and four fighting dogs. The
hounds were of the ordinary Eastern type, used from the Adirondacks to
the Mississippi and the Gulf in the chase of deer and fox. Six of them
were black and tan and two were mottled. They differed widely in size
and voice. The biggest, and, on the whole, the most useful, was Jim, a
very fast, powerful, and true dog with a great voice. When the animal
was treed or bayed, Jim was especially useful because he never stopped
barking; and we could only find the hounds, when at bay, by listening
for the sound of their voices. Among the cliffs and precipices the pack
usually ran out of sight and hearing if the chase lasted any length of
time. Their business was to bring the quarry to bay, or put it up a
tree, and then to stay with it and make a noise until the hunters came
up. During this hunt there were two or three occasions when they had a
cougar up a tree for at least three hours before we arrived, and on
several occasions Goff had known them to keep a cougar up a tree
overnight and to be still barking around the tree when the hunters at
last found them the following morning. Jim always did his share of the
killing, being a formidable fighter, though too wary to take hold until
one of the professional fighting dogs had seized. He was a great bully
with the other dogs, robbing them of their food, and yielding only to
Turk. He possessed great endurance, and very stout feet.

On the whole the most useful dog next to Jim was old Boxer. Age had made
Boxer slow, and in addition to this, the first cougar we tackled bit him
through one hind leg, so that for the remainder of the trip he went on
three legs, or, as Goff put it, “packed one leg”; but this seemed not to
interfere with his appetite, his endurance, or his desire for the chase.
Of all the dogs he was the best to puzzle out a cold trail on a bare
hillside, or in any difficult place. He hardly paid any heed to the
others, always insisting upon working out the trail for himself, and he
never gave up. Of course, the dogs were much more apt to come upon the
cold than upon the fresh trail of a cougar, and it was often necessary
for them to spend several hours in working out a track which was at
least two days old. Both Boxer and Jim had enormous appetites. Boxer was
a small dog and Jim a very large one, and as the relations of the pack
among themselves were those of brutal wild-beast selfishness, Boxer had
to eat very quickly if he expected to get anything when Jim was around.
He never ventured to fight Jim, but in deep-toned voice appealed to
heaven against the unrighteousness with which he was treated; and time
and again such appeal caused me to sally out and rescue his dinner from
Jim’s highway robbery. Once, when Boxer was given a biscuit, which he
tried to bolt whole, Jim simply took his entire head in his jaws, and
convinced him that he had his choice of surrendering the biscuit, or
sharing its passage down Jim’s capacious throat. Boxer promptly gave up
the biscuit, then lay on his back and wailed a protest to fate—his voice
being deep rather than loud, so that on the trail, when heard at a
distance, it sounded a little as if he was croaking. After killing a
cougar we usually cut up the carcass and fed it to the dogs, if we did
not expect another chase that day. They devoured it eagerly, Boxer,
after his meal, always looking as if he had swallowed a mattress.

Next in size to Jim was Tree’em. Tree’em was a good dog, but I never
considered him remarkable until his feat on the last day of our hunt, to
be afterward related. He was not a very noisy dog, and when “barking
treed” he had a meditative way of giving single barks separated by
intervals of several seconds, all the time gazing stolidly up at the
big, sinister cat which he was baying. Early in the hunt, in the course
of a fight with one of the cougars, he received some injury to his tail,
which made it hang down like a piece of old rope. Apparently it hurt him
a good deal and we let him rest for a fortnight. This put him in great
spirits and made him fat and strong, but only enabled him to recover
power over the root of the tail, while the tip hung down as before; it
looked like a curved pump-handle when he tried to carry it erect.

Lil and Nel were two very stanch and fast bitches, the only two dogs
that could keep up to Jim in a quick burst. They had shrill voices.
Their only failing was a tendency to let the other members of the pack
cow them so that they did not get their full share of the food. It was
not a pack in which a slow or timid dog had much chance for existence.
They would all unite in the chase and the fierce struggle which usually
closed it; but the instant the quarry was killed each dog resumed his
normal attitude of greedy anger or greedy fear toward the others.

Another bitch rejoiced in the not very appropriate name of Pete. She was
a most ardent huntress. In the middle of our trip she gave birth to a
litter of puppies, but before they were two weeks old she would slip
away after us and join with the utmost ardor in the hunting and
fighting. Her brother Jimmie, although of the same age (both were
young), was not nearly as far advanced. He would run well on a fresh
trail, but a cold trail or a long check always discouraged him and made
him come back to Goff. He was rapidly learning; a single beating taught
him to let deer alone. The remaining hound, Bruno, had just been added
to the pack. He showed tendencies both to muteness and babbling, and at
times, if he thought himself unobserved, could not resist making a
sprint after a deer; but he occasionally rendered good service. If Jim
or Boxer gave tongue every member of the pack ran to the sound; but not
a dog paid any heed to Jimmie or Bruno. Yet both ultimately became
first-class hounds.

The fighting dogs always trotted at the heels of the horses, which had
become entirely accustomed to them, and made no objection when they
literally rubbed against their heels. The fighters never left us until
we came to where we could hear the hounds “barking treed,” or with their
quarry at bay. Then they tore in a straight line to the sound. They were
the ones who were expected to do the seizing and take the punishment,
though the minute they actually had hold of the cougar, the hounds all
piled on too, and did their share of the killing; but the seizers fought
the head while the hounds generally took hold behind. All of them,
fighters and hounds alike, were exceedingly good-natured and
affectionate with their human friends, though short-tempered to a degree
with one another. The best of the fighters was old Turk, who was by
blood half hound and half “Siberian bloodhound.” Both his father and his
mother were half-breeds of the same strains, and both were famous
fighters. Once, when Goff had wounded an enormous gray wolf in the hind
leg, the father had overtaken it and fought it to a standstill. The two
dogs together were an overmatch for any wolf. Turk had had a sister who
was as good as he was; but she had been killed the year before by a
cougar which bit her through the skull; accidents being, of course,
frequent in the pack, for a big cougar is an even more formidable
opponent to dogs than a wolf. Turk’s head and body were seamed with
scars. He had lost his lower fangs, but he was still a most formidable
dog. While we were at the Keystone Ranch a big steer which had been
driven in, got on the fight, and the foreman, William Wilson, took Turk
out to aid him. At first Turk did not grasp what was expected of him,
because all the dogs were trained never to touch anything domestic—at
the different ranches where we stopped the cats and kittens wandered
about, perfectly safe, in the midst of this hard-biting crew of bear and
cougar fighters. But when Turk at last realized that he was expected to
seize the steer, he did the business with speed and thoroughness; he not
only threw the steer, but would have killed it then and there had he not
been, with much difficulty, taken away. Three dogs like Turk, in their
prime and with their teeth intact, could, I believe, kill an ordinary
female cougar, and could hold even a big male so as to allow it to be
killed with the knife.

Next to Turk were two half-breeds between bull and shepherd, named Tony
and Baldy. They were exceedingly game, knowing-looking little dogs, with
a certain alert swagger that reminded one of the walk of some
light-weight prize-fighters. In fights with cougars, bears, and lynx,
they too had been badly mauled and had lost a good many of their teeth.
Neither of the gallant little fellows survived the trip. Their place was
taken by a white bulldog bitch, Queen, which we picked up at the
Keystone Ranch; a very affectionate and good-humored dog, but, when her
blood was aroused, a dauntless though rather stupid fighter.
Unfortunately she did not seize by the head, taking hold of any part
that was nearest.

The pack had many interesting peculiarities, but none more so than the
fact that four of them climbed trees. Only one of the hounds, little
Jimmie, ever tried the feat; but of the fighters, not only Tony and
Baldy but big Turk climbed every tree that gave them any chance. The
pinyons and cedars were low, multi-forked, and usually sent off branches
from near the ground. In consequence the dogs could, by industrious
effort, work their way almost to the top. The photograph of Turk and the
bobcat in the pinyon (facing p. 12) shows them at an altitude of about
thirty feet above the ground. Now and then a dog would lose his footing
and come down with a whack which sounded as if he must be disabled, but
after a growl and a shake he would start up the tree again. They could
not fight well while in a tree, and were often scratched or knocked to
the ground by a cougar; and when the quarry was shot out of its perch
and seized by the expectant throng below, the dogs in the tree, yelping
with eager excitement, dived headlong down through the branches,
regardless of consequences.

The horses were stout, hardy, sure-footed beasts, not very fast, but
able to climb like goats, and to endure an immense amount of work. Goff
and I each used two for the trip.

The bear were all holed up for the winter, and so our game was limited
to cougars and bobcats. In the books the bobcat is always called a lynx,
which it of course is; but whenever a hunter or trapper speaks of a lynx
(which he usually calls “link,” feeling dimly that the other
pronunciation is a plural), he means a lucivee. Bobcat is a good
distinctive name, and it is one which I think the book people might with
advantage adopt; for wildcat, which is the name given to the small lynx
in the East, is already pre-empted by the true wildcat of Europe. Like
all people of European descent who have gone into strange lands, we
Americans have christened our wild beasts with a fine disregard for
their specific and generic relations. We called the bison “buffalo” as
long as it existed, and we still call the big stag an “elk,” instead of
using for it the excellent term wapiti; on the other hand, to the true
elk and the reindeer we gave the new names moose and caribou—excellent
names, too, by the way. The prong buck is always called antelope, though
it is not an antelope at all; and the white goat is not a goat; while
the distinctive name of “bighorn” is rarely used for the mountain sheep.
In most cases, however, it is mere pedantry to try to upset popular
custom in such matters; and where, as with the bobcat, a perfectly good
name is taken, it would be better for scientific men to adopt it. I may
add that in this particular of nomenclature we are no worse sinners than
other people. The English in Ceylon, the English and Dutch in South
Africa, and the Spanish in South America, have all shown the same genius
for misnaming beasts and birds.

[Illustration:

  TURK AND A BOBCAT IN TOP OF A PINYON

  From a photograph by Philip B. Stewart
]

Bobcats were very numerous where we were hunting. They fed chiefly upon
the rabbits, which fairly swarmed; mostly cotton-tails, but a few jacks.
Contrary to the popular belief, the winter is in many places a time of
plenty for carnivorous wild beasts. In this place, for instance, the
abundance of deer and rabbits made good hunting for both cougar and
bobcat, and all those we killed were as fat as possible, and in
consequence weighed more than their inches promised. The bobcats are
very fond of prairie-dogs, and haunt the dog towns as soon as spring
comes and the inhabitants emerge from their hibernation. They sometimes
pounce on higher game. We came upon an eight months’ fawn—very nearly a
yearling—which had been killed by a big male bobcat; and Judge Foreman
informed me that near his ranch, a few years previously, an
exceptionally large bobcat had killed a yearling doe. Bobcats will also
take lambs and young pigs, and if the chance occurs will readily seize
their small kinsman, the house cat.

Bobcats are very fond of lurking round prairie-dog towns as soon as the
prairie-dogs come out in spring. In this part of Colorado, by the way,
the prairie-dogs were of an entirely different species from the common
kind of the plains east of the Rockies.

We found that the bobcats sometimes made their lairs along the rocky
ledges or in holes in the cut banks, and sometimes in thickets, prowling
about during the night, and now and then even during the day. We never
chased them unless the dogs happened to run across them by accident when
questing for cougar, or when we were returning home after a day when we
had failed to find cougar. Usually the cat gave a good run, occasionally
throwing out the dogs by doubling or jack-knifing. Two or three times
one of them gave us an hour’s sharp trotting, cantering, and galloping
through the open cedar and pinyon groves on the table-lands; and the
runs sometimes lasted for a much longer period when the dogs had to go
across ledges and through deep ravines.

On one of our runs a party of ravens fluttered along from tree to tree
beside us, making queer gurgling noises and evidently aware that they
might expect to reap a reward from our hunting. Ravens, multitudes of
magpies, and golden and bald eagles were seen continually, and all four
flocked to any carcass which was left in the open. The eagle and the
raven are true birds of the wilderness, and in a way their presence both
heightened and relieved the iron desolation of the wintry mountains.

Over half the cats we started escaped, getting into caves or deep holes
in washouts. In the other instances they went up trees and were of
course easily shot. Tony and Baldy would bring them out of any hole into
which they themselves could get. After their loss, Lil, who was a small
hound, once went into a hole in a washout after a cat. After awhile she
stopped barking, though we could still hear the cat growling. What had
happened to her we did not know. We spent a couple of hours calling to
her and trying to get her to come out, but she neither came out nor
answered, and, as sunset was approaching and the ranch was some miles
off, we rode back there, intending to return with spades in the morning.
However, by breakfast we found that Lil had come back. We supposed that
she had got on the other side of the cat and had been afraid or unable
to attack it; so that as Collins the cow-puncher, who was a Southerner,
phrased it, “she just naturally stayed in the hole” until some time
during the night the cat went out and she followed. When once hunters
and hounds have come into the land, it is evident that the bobcats which
take refuge in caves have a far better chance of surviving than those
which make their lairs in the open and go up trees. But trees are sure
havens against their wilderness foes. Goff informed me that he once came
in the snow to a place where the tracks showed that some coyotes had put
a bobcat up a tree, and had finally abandoned the effort to get at it.
Any good fighting dog will kill a bobcat; but an untrained dog, even of
large size, will probably fail, as the bobcat makes good use of both
teeth and claws. The cats we caught frequently left marks on some of the
pack. We found them very variable in size. My two largest—both of course
males—weighed respectively thirty-one and thirty-nine pounds. The
latter, Goff said, was of exceptional size, and as large as any he had
ever killed. The full-grown females went down as low as eighteen pounds,
or even lower.

When the bobcats were in the tree-tops we could get up very close. They
looked like large malevolent pussies. I once heard one of them squall
defiance when the dogs tried to get it out of a hole. Ordinarily they
confined themselves to a low growling. Stewart and Goff went up the
trees with their cameras whenever we got a bobcat in a favorable
position, and endeavored to take its photograph. Sometimes they were
very successful. Although they were frequently within six feet of a cat,
and occasionally even poked it in order to make it change its position,
I never saw one make a motion to jump on them. Two or three times on our
approach the cat jumped from the tree almost into the midst of the pack,
but it was so quick that it got off before they could seize it. They
invariably put it up another tree before it had gone any distance.

Hunting the bobcat was only an incident. Our true quarry was the cougar.
I had long been anxious to make a regular hunt after cougar in a country
where the beasts were plentiful and where we could follow them with a
good pack of hounds. Astonishingly little of a satisfactory nature has
been left on record about the cougar by hunters, and in most places the
chances for observation of the big cats steadily grow less. They have
been thinned out almost to the point of extermination throughout the
Eastern States. In the Rocky Mountain region they are still plentiful in
places, but are growing less so; while on the contrary the wolf, which
was exterminated even more quickly in the East, in the West has until
recently been increasing in numbers. In northwestern Colorado a dozen
years ago, cougars were far more plentiful than wolves; whereas at the
present day the wolf is probably the more numerous. Nevertheless, there
are large areas, here and there among the Rockies, in which cougars will
be fairly plentiful for years to come.

[Illustration:

  BOBCAT IN PINYON

  From a photograph by Philip B. Stewart
]

No American beast has been the subject of so much loose writing or of
such wild fables as the cougar. Even its name is unsettled. In the
Eastern States it is usually called panther or painter; in the Western
States, mountain lion, or, toward the South, Mexican lion. The
Spanish-speaking people usually call it simply lion. It is, however,
sometimes called cougar in the West and Southwest of our country, and in
South America, puma. As it is desirable where possible not to use a name
that is misleading and is already appropriated to some entirely
different animal, it is best to call it cougar.

The cougar is a very singular beast, shy and elusive to an extraordinary
degree, very cowardly and yet bloodthirsty and ferocious, varying
wonderfully in size, and subject, like many other beasts, to queer
freaks of character in occasional individuals. This fact of individual
variation in size and temper is almost always ignored in treating of the
animal; whereas it ought never to be left out of sight.

The average writer, and for the matter of that, the average hunter,
where cougars are scarce, knows little or nothing of them, and in
describing them merely draws upon the stock of well-worn myths which
portray them as terrible foes of man, as dropping on their prey from
trees where they have been lying in wait, etc., etc. Very occasionally
there appears an absolutely trustworthy account like that by Dr. Hart
Merriam in his “Adirondack Mammals.” But many otherwise excellent
writers are wholly at sea in reference to the cougar. Thus one of the
best books on hunting in the far West in the old days is by Colonel
Dodge. Yet when Colonel Dodge came to describe the cougar he actually
treated of it as two species, one of which, the mountain lion, he
painted as a most ferocious and dangerous opponent of man; while the
other, the panther, was described as an abject coward, which would not
even in the last resort defend itself against man—the two of course
being the same animal.

However, the wildest of all fables about the cougar has been reserved
not for hunter or popular writer, but for a professed naturalist. In his
charmingly written book, “The Naturalist in La Plata,” Mr. Hudson
actually describes the cougar as being friendly to man, disinterestedly
adverse to harming him, and at the same time an enemy of other large
carnivores. Mr. Hudson bases his opinion chiefly upon the assertions of
the Gauchos. The Gauchos, however, go one degree beyond Mr. Hudson,
calling the puma the “friend of Christians”; whereas Mr. Hudson only
ventures to attribute to the beast humanitarian, not theological,
preferences. As a matter of fact, Mr. Hudson’s belief in the cougar’s
peculiar friendship for man, and peculiar enmity to other large beasts
of prey, has not one particle of foundation in fact as regards at any
rate the North American form—and it is hardly to be supposed that the
South American form would alone develop such extraordinary traits. For
instance, Mr. Hudson says that the South American puma when hunted will
attack the dogs in preference to the man. In North America he will fight
the dog if the dog is nearest, and if the man comes to close quarters at
the same time as the dog he will attack the man if anything more
readily, evidently recognizing in him his chief opponent. He will often
go up a tree for a single dog. On Mr. Hudson’s theory he must do this
because of his altruistic feeling toward the dog. In fact, Mr. Hudson
could make out a better case of philo-humanity for the North American
wolf than for the North American cougar. Equally absurd is it to talk,
as Mr. Hudson does, of the cougar as the especial enemy of other
ferocious beasts. Mr. Hudson speaks of it as attacking and conquering
the jaguar. Of this I know nothing, but such an extraordinary statement
should be well fortified with proofs; and if true it must mean that the
jaguar is an infinitely less formidable creature than it has been
painted. In support of his position Mr. Hudson alludes to the stories
about the cougar attacking the grizzly bear. Here I am on ground that I
do know. It is true that an occasional old hunter asserts that the
cougar does this, but the old hunter who makes such an assertion also
invariably insists that the cougar is a ferocious and habitual
man-killer, and the two statements rest upon equally slender foundations
of fact. I have never yet heard of a single authentic instance of a
cougar interfering with a full-grown big bear. It will kill bear cubs if
it gets a chance; but then so will the fox and the fisher, not to speak
of the wolf. In 1894, a cougar killed a colt on a brushy river bottom a
dozen miles below my ranch on the Little Missouri. I went down to visit
the carcass and found that it had been taken possession of by a large
grizzly. Both I and the hunter who was with me were very much interested
in what had occurred, and after a careful examination of the tracks we
concluded that the bear had arrived on the second night after the kill.
He had feasted heartily on the remains, while the cougar, whose tracks
were evident here and there at a little distance from the carcass, had
seemingly circled around it, and had certainly not interfered with the
bear, or even ventured to approach him. Now, if a cougar would ever have
meddled with a large bear it would surely have been on such an occasion
as this. If very much pressed by hunger, a large cougar will, if it gets
the chance, kill a wolf; but this is only when other game has failed,
and under all ordinary circumstances neither meddles with the other.
When I was down in Texas, hunting peccaries on the Nueces, I was in a
country where both cougar and jaguar were to be found; but no hunter had
ever heard of either molesting the other, though they were all of the
opinion that when the two met the cougar gave the path to his spotted
brother. Of course, it is never safe to dogmatize about the unknown in
zoology, or to generalize on insufficient evidence; but as regards the
North American cougar there is not a particle of truth of any kind,
sort, or description in the statement that he is the enemy of the larger
carnivores, or the friend of man; and if the South American cougar,
which so strongly resembles its Northern brother in its other habits,
has developed on these two points the extraordinary peculiarities of
which Mr. Hudson speaks, full and adequate proof should be forthcoming;
and this proof is now wholly wanting.

Fables aside, the cougar is a very interesting creature. It is found
from the cold, desolate plains of Patagonia to north of the Canadian
line, and lives alike among the snow-clad peaks of the Andes and in the
steaming forests of the Amazon. Doubtless careful investigation will
disclose several varying forms in an animal found over such immense
tracts of country and living under such utterly diverse conditions. But
in its essential habits and traits, the big, slinking, nearly
uni-colored cat seems to be much the same everywhere, whether living in
mountain, open plain, or forest, under arctic cold or tropic heat. When
the settlements become thick, it retires to dense forest, dark swamp or
inaccessible mountain gorge, and moves about only at night. In wilder
regions it not infrequently roams during the day and ventures freely
into the open. Deer are its customary prey where they are plentiful,
bucks, does, and fawns being killed indifferently. Usually the deer is
killed almost instantaneously, but occasionally there is quite a
scuffle, in which the cougar may get bruised, though, as far as I know,
never seriously. It is also a dreaded enemy of sheep, pigs, calves, and
especially colts, and when pressed by hunger a big male cougar will kill
a full-grown horse or cow, moose or wapiti. It is the special enemy of
mountain sheep. In 1886, while hunting white goats north of Clarke’s
fork of the Columbia, in a region where cougar were common, I found them
preying as freely on the goats as on the deer. It rarely catches
antelope, but is quick to seize rabbits, other small beasts, and even
porcupines, as well as bobcats, coyotes and foxes.

No animal, not even the wolf, is so rarely seen or so difficult to get
without dogs. On the other hand, no other wild beast of its size and
power is so easy to kill by the aid of dogs. There are many
contradictions in its character. Like the American wolf, it is certainly
very much afraid of man; yet it habitually follows the trail of the
hunter or solitary traveller, dogging his footsteps, itself always
unseen. I have had this happen to me personally. When hungry it will
seize and carry off any dog; yet it will sometimes go up a tree when
pursued even by a single small dog wholly unable to do it the least
harm. It is small wonder that the average frontier settler should grow
to regard almost with superstition the great furtive cat which he never
sees, but of whose presence he is ever aware, and of whose prowess
sinister proof is sometimes afforded by the deaths not alone of his
lesser stock, but even of his milch cow or saddle horse.

The cougar is as large, as powerful, and as formidably armed as the
Indian panther, and quite as well able to attack man; yet the instances
of its having done so are exceedingly rare. The vast majority of the
tales to this effect are undoubtedly inventions. But it is foolish to
deny that such attacks on human beings ever occur. There are a number of
authentic instances, the latest that has come to my knowledge being
related in the following letter, of May 15, 1893, written to Dr. Merriam
by Professor W. H. Brewer, of Yale: “In 1880 I visited the base of Mount
Shasta, and stopped a day to renew the memories of 1862, when I had
climbed and measured this mountain. Panthers were numerous and were so
destructive to sheep that poisoning by strychnine was common. A man
living near who had (as a young hunter) gone up Mount Shasta with us in
’62, now married (1880) and on a ranch, came to visit me, with a little
son five or six years old. This boy when younger, but two or three years
old, if I recollect rightly, had been attacked by a panther. He was
playing in the yard by the house when a lean two-thirds grown panther
came into the yard and seized the child by the throat. The child
screamed, and alarmed the mother (who told me the story). She seized a
broom and rushed out, while an old man at the house seized the gun. The
panther let go the child and was shot. I saw the boy. He had the scars
of the panther’s teeth in the cheek, and below on the under side of the
lower jaw, and just at the throat. This was the only case that came to
my knowledge at first hand of a panther attacking a human being in that
State, except one or two cases where panthers, exasperated by wounds,
had fought with the hunters who had wounded them.” This was a young
cougar, bold, stupid, and very hungry. Goff told me of one similar case
where a cougar stalked a young girl, but was shot just before it was
close enough to make the final rush. As I have elsewhere related, I know
of two undoubted cases, one in Mississippi, one in Florida, where a
negro was attacked and killed by a cougar, while alone in a swamp at
night. But these occurred many years ago. The instance related by
Professor Brewer is the only one I have come across happening in recent
years, in which the cougar actually seized a human being with the
purpose of making prey of it; though doubtless others have occurred. I
have never known the American wolf actually to attack a human being from
hunger or to make prey of him; whereas the Old-World wolf, like the
Old-World leopard, undoubtedly sometimes turns man-eater.

Even when hunted the cougar shows itself, as a rule, an abject coward,
not to be compared in courage and prowess with the grizzly bear, and but
little more dangerous to man than is the wolf under similar
circumstances. Without dogs it is usually a mere chance that one is
killed. Goff has killed some 300 cougars during the sixteen years he has
been hunting in northwestern Colorado, yet all but two of them were
encountered while he was with his pack; although this is in a region
where they were plentiful. When hunted with good dogs their attention is
so taken up with the pack that they have little time to devote to men.
When hunted without dogs they never charge unless actually cornered,
and, as a general rule, not even then, unless the man chooses to come
right up to them. I knew of one Indian being killed in 1887, and near my
ranch a cowboy was mauled; but in the first instance the cougar had been
knocked down and the Indian was bending over it when it revived; and in
the next instance, the cowboy literally came right on top of the animal.
Now, under such circumstances either a bull elk or a blacktail buck will
occasionally fight; twice I have known of wounded wapiti regularly
charging, and one of my own cowboys, George Myer, was very roughly
handled by a blacktail buck which he had wounded. In all his experience
Goff says that save when he approached one too close when it was
cornered by the dogs, he never but once had a cougar start to charge
him, and on that occasion it was promptly killed by a bullet. Usually
the cougar does not even charge at the dogs beyond a few feet, confining
itself to seizing or striking any member of the pack which comes close
up; although it will occasionally, when much irritated, make a rapid
dash and seize some bold assailant. While I was on my hunt, one of
Goff’s brothers lost a hound in hunting a cougar; there were but two
hounds, and the cougar would not tree for them, finally seizing and
killing one that came too near. At the same time a ranchman not far off
set his cattle dog on a cougar, which after a short run turned and
killed the dog. But time and again cougars are brought to bay or treed
by dogs powerless to do them the slightest damage; and they usually meet
their death tamely when the hunter comes up. I have had no personal
experience either with the South American jaguar or the Old-World
leopard or panther; but these great spotted cats must be far more
dangerous adversaries than the cougar.

It is true, as I have said, that a cougar will follow a man; but then a
weasel will sometimes do the same thing. Whatever the cougar’s motive,
it is certain that in the immense majority of cases there is not the
slightest danger of his attacking the man he follows. Dr. Hart Merriam
informs me, however, that he is satisfied that he came across one
genuine instance of a cougar killing a man whose tracks he had dogged.
It cannot be too often repeated, that we must never lose sight of the
individual variation in character and conduct among wild beasts. A
thousand times a cougar might follow a man either not intending or not
daring to attack him, while in the thousandth and first case it might be
that the temper of the beast and the conditions were such that the
attack would be made.

Other beasts show almost the same wide variation in temper. Wolves, for
instance, are normally exceedingly wary of man. In this Colorado hunt I
often came across their tracks, and often heard their mournful, but to
my ears rather attractive, baying at night, but I never caught a glimpse
of one of them; nor during the years when I spent much of my time on my
ranch did I ever know of a wolf venturing to approach anywhere near a
man in the day-time, though I have had them accompany me after
nightfall, and have occasionally come across them by accident in
daylight. But on the Keystone Ranch, where I spent three weeks on this
particular trip, an incident which occurred before my arrival showed
that wolves occasionally act with extraordinary boldness. The former
owner of the ranch, Colonel Price, and one of the cowhands, Sabey (both
of whom told me the story), were driving out in a buggy from Meeker to
the ranch accompanied by a setter dog. They had no weapon with them. Two
wolves joined them and made every effort to get at the dog. They
accompanied the wagon for nearly a mile, venturing to within twenty
yards of it. They paid no heed whatever to the shouts and gestures of
the men, but did not quite dare to come to close quarters, and finally
abandoned their effort. Now, this action on their part was, as far as my
experience goes, quite as exceptional among American wolves as it is
exceptional for a cougar to attack a man. Of course, these wolves were
not after the men. They were simply after the dog; but I have never
within my own experience come upon another instance of wolves venturing
to attack a domestic animal in the immediate presence of and protected
by a man. Exactly as these two wolves suddenly chose to behave with an
absolutely unexpected daring, so a cougar will occasionally lose the
fear of man which is inherent in its race.

Normally, then, the cougar is not in any way a formidable foe to man,
and it is certainly by no means as dangerous to dogs as it could be if
its courage and intelligence equalled its power to do mischief. It
strikes with its forepaw like a cat, lacerating the foe with its sharp
claws; or else it holds the animal with them, while the muscular forearm
draws it in until the fatal bite may be inflicted. Whenever possible it
strives to bite an assailant in the head. Occasionally, when fighting
with a large dog, a cougar will throw itself on its back and try to rip
open its antagonist with its hind feet. Male cougars often fight
desperately among themselves.

Although a silent beast, yet at times, especially during the breeding
season, the males utter a wild scream, and the females also wail or
call. I once heard one cry repeatedly after nightfall, seemingly while
prowling for game. On an evening in the summer of 1897 Dr. Merriam had a
rather singular experience with a cougar. His party was camped in the
forest by Tannum Lake, on the east slope of the Cascades, near the
headwaters of a branch of the Yakima. The horses were feeding near by.
Shortly after dark a cougar cried loudly in the gloom, and the
frightened horses whinnied and stampeded. The cougar cried a number of
times afterward, but the horses did not again answer. None of them was
killed, however; and next morning, after some labor, all were again
gathered together. In 1884 I had a somewhat similar experience with a
bear, in the Big Horn Mountains.

Occasionally, but not often, the cougars I shot snarled or uttered a
low, thunderous growl as we approached the tree, or as the dogs came
upon them in the cave. In the death-grapple they were silent, excepting
that one young cougar snarled and squalled as it battled with the dogs.

The cougar is sometimes tamed. A friend of mine had one which was as
good-natured as possible until it was a year old, when it died. But one
kept by another friend, while still quite young, became treacherous and
dangerous. I doubt if they would ever become as trustworthy as a tame
wolf, which, if taken when a very young puppy, will often grow up
exactly like a dog. Two or three years ago there was such a tame wolf
with the Colorado Springs greyhounds. It was safer and more friendly
than many collies, and kept on excellent terms with the great
greyhounds; though these were themselves solely used to hunt wolves and
coyotes, and tackled them with headlong ferocity, having, unaided,
killed a score or two of the large wolves and hundreds of coyotes.

Hunting in the snow we were able to tell very clearly what the cougars
whose trails we were following had been doing. Goff’s eye for a trail
was unerring, and he read at a glance the lesson it taught. All the
cougars which we came across were living exclusively upon deer, and
their stomachs were filled with nothing else; much hair being mixed with
the meat. In each case the deer was caught by stalking and not by lying
in wait, and the cougar never went up a tree except to get rid of the
dogs. In the day-time it retired to a ledge, or ravine, or dense
thicket, starting to prowl as the dark came on. So far as I could see
the deer in each case was killed by a bite in the throat or neck. The
cougar simply rambled around in likely grounds until it saw or smelled
its quarry, and then crept up stealthily until with one or two
tremendous bounds it was able to seize its prey. If, as frequently
happened, the deer took alarm in time to avoid the first few bounds, it
always got away, for though the cougar is very fast for a short
distance, it has no wind whatever. It cannot pursue a deer for any
length of time, nor run before a dog for more than a few hundred yards,
if the dog is close up at the start. I was informed by the ranchmen that
when in May the deer leave the country, the cougars turn their attention
to the stock, and are very destructive. They have a special fondness for
horseflesh and kill almost every colt where they are plentiful, while
the big males work havoc with the saddle bands on the ranches, as well
as among the brood mares. Except in the case of a female with young they
are roving, wandering beasts, and roam great distances. After leaving
their day lairs, on a ledge, or in a gorge or thicket, they spend the
night travelling across the flats, along the ridges, over the spurs.
When they kill a deer they usually lie not very far away, and do not
again wander until they are hungry. The males travel very long distances
in the mating season. Their breeding-time is evidently irregular. We
found kittens with their eyes not yet open in the middle of January. Two
of the female cougars we killed were pregnant—in one case the young
would have been born almost immediately, that is, in February; and in
the other case in March. One, which had a partially grown young one of
over fifty pounds with it, still had milk in its teats. At the end of
January we found a male and female together, evidently mating. Goff has
also found the young just dropped in May, and even in June. The females
outnumber the males. Of the fourteen we killed, but three were males.

When a cougar kills a deer in the open it invariably drags it under some
tree or shelter before beginning to eat. All the carcasses we came
across had been thus dragged, the trail showing distinctly in the snow.
Goff, however, asserted that in occasional instances he had known a
cougar to carry a deer so that only its legs trailed on the ground.

The fourteen cougars we killed showed the widest variation not only in
size but in color, as shown by the following table. Some were as
slaty-gray as deer when in the so-called “blue”; others, rufous, almost
as bright as deer in the “red.” I use these two terms to describe the
color phases; though in some instances the tint was very undecided. The
color phase evidently has nothing to do with age, sex, season, or
locality. In this table the first cougar is the one killed by Stewart,
the sixth by Webb. The length is measured in a straight line, “between
uprights,” from the nose to the extreme tip of the tail, when the beast
was stretched out. The animals were weighed with the steelyard and also
spring scales. Before measuring, we pulled the beast out as straight as
we possibly could; and as the biggest male represents about, or very
nearly, the maximum for the species, it is easy to see that there can be
no basis for the talk one sometimes hears about ten and eleven foot
cougars. No cougar, measured at all fairly, has ever come anywhere near
reaching the length of nine feet. The fresh hide can easily be stretched
a couple of feet extra. Except the first two, all were full-grown; the
biggest male was nearly three times the size of the smallest female.

 ───────────┬───────────┬───────────────────────┬───────────┬───────────
    Sex.    │  Color.   │        Length.        │  Weight.  │   Date.
 ───────────┼───────────┼───────────────────────┼───────────┼───────────
            │           │   Feet.      Inches.  │  Pounds.  │   1901.
            │           │                       │           │
 [1]Female. │Blue.      │     4          11     │    47     │January  19
 [1]Female. │Red.       │     4          11½    │    51     │February 12
 Female.    │Blue.      │     6                 │    80     │January  14
 Female.    │Red.       │     6           4     │    102    │January  28
 Female.    │Blue.      │     6           5     │    105    │February 12
 Female.    │Blue.      │     6           5     │    107    │January  18
 Female.    │Red.       │     6           9     │    108    │January  24
 Female.    │Blue.      │     6           7     │    118    │January  15
 Female.    │Blue.      │     6           7     │    120    │January  31
 Female.    │Red.       │     6           9     │    124    │February  5
 Female.    │Blue.      │     7                 │    133    │February  8
 Male.      │Red.       │     7           6     │    160    │February 13
 Male.      │Blue.      │     7           8     │    164    │January  27
 Male.      │Red.       │     8                 │    227    │February 14
 ───────────┴───────────┴───────────────────────┴───────────┴───────────

Footnote 1:

  Young.

I shot five bobcats: two old males weighing 39 and 31 pounds
respectively; and three females, weighing, respectively, 25, 21, and 18
pounds. Webb killed two, a male of 29 pounds and a female of 20; and
Stewart two females, one of 22 pounds, and the other a young one of 11
pounds.

I sent the cougar and bobcat skulls to Dr. Merriam, at the Biological
Survey, Department of Agriculture, Washington. He wrote me as follows:
“The big [cougar] skull is certainly a giant. I have compared it with
the largest in our collection from British Columbia and Wyoming, and
find it larger than either. It is in fact the largest skull of any
member of the _Felis concolor_ group I have seen. A hasty preliminary
examination indicates that the animal is quite different from the
northwest coast form, but that it is the same as my horse-killer from
Wyoming—_Felis hippolestes_. In typical _Felis concolor_ from Brazil the
skull is lighter, the brain-case thinner and more smoothly rounded,
devoid of the strongly developed sagittal crest; the under jaw
straighter and lighter.

“Your series of skulls from Colorado is incomparably the largest, most
complete and most valuable series ever brought together from any single
locality, and will be of inestimable value in determining the amount of
individual variation.”


[Illustration:

  STARTING FOR A HUNT

  From a photograph by Philip B. Stewart
]

We rode in to the Keystone Ranch late on the evening of the second day
after leaving Meeker. We had picked up a couple of bobcats on the way,
and had found a cougar’s kill (or bait, as Goff called it)—a doe, almost
completely eaten. The dogs puzzled for several hours over the cold trail
of the cougar; but it was old, and ran hither and thither over bare
ground, so that they finally lost it. The ranch was delightfully
situated at the foot of high wooded hills broken by cliffs, and it was
pleasant to reach the warm, comfortable log buildings, with their clean
rooms, and to revel in the abundant, smoking-hot dinner, after the long,
cold hours in the saddle. As everywhere else in the cattle country
nowadays, a successful effort had been made to store water on the
Keystone, and there were great stretches of wire fencing—two
improvements entirely unknown in former days. But the foreman, William
Wilson, and the two punchers or cowhands, Sabey and Collins, were of the
old familiar type—skilled, fearless, hardy, hard-working, with all the
intelligence and self-respect that we like to claim as typical of the
American character at its best. All three carried short saddle guns when
they went abroad, and killed a good many coyotes, and now and then a
gray wolf. The cattle were for the most part grade Herefords, very
different from the wild, slab-sided, long-horned creatures which covered
the cattle country a score of years ago.

The next day, January 14th, we got our first cougar. This kind of
hunting was totally different from that to which I had been accustomed.
In the first place, there was no need of always being on the alert for a
shot, as it was the dogs who did the work. In the next place, instead of
continually scanning the landscape, what we had to do was to look down
so as to be sure not to pass over any tracks; for frequently a cold
trail would be indicated so faintly that the dogs themselves might pass
it by, if unassisted by Goff’s keen eyes and thorough knowledge of the
habits of the quarry. Finally, there was no object in making an early
start, as what we expected to find was not the cougar, but the cougar’s
trail; moreover, the horses and dogs, tough though they were, could not
stand more than a certain amount, and to ride from sunrise to sunset,
day in and day out, for five weeks, just about tested the limits of
their endurance.

We made our way slowly up the snow-covered, pinyon-clad side of the
mountain back of the house, and found a very old cougar trail which it
was useless to try to run, and a couple of fresh bobcat trails which it
was difficult to prevent the dogs from following. After criss-crossing
over the shoulders of this mountain for two or three hours, and
scrambling in and out of the ravines, we finally struck another cougar
trail, much more recent, probably made thirty-six hours before. The
hounds had been hunting free to one side or the other of our path. They
were now summoned by a blast of the horn, and with a wave of Goff’s hand
away they went on the trail. Had it been fresh they would have run out
of hearing at once, for it was fearfully rough country. But they were
able to work but slowly along the loops and zigzags of the trail, where
it led across bare spaces, and we could keep well in sight and hearing
of them. Finally they came to where it descended the sheer side of the
mountain and crossed the snow-covered valley beneath. They were still
all together, the pace having been so slow, and in the snow of the
valley the scent was fresh. It was a fine sight to see them as they
rushed across from one side to the other, the cliffs echoing their
chiming. Jim and the three bitches were in the lead, while Boxer fell
behind, as he always did when the pace was fast.

Leading our horses, we slid and scrambled after the hounds; but when we
reached the valley they had passed out of sight and sound, and we did
not hear them again until we had toiled up the mountain opposite. They
were then evidently scattered, having come upon many bare places; but
while we were listening, and working our way over to the other side of
the divide, the sudden increase in the baying told Goff that they had
struck the fresh trail of the beast they were after; and in two or three
minutes we heard Jim’s deep voice “barking treed.” The three fighters,
who had been trotting at our heels, recognized the difference in the
sound quite as quickly as we did, and plunged at full speed toward it
down the steep hillside, throwing up the snow like so many snowploughs.
In a minute or two the chorus told us that all the dogs were around the
tree, and we picked our way down toward them.

While we were still some distance off we could see the cougar in a low
pinyon moving about as the dogs tried to get up, and finally knocking
one clean out of the top. It was the first time I had ever seen dogs
with a cougar, and I was immensely interested; but Stewart’s whole
concern was with his camera. When we were within fifty yards of the
tree, and I was preparing to take the rifle out of the scabbard, Stewart
suddenly called “halt,” with the first symptoms of excitement he had
shown, and added, in an eager undertone: “Wait, there is a rabbit right
here, and I want to take his picture.” Accordingly we waited, the cougar
not fifty yards off and the dogs yelling and trying to get up the tree
after it, while Stewart crept up to the rabbit and got a kodak some six
feet distant. Then we resumed our march toward the tree, and the cougar,
not liking the sight of the reinforcements, jumped out. She came down
just outside the pack and ran up hill. So quick was she that the dogs
failed to seize her, and for the first fifty yards she went a great deal
faster than they did. Both in the jump and in the run she held her tail
straight out behind her; I found out afterward that sometimes one will
throw its tail straight in the air, and when walking along, when first
roused by the pack, before they are close, will, if angry, lash the tail
from side to side, at the same time grinning and snarling.

In a minute the cougar went up another tree, but, as we approached,
again jumped down, and on this occasion, after running a couple of
hundred yards, the dogs seized it. The worry was terrific; the growling,
snarling, and yelling rang among the rocks; and leaving our horses we
plunged at full speed through the snow down the rugged ravine in which
the fight was going on. It was a small though old female, only a few
pounds heavier than either Turk or Jim, and the dogs had the upper hand
when we arrived. They would certainly have killed it unassisted, but as
it was doing some damage to the pack, and might at any moment kill a
dog, I ended the struggle by a knife-thrust behind the shoulder. To
shoot would have been quite as dangerous for the dogs as for their
quarry. Three of the dogs were badly scratched, and Turk had been bitten
through one foreleg, and Boxer through one hind leg.

[Illustration:

  THE FIRST COUGAR KILLED

  From a photograph by Philip B. Stewart
]

As will be seen by the measurements given before, this was much the
smallest full-grown cougar we got. It was also one of the oldest, as its
teeth showed, and it gave me a false idea of the size of cougars;
although I knew they varied in size I was not prepared for the wide
variation we actually found.

The fighting dogs were the ones that enabled me to use the knife. All
three went straight for the head, and when they got hold they kept their
jaws shut, worrying and pulling, and completely absorbing the attention
of the cougar, so as to give an easy chance for the deathblow. The
hounds meanwhile had seized the cougar behind, and Jim, with his
alligator jaws, probably did as much damage as Turk. However, neither in
this nor in any other instance, did any one of the dogs manage to get
its teeth through the thick skin. When cougars fight among themselves
their claws and fangs leave great scars, but their hides are too thick
for the dogs to get their teeth through. On the other hand, a cougar’s
jaws have great power, and dogs are frequently killed by a single bite,
the fangs being driven through the brain or spine; or they break a dog’s
leg or cut the big blood-vessels of the throat.

I had been anxious to get a set of measurements and weights of cougars
to give to Dr. Hart Merriam. Accordingly I was carrying a tape, while
Goff, instead of a rifle, had a steelyard in his gun scabbard. We
weighed and measured the cougar, and then took lunch, making as
impartial a distribution of it as was possible among ourselves and the
different members of the pack; for, of course, we were already growing
to have a hearty fellow-feeling for each individual dog.

The next day we were again in luck. After about two hours’ ride we came
upon an old trail. It led among low hills, covered with pinyon and
cedar, and broken by gullies or washouts, in whose sharp sides of clay
the water had made holes and caves. Soon the hounds left it to follow a
bobcat, and we had a lively gallop through the timber, dodging the sharp
snags of the dead branches as best we might. The cat got into a hole in
a side washout; Baldy went in after it, and the rest of us, men and
dogs, clustered about to look in. After a considerable time he put the
cat out of the other end of the hole, nearly a hundred yards off, close
to the main washout. The first we knew of it we saw it coming straight
toward us, its tail held erect like that of a whitetail deer. Before
either we or the dogs quite grasped the situation it bolted into another
hole almost at our feet, and this time Baldy could not find it, or else
could not get at it. Then we took up the cougar trail again. It
criss-crossed in every direction. We finally found an old “bait,” a
buck. It was interesting to see the way in which the cougar had prowled
from point to point, and the efforts it had made to approach the deer
which it saw or smelled. Once we came to where it had sat down on the
edge of a cliff, sitting on its haunches with its long tail straight
behind it and looking out across the valley. After it had killed,
according to the invariable custom of its kind, it had dragged the deer
from the open, where it had overtaken it, to the shelter of a group of
trees.

We finally struck the fresh trail; but it, also, led hither and thither,
and we got into such a maze of tracks that the dogs were completely
puzzled. After a couple of hours of vain travelling to and fro, we gave
up the effort, called the dogs off, and started back beside a large
washout which led along between two ridges. Goff, as usual, was leading,
the dogs following and continually skirting to one side or the other.
Suddenly they all began to show great excitement, and then one gave
furious tongue at the mouth of a hole in some sunken and broken ground
not thirty yards to our right. The whole pack rushed toward the
challenge, the fighters leaped into the hole, and in another moment the
row inside told us that they had found a cougar at home. We jumped off
and ran down to see if we could be of assistance. To get into the hole
was impossible, for two or three hounds had jumped down to join the
fighters, and we could see nothing but their sterns. Then we saw Turk
backing out with a dead kitten in his mouth. I had supposed that a
cougar would defend her young to the last, but such was not the case in
this instance. For some minutes she kept the dogs at bay, but then
gradually gave ground, leaving her three kittens. Of course, the dogs
killed them instantly, much to our regret, as we would have given a good
deal to have kept them alive. As soon as she had abandoned them, away
she went completely through the low cave or hole, leaped out of the
other end, which was some thirty or forty yards off, scaled the bank,
and galloped into the woods, the pack getting after her at once. She did
not run more than a couple of hundred yards, and as we tore up on our
horses we saw her standing in the lower branches of a pinyon only six or
eight feet from the ground. She was not snarling or grinning, and looked
at us as quietly as if nothing had happened. As we leaped out of the
saddles she jumped down from the tree and ran off through the pack. They
were after her at once, however, and a few yards farther on she started
up another tree. Either Tony or Baldy grabbed her by the tip of the
tail, she lost her footing for a moment, and the whole pack seized her.
She was a powerful female of about the average size, being half as heavy
again as the one we first got, and made a tremendous fight; and savage
enough she looked, her ears tight back against her head, her yellow eyes
flashing, and her great teeth showing as she grinned. For a moment the
dogs had her down, but biting and striking she freed her head and fore
quarters from the fighters, and faced us as we ran up, the hounds still
having her from behind. This was another chance for the knife, and I
cheered on the fighters. Again they seized her by the head, but though
absolutely stanch dogs, their teeth, as I have said, had begun to
suffer, and they were no longer always able to make their holds good.
Just as I was about to strike her she knocked Turk loose with a blow,
bit Baldy, and then, her head being free, turned upon me. Fortunately,
Tony caught her free paw on that side, while I jammed the gun-butt into
her jaws with my left hand and struck home with the right, the knife
driving straight to the heart. The deep fang marks she left in the
stock, biting the corner of the shoulder clean off, gave an idea of the
power of her jaws. If it had been the very big male cougar which I
afterward killed, the stock would doubtless have been bitten completely
in two.

The dogs were pretty well damaged, and all retired and lay down under
the trees, where they licked their wounds, and went to sleep; growling
savagely at one another when they waked, but greeting us with
demonstrative affection, and trotting eagerly out to share our lunch as
soon as we began to eat it. Unaided, they would ultimately have killed
the cougar, but the chance of one or two of them being killed or
crippled was too great for us to allow this to be done; and in the
mix-up of the struggle it was not possible to end it with the rifle. The
writhing, yelling tangle offered too shifting a mark; one would have
been as apt to hit a dog as the cougar. Goff told me that the pack had
often killed cougars unassisted; but in the performance of such feats
the best dogs were frequently killed, and this was not a risk to be
taken lightly.

In some books the writers speak as if the male and female cougar live
together and jointly seek food for the young. We never found a male
cougar anywhere near either a female with young or a pregnant female.
According to my observation the male only remains with the female for a
short time, during the mating season, at which period he travels great
distances in search of his temporary mates—for the females far outnumber
the males. The cougar is normally a very solitary beast. The young—two
to four in number, though more than one or two rarely grow up—follow the
mother until over half grown. The mother lives entirely alone with the
kittens while they are small. As the males fight so fiercely among
themselves, it may be that the old he-cougars kill the young of their
own sex; a ranchman whom I knew once found the body of a young male
cougar which had evidently been killed by an old one; but I cannot say
whether or not this was an exceptional case.

During the next ten days Stewart and Webb each shot a cougar. Webb’s was
got by as pretty an exhibition of trailing on the part of Goff and his
hounds as one could wish to see. We ran across its old tracks while
coming home on Wednesday, January 16th. The next day, Thursday, we took
up the trail, but the animal had travelled a long distance; and, as
cougars so often do, had spent much of its time walking along ledges, or
at the foot of the cliffs, where the sun had melted the snow off the
ground. In consequence, the dogs were often at fault. Moreover, bobcats
were numerous, and twice the pack got after one, running a couple of
hours before, in one instance, the cat went into a cave, and, in the
other, took to a tree, where it was killed by Webb. At last, when
darkness came on, we were forced to leave the cougar trail and ride
home; a very attractive ride, too, loping rapidly over the snow-covered
flats, while above us the great stars fairly blazed in the splendor of
the winter night.

Early next morning we again took up the trail, and after a little while
found where it was less than thirty-six hours old. The dogs now ran it
well, but were thrown out again on a large bare hillside, until Boxer
succeeded in recovering the scent. They went up a high mountain and we
toiled after them. Again they lost the trail, and while at fault jumped
a big bobcat which they ran up a tree. After shooting him we took lunch,
and started to circle for the trail. Most of the dogs kept with Goff,
but Jim got off to one side on his own account; and suddenly his baying
told us that he had jumped the cougar. The rest of the pack tore toward
him and after a quarter of a mile run they had the quarry treed. The
ground was too rough for riding, and we had to do some stiff climbing to
get to it on foot.

Stewart’s cougar was a young of the year, and, according to his custom,
he took several photographs of it. Then he tried to poke it so that it
would get into a better position for the camera; whereupon it jumped out
of the tree and ran headlong down hill, the yelling dogs but a few feet
behind. Our horses had been left a hundred yards or so below, where they
all stood, moping, with their heads drooped and their eyes half shut, in
regular cow-pony style. The chase streamed by not a yard from their
noses, but evidently failed to arouse even an emotion of interest in
their minds, for they barely looked up, and made not a movement of any
kind when the cougar treed again just below them.

We killed several bobcats; and we also got another cougar, this time in
rather ignominious fashion. We had been running a bobcat, having an
excellent gallop, during the course of which Stewart’s horse turned a
somersault. Without our knowledge the dogs changed to the fresh trail of
a cougar, which they ran into its den in another cut bank. When we
reached the place they had gone in after it, Baldy dropping into a hole
at the top of the bank, while the others crawled into the main entrance,
some twenty-five yards off at the bottom. It was evidently a very rough
house inside, and above the baying, yelping, and snarling of the dogs we
could hear the rumbling overtone of the cougar’s growl. On this day we
had taken along Queen, the white bull bitch, to “enter” her at cougar.
It was certainly a lively experience for a first entry. We reached the
place in time to keep Jim and the hound bitches out of the hole. It was
evident that the dogs could do nothing with the cougar inside. They
could only come at it in front, and under such circumstances its claws
and teeth made the odds against them hopeless. Every now and then it
would charge, driving them all back, and we would then reach in, seize a
dog and haul him out. At intervals there would be an awful yelling and a
hound would come out bleeding badly, quite satisfied, and without the
slightest desire to go in again. Poor Baldy was evidently killed inside.
Queen, Turk, and Tony were badly clawed and bitten, and we finally got
them out too; Queen went in three times, and came out on each occasion
with a fresh gash or bite; Turk was, at the last, the only one really
anxious to go in again. Then we tried to smoke out the cougar, for as
one of the dogs had gotten into the cave through an upper entrance, we
supposed the cougar could get out by the same route. However, it either
could not or would not bolt; coming down close to the entrance where we
had built the sage-brush fire, there it stayed until it was smothered.
We returned to the ranch carrying its skin, but not over-pleased, and
the pack much the worse for wear. Dr. Webb had to sew up the wounds of
three of the dogs. One, Tony, was sent back to the home ranch, where he
died. In such rough hunting as this, it is of course impossible to
prevent occasional injuries to the dogs when they get the cougar in a
cave, or overtake him on the ground. All that can be done is to try to
end the contest as speedily as possible, which we always did.

[Illustration:

  AFTER THE FIGHT

  From a photograph by Philip B. Stewart
]

Judging from the experience of certain friends of mine in the Argentine,
I think it would be safe to crawl into a cave to shoot a cougar under
normal circumstances; but in this instance the cave was a long, winding
hole, so low that we could not get in on hands and knees, having to work
our way on our elbows. It was pitch dark inside, so that the rifle
sights could not be seen, and the cougar was evidently very angry and
had on two or three occasions charged the dogs, driving them out of the
entrance of the hole. In the dark, the chances were strongly against
killing it with a single shot; while if only wounded, and if it had
happened to charge, the man, in his cramped position, would have been
utterly helpless.

The day after the death of the smoked-out cougar Stewart and Webb
started home. Then it snowed for two days, keeping us in the ranch.
While the snow was falling, there was no possibility of finding or
following tracks; and as a rule wild creatures lie close during a storm.
We were glad to have fresh snow, for the multitude of tracks in the old
snow had become confusing; and not only the southern hillsides but the
larger valleys had begun to grow bare, so that trailing was difficult.

The third day dawned in brilliant splendor, and when the sun arose all
the land glittered dazzling white under his rays. The hounds were
rested, we had fresh horses, and after an early breakfast we started to
make a long circle. All the forenoon and early afternoon we plodded
through the snowdrifts, up and down the valleys, and along the ridge
crests, without striking a trail. The dogs trotted behind us or circled
from one side to the other. It was no small test of their stanchness,
eager and fresh as they were, for time after time we aroused bands of
deer, to which they paid no heed whatever. At last, in mid-afternoon, we
suddenly struck the tracks of two cougars, one a very large one, an old
male. They had been playing and frolicking together, for they were
evidently mating, and the snow in the tracks showed that they had
started abroad before the storm was entirely over. For three hours the
pack followed the cold trail, through an exceedingly rugged and
difficult country, in which Goff helped them out again and again.

Just at sunset the cougars were jumped, and ran straight into and
through a tangle of spurs and foothills, broken by precipices, and riven
by long deep ravines. The two at first separated and then came together,
with the result that Tree’em, Bruno, and Jimmie got on the back trail
and so were left far behind; while old Boxer also fell to the rear, as
he always did when the scent was hot, and Jim and the bitches were left
to do the running by themselves. In the gathering gloom we galloped
along the main divide, my horse once falling on a slippery sidehill, as
I followed headlong after Goff—whose riding was like the driving of the
son of Nimshi. The last vestige of sunlight disappeared, but the full
moon was well up in the heavens when we came to a long spur, leading off
to the right for two or three miles, beyond which we did not think the
chase could have gone. It had long run out of hearing. Making our way
down the rough and broken crest of this spur, we finally heard far off
the clamorous baying which told us that the hounds had their quarry at
bay. We did not have the fighters with us, as they were still under the
weather from the results of their encounter in the cave.

As it afterward appeared, the cougars had run three miles before the
dogs overtook them, making their way up, down and along such difficult
cliffs that the pack had to keep going round. The female then went up a
tree, while the pack followed the male. He would not climb a tree and
came to bay on the edge of a cliff. A couple of hundred yards from the
spot, we left the horses and scrambled along on foot, guided by the
furious clamor of the pack. When we reached them, the cougar had gone
along the face of the cliff, most of the dogs could not see him, and it
was some time before we could make him out ourselves. Then I got up
quite close. Although the moonlight was bright I could not see the
sights of my rifle, and fired a little too far back. The bullet,
however, inflicted a bad wound, and the cougar ran along a ledge,
disappearing around the cliff-shoulder. The conduct of the dogs showed
that he had not left the cliff, but it was impossible to see him either
from the sides or from below. The cliff was about a hundred feet high
and the top overhung the bottom, while from above the ground sloped down
to the brink at a rather steep angle, so that we had to be cautious
about our footing. There was a large projecting rock on the brink; to
this I clambered down, and, holding it with one hand, peeped over the
edge. After a minute or two I made out first the tail and then the head
of the cougar, who was lying on a narrow ledge only some ten feet below
me, his body hidden by the overhang of the cliff. Thanks to the
steepness of the incline, I could not let go of the rock with my left
hand, because I should have rolled over; so I got Goff to come down,
brace his feet against the projection, and grasp me by my legs. He then
lowered me gently down until my head and shoulders were over the edge
and my arms free; and I shot the cougar right between the ears, he being
in a straight line underneath me. The dogs were evidently confident that
he was going to be shot, for they had all gathered below the cliff to
wait for him to fall; and sure enough, down he came with a crash,
luckily not hitting any of them. We could hear them seize him, and they
all, dead cougar and worrying dogs, rolled at least a hundred yards down
the steep slope before they were stopped by a gully. It was an
interesting experience, and one which I shall not soon forget. We
clambered down to where the dogs were, admired our victim, and made up
our minds not to try to skin him until the morning. Then we led down our
horses, with some difficulty, into the snow-covered valley, mounted
them, and cantered home to the ranch, under the cold and brilliant moon,
through a white wonderland of shimmering light and beauty.

Next morning we came back as early as possible, intending first to skin
the male and then to hunt up the female. A quarter of a mile before we
reached the carcass we struck her fresh trail in the snow of the valley.
Calling all the dogs together and hustling them forward, we got them
across the trail without their paying any attention to it; for we wanted
to finish the job of skinning before taking up the hunt. However, when
we got off our horses and pulled the cougar down to a flat place to skin
it, Nellie, who evidently remembered that there had been another cougar
besides the one we had accounted for, started away on her own account
while we were not looking. The first thing we knew we heard her giving
tongue on the mountains above us, in such rough country that there was
no use in trying to head her off. Accordingly we jumped on the horses
again, rode down to where we had crossed the trail and put the whole
pack on it. After crossing the valley the cougar had moved along the
ledges of a great spur or chain of foothills, and as this prevented the
dogs going too fast we were able to canter alongside them up the valley,
watching them and listening to their chiming. We finally came to a large
hillside bare of snow, much broken with rocks, among which grew patches
of brush and scattered pinyons. Here the dogs were at fault for over an
hour. It had evidently been a favorite haunt of the cougars; they had
moved to and fro across it, and had lain sunning themselves in the dust
under the ledges. Owing to the character of the ground we could give the
hounds no assistance, but they finally puzzled out the trail for
themselves. We were now given a good illustration of the impossibility
of jumping a cougar without dogs, even when in a general way its haunt
is known. We rode along the hillside, and quartered it to and fro, on
the last occasion coming down a spur where we passed within two or three
rods of the brush in which the cougar was actually lying; but she never
moved and it was impossible to see her. When we finally reached the
bottom, the dogs had disentangled the trail; and they passed behind us
at a good rate, going up almost where we had come down. Even as we
looked we saw the cougar rise from her lair, only fifty yards or so
ahead of them, her red hide showing bright in the sun. It was a very
pretty run to watch while it lasted. She left them behind at first, but
after a quarter of a mile they put her up a pinyon. Approaching
cautiously—for the climbing was hard work and I did not wish to frighten
her out of the tree if it could be avoided, lest she might make such a
run as that of the preceding evening—I was able to shoot her through the
heart. She died in the branches, and I climbed the tree to throw her
down. The only skill needed in such shooting is in killing the cougar
outright so as to save the dogs. Six times on the hunt I shot the cougar
through the heart. Twice the animal died in the branches. In the other
four cases it sprang out of the tree, head and tail erect, eyes blazing,
and the mouth open in a grin of savage hate and anger; but it was
practically dead when it touched the ground.

[Illustration:

  COUGAR IN A TREE

  From a photograph by Philip B. Stewart
]

Although these cougars were mates, they were not of the same color, the
female being reddish, while the male was slate-colored. In weighing this
male we had to take off the hide and weigh it separately (with the head
and paws attached), for our steelyard only went up to 150 pounds. When
we came to weigh the biggest male we had to take off the quarters as
well as the hide.

Thinking that we had probably exhausted the cougars around the Keystone
Ranch, we spent the next fortnight off on a trip. We carried only what
we could put in the small saddle-pockets—our baggage being as strictly
limited as it ought to be with efficient cavalry who are on an active
campaign. We worked hard, but, as so often happens, our luck was not in
proportion to our labor.

The first day we rode to the Mathes brothers’ ranch. On the high divides
it was very cold, the thermometer standing at nearly twenty degrees
below zero. But we were clad for just such weather, and were not
uncomfortable. The three Mathes brothers lived together, with the wives
and children of the two married ones. Their ranch was in a very
beautiful and wild valley, the pinyon-crowned cliffs rising in walls on
either hand. Deer were abundant and often in sight from the ranch doors.
At night the gray wolves came down close to the buildings and howled for
hours among the precipices, under the light of the full moon. The still
cold was intense; but I could not resist going out for half an hour at a
time to listen to them. To me their baying, though a very eerie and
lonesome sound, full of vaguely sinister associations, has,
nevertheless, a certain wild music of its own which is far from being
without charm.

We did not hear the cougars calling, for they are certainly nothing like
as noisy as wolves; yet the Mathes brothers had heard them several
times, and once one of them had crept up and seen the cougar, which
remained in the same place for many minutes, repeating its cry
continually. The Mathes had killed but two cougars, not having any dogs
trained to hunt them. One of these was killed under circumstances which
well illustrate the queer nature of the animal. The three men, with one
of their two cattle dogs, were walking up the valley not half a mile
above the ranch-house, when they saw a cougar crossing in front of them,
a couple of hundred yards off. As soon as she saw them she crouched flat
down with her head toward them, remaining motionless. Two, with the dog,
stayed where they were, while the other ran back to the ranch-house for
a rifle and for the other dog. No sooner had he gone than the cougar
began deliberately to crawl toward the men who were left. She came on
slowly but steadily, crouched almost flat to the ground. The two unarmed
men were by no means pleased with her approach. They waved their hands
and jumped about and shouted; but she kept approaching, although slowly,
and was well within a hundred yards when the other brother arrived, out
of breath, accompanied by the other dog. At sight of him she jumped up,
ran off a couple of hundred yards, went up a tree, and was killed. I do
not suppose she would have attacked the men; but as there was an
unpleasant possibility that she might, they both felt distinctly more
comfortable when their brother rejoined them with the rifle.

There was a good deal of snowy weather while we were at the Mathes
ranch, but we had fair luck, killing two cougars. It was most
comfortable, for the ranch was clean and warm, and the cooking
delicious. It does not seem to me that I ever tasted better milk and
butter, hot biscuits, rice, potatoes, pork and bulberry and wild-plum
jam; and of course the long days on horseback in the cold weather gave
an edge to our appetites. One stormy day we lost the hounds, and we
spent most of the next day in finding such of them as did not come
straggling in of their own accord. The country was very rough, and it
was astounding to see some of the places up and down which we led the
horses. Sometimes I found that my horse climbed rather better than I
did, for he would come up some awkward-looking slope with such a rush
that I literally had to scramble on all-fours to get out of his way.

There was no special incident connected with killing either of these two
cougars. In one case Goff himself took the lead in working out the trail
and preventing the hounds getting off after bobcats. In the other case
the trail was fresher and the dogs ran it by themselves, getting into a
country where we could not follow; it was very rough, and the cliffs and
gorges rang with their baying. In both cases they had the cougar treed
for about three hours before we were able to place them and walk up to
them. It was hard work, toiling through the snow over the cliffs toward
the baying; and on each occasion the cougar leaped from the tree at our
approach, and ran a quarter of a mile or so before going up another,
where it was shot. As I came up to shoot, most of the dogs paid no
attention, but Boxer and Nellie always kept looking at me until I
actually raised the rifle, when they began to spring about the spot
where they thought the cougar would come down. The cougar itself always
seemed to recognize the man as the dangerous opponent; and as I strode
around to find a place from whence I could deliver an instantaneously
fatal shot, it would follow me steadily with its evil yellow eyes. I
came up very close, but the beasts never attempted to jump at me.
Judging from what one reads in books about Indian and African game, a
leopard under such circumstances would certainly sometimes charge.

Three days of our trip were spent on a ride to Colorow Mountain; we went
down to Judge Foreman’s ranch on White River to pass the night. We got
another cougar on the way. She must really be credited to Jim. The other
dogs were following in our footsteps through the snow, after having made
various futile excursions of their own. When we found that Jim was
missing, we tried in vain to recall him with the horn, and at last
started to hunt him up. After an hour’s ride we heard him off on the
mountain, evidently following a trail, but equally evidently not yet
having jumped the animal. The hounds heard him quite as quickly as we
did, and started toward him. Soon we heard the music of the whole pack,
which grew fainter and fainter, and was lost entirely as they
disappeared around a spur, and then began to grow loud again, showing
that they were coming toward us. Suddenly a change in the note convinced
us that they had jumped the quarry. We stood motionless; nearer and
nearer they came; and then a sudden burst of clamor proclaimed that they
were barking treed. We had to ride only a couple of hundred yards; I
shot the cougar from across a little ravine. She was the largest female
we got.

The dogs were a source of unceasing amusement, not merely while hunting,
but because of their relations to one another when off duty. Queen’s
temper was of the shortest toward the rest of the pack, although, like
Turk, she was fond of literally crawling into my lap, when we sat down
to rest after the worry which closed the chase. As soon as I began to
eat my lunch, all the dogs clustered close around and I distributed
small morsels to each in turn. Once Jimmie, Queen, and Boxer were
sitting side by side, tightly wedged together. I treated them with
entire impartiality; and soon Queen’s feelings overcame her, and she
unostentatiously but firmly bit Jimmie in the jaw. Jimmie howled
tremendously and Boxer literally turned a back somersault, evidently
fearing lest his turn should come next.

On February 11th we rode back to the Keystone Ranch, carrying the three
cougar skins behind our saddles. It was again very cold, and the snow on
the divides was so deep that our horses wallowed through it up to their
saddle-girths. I supposed that my hunt was practically at an end, for I
had but three days left; but as it turned out these were the three most
lucky days of the whole trip.

The weather was beautiful, the snow lying deep enough to give the dogs
easy trailing even on the southern slopes. Under the clear skies the
landscape was dazzling, and I had to wear snow-glasses. On the first of
the three days, February 12th, we had not ridden half an hour from the
ranch before we came across the trail of a very big bobcat. It was so
heavy that it had broken through the crust here and there, and we
decided that it was worth following. The trail went up a steep mountain
to the top, and we followed on foot after the dogs. Among the cliffs on
the top they were completely at fault, hunting every which way. After
awhile Goff suddenly spied the cat, which had jumped off the top of a
cliff into a pinyon. I killed it before any of the dogs saw it, and at
the shot they all ran in the wrong direction. When they did find us
skinning it, they were evidently not at all satisfied that it was really
their bobcat—the one which they had been trailing. Usually as soon as
the animal was killed they all lay down and dozed off; but on this
occasion they kept hurrying about and then in a body started on the back
trail. It was some time before we could get them together again.

After we had brought them in we rode across one or two ridges, and up
and down the spurs without finding anything, until about noon we struck
up a long winding valley where we came across one or two old cougar
trails. The pack were following in our footsteps behind the horses,
except Jim, who took off to one side by himself. Suddenly he began to
show signs that he had come across traces of game; and in another moment
he gave tongue and all the hounds started toward him. They quartered
around in the neighborhood of a little gulch for a short while, and then
streamed off up the mountain-side; and before they had run more than a
couple of minutes we heard them barking treed. By making a slight turn
we rode almost up to the tree, and saw that their quarry was a young
cougar. As we came up, it knocked Jimmie right out of the tree. On
seeing us it jumped down and started to run, but it was not quite quick
enough. Turk seized it and in a minute the dogs had it stretched out. It
squalled, hissed, and made such a good fight that I put an end to the
struggle with the knife, fearing lest it might maim one of the hounds.

While Goff was skinning it I wandered down to the kill near which it had
been lying. This was a deer, almost completely devoured. It had been
killed in the valley and dragged up perhaps a hundred yards to some
cedars. I soon saw from the tracks around the carcass that there was an
older cougar with the younger one—doubtless its mother—and walked back
to Goff with the information. Before I got there, however, some of the
pack had made the discovery for themselves. Jim, evidently feeling that
he had done his duty, had curled up and gone to sleep, with most of the
others; but old Boxer and the three bitches (Pete had left her pups and
joined us about the time we roused the big bobcat), hunted about until
they struck the fresh trail of the old female. They went off at a great
rate, and the sleeping dogs heard them and scampered away to the sound.
The trail led them across a spur, into a valley, and out of it up the
precipitous side of another mountain. When we got to the edge of the
valley we could hear them barking treed nearly at the summit of the
mountain opposite. It was over an hour’s stiff climbing before we made
our way around to them, although we managed to get the horses up to
within a quarter of a mile of the spot. On approaching we found the
cougar in a leaning pinyon on a ledge at the foot of a cliff. Jimmie was
in the lower branches of the pinyon, and Turk up above him, within a few
feet of the cougar. Evidently he had been trying to tackle her and had
been knocked out of the tree at least once, for he was bleeding a good
deal and there was much blood on the snow beneath. Yet he had come back
into the tree, and was barking violently not more than three feet beyond
her stroke. She kept up a low savage growling, and as soon as I
appeared, fixed her yellow eyes on me, glaring and snarling as I worked
around into a place from which I could kill her outright. Meanwhile Goff
took up his position on the other side, hoping to get a photograph when
I shot. My bullet went right through her heart. She bit her paw,
stretched up her head and bit a branch, and then died where she was,
while Turk leaped forward at the crack of the rifle and seized her in
the branches. I had some difficulty in bundling him and Jimmie out of
the tree as I climbed up to throw down the cougar.

Next morning we started early, intending to go to Juniper Mountain,
where we had heard that cougars were plentiful; but we had only ridden
about half an hour from the ranch when we came across a trail which by
the size we knew must belong to an old male. It was about thirty-six
hours old and led into a tangle of bad lands where there was great
difficulty in working it out. Finally, however, we found where it left
these bad lands and went straight up a mountain-side, too steep for the
horses to follow. From the plains below we watched the hounds working to
and fro until they entered a patch of pinyons in which we were certain
the cougar had killed a deer, as ravens and magpies were sitting around
in the trees. In these pinyons the hounds were again at fault for a
little while, but at last evidently found the right trail, and followed
it up over the hill-crest and out of sight. We then galloped hard along
the plain to the left, going around the end of the ridge and turning to
our right on the other side. Here we entered a deep narrow valley or
gorge which led up to a high plateau at the farther end. On our right,
as we rode up the valley, lay the high and steep ridge over which the
hounds had followed the trail. On the left it was still steeper, the
slope being broken by ledges and precipices. Near the mouth of the gorge
we encountered the hounds, who had worked the trail down and across the
gorge, and were now hunting up the steep cliff-shoulder on our left.
Evidently the cougar had wandered to and fro over this shoulder, and the
dogs were much puzzled and worked in zigzags and circles around it,
gradually getting clear to the top. Then old Boxer suddenly gave tongue
with renewed zest and started off at a run almost on top of the ridge,
the other dogs following. Immediately afterward they jumped the cougar.

We had been waiting below to see which direction the chase would take
and now put spurs to our horses and galloped up the ravine, climbing the
hillside on our right so as to get a better view of what was happening.
A few hundred yards of this galloping and climbing brought us again in
sight of the hounds. They were now barking treed and were clustered
around a pinyon below the ridge crest on the side hill opposite us. The
two fighters, Turk and Queen, who had been following at our horses’
heels, appreciated what had happened as soon as we did, and, leaving us,
ran down into the valley and began to work their way through the deep
snow up the hillside opposite, toward where the hounds were. Ours was an
ideal position for seeing the whole chase. In a minute the cougar jumped
out of the tree down among the hounds, who made no attempt to seize him,
but followed him as soon as he had cleared their circle. He came down
hill at a great rate and jumped over a low cliff, bringing after him
such an avalanche of snow that it was a moment before I caught sight of
him again, this time crouched on a narrow ledge some fifteen or twenty
feet below the brink from which he had jumped, and about as far above
the foot of the cliff, where the steep hill-slope again began. The
hounds soon found him and came along the ledge barking loudly, but not
venturing near where he lay facing them, with his back arched like a
great cat. Turk and Queen were meanwhile working their way up hill. Turk
got directly under the ledge and could not find a way up. Queen went to
the left and in a minute we saw her white form as she made her way
through the dark-colored hounds straight for the cougar. “That’s the end
of Queen,” said Goff; “he’ll kill her now, sure.” In another moment she
had made her rush and the cougar, bounding forward, had seized her, and
as we afterward discovered had driven his great fangs right through the
side of her head, fortunately missing the brain. In the struggle he lost
his footing and rolled off the ledge, and when they struck the ground
below he let go of the bitch. Turk, who was near where they struck, was
not able to spring for the hold he desired, and in another moment the
cougar was coming down hill like a quarter-horse. We stayed perfectly
still, as he was travelling in our direction. Queen was on her feet
almost as quick as the cougar, and she and Turk tore after him, the
hounds following in a few seconds, being delayed in getting off the
ledge. It was astonishing to see the speed of the cougar. He ran
considerably more than a quarter of a mile down hill, and at the end of
it had left the dogs more than a hundred yards behind. But his bolt was
shot, and after going perhaps a hundred yards or so up the hill on our
side and below us, he climbed a tree, under which the dogs began to bay
frantically, while we scrambled toward them. When I got down I found him
standing half upright on a big branch, his forepaws hung over another
higher branch, his sides puffing like bellows, and evidently completely
winded. In scrambling up the pinyon he must have struck a patch of
resin, for it had torn a handful of hair off from behind his right
forearm. I shot him through the heart. At the shot he sprang clean into
the top of the tree, head and tail up, and his face fairly demoniac with
rage; but before he touched the ground he was dead. Turk jumped up,
seized him as he fell, and the two rolled over a low ledge, falling
about eight feet into the snow, Turk never losing his hold.

No one could have wished to see a prettier chase under better
circumstances. It was exceedingly interesting. The only dog hurt was
Queen, and very miserable indeed she looked. She stood in the trail,
refusing to lie down or to join the other dogs, as, with prodigious
snarls at one another, they ate the pieces of the carcass we cut out for
them. Dogs hunting every day, as these were doing, and going through
such terrific exertion, need enormous quantities of meat, and as old
horses and crippled steers were not always easy to get, we usually fed
them the cougar carcasses. On this occasion, when they had eaten until
they could eat no longer, I gave most of my lunch to Queen—Boxer, who
after his feast could hardly move, nevertheless waddling up with his
ears forward to beg a share. Queen evidently felt that the lunch was a
delicacy, for she ate it, and then trotted home behind us with the rest
of the dogs. Rather to my astonishment, next day she was all right, and
as eager to go with us as ever. Though one side of her head was much
swollen, in her work she showed no signs of her injuries.

[Illustration:

  “BARKING TREED”

  From a photograph by Philip B. Stewart
]

Early the following morning, February 14th, the last day of my actual
hunting, we again started for Juniper Mountain, following the same
course on which we had started the previous day. Before we had gone a
mile, that is, only about half-way to where we had come across the
cougar track the preceding day, we crossed another, and as we deemed a
fresher, trail, which Goff pronounced to belong to a cougar even larger
than the one we had just killed. The hounds were getting both weary and
footsore, but the scent put heart into them and away they streamed. They
followed it across a sage-brush flat, and then worked along under the
base of a line of cliffs—cougar being particularly apt thus to travel at
the foot of cliffs. The pack kept well together, and it was pleasant, as
we cantered over the snowy plain beside them, to listen to their baying,
echoed back from the cliffs above. Then they worked over the hill and we
spurred ahead and turned to the left, up the same gorge or valley in
which we had killed the cougar the day before. The hounds followed the
trail straight to the cliff-shoulder where the day before the pack had
been puzzled until Boxer struck the fresh scent. Here they seemed to be
completely at fault, circling everywhere, and at one time following
their track of yesterday over to the pinyon-tree up which the cougar had
first gone.

We made our way up the ravine to the head of the plateau, and then,
turning, came back along the ridge until we reached the top of the
shoulder where the dogs had been; but when we got there they had
disappeared. It did not seem likely that the cougar had crossed the
ravine behind us—although as a matter of fact this was exactly what had
happened—and we did not know what to make of the affair.

We could barely hear the hounds; they had followed their back trail of
the preceding day, toward the place where we had first come across the
tracks of the cougar we had already killed. We were utterly puzzled,
even Goff being completely at fault, and we finally became afraid that
the track which the pack had been running was one which, instead of
having been made during the night, had been there the previous morning,
and had been made by the dead cougar. This meant, of course, that we had
passed it without noticing it, both going and coming, on the previous
day, and knowing Goff’s eye for a track I could not believe this. He,
however, thought we might have confused it with some of the big wolf
tracks, of which a number had crossed our path. After some hesitation,
he said that at any rate we could find out the truth by getting back
into the flat and galloping around to where we had begun our hunt the
day before; because if the dogs really had a fresh cougar before them he
must have so short a start that they were certain to tree him by the
time they got across the ridge crest. Accordingly we scrambled down the
precipitous mountain-side, galloped along the flat around the end of the
ridge and drew rein at about the place where we had first come across
the cougar trail on the previous day. Not a dog was to be heard
anywhere, and Goff’s belief that the pack was simply running a back
track became a certainty both in his mind and mine, when Jim suddenly
joined us, evidently having given up the chase. We came to the
conclusion that Jim, being wiser than the other dogs, had discovered his
mistake while they had not; “he just naturally quit,” said Goff.

After some little work we found where the pack had crossed the broad
flat valley into a mass of very rough broken country, the same in which
I had shot my first big male by moonlight. Cantering and scrambling
through this stretch of cliffs and valleys, we began to hear the dogs,
and at first were puzzled because once or twice it seemed as though they
were barking treed or had something at bay; always, however, as we came
nearer we could again hear them running a trail, and when we finally got
up tolerably close we found that they were all scattered out. Boxer was
far behind, and Nellie, whose feet had become sore, was soberly
accompanying him, no longer giving tongue. The others were separated one
from the other, and we finally made out Tree’em all by himself, and not
very far away. In vain Goff called and blew his horn; Tree’em
disappeared up a high hillside, and with muttered comments on his
stupidity we galloped our horses along the valley around the foot of the
hill, hoping to intercept him. No sooner had we come to the other side,
however, than we heard Tree’em evidently barking treed. We looked at one
another, wondering whether he had come across a bobcat, or whether it
had really been a fresh cougar trail after all.

Leaving our horses we scrambled up the canyon until we got in sight of a
large pinyon on the hillside, underneath which Tree’em was standing,
with his preposterous tail arched like a pump-handle, as he gazed
solemnly up in the tree, now and then uttering a bark at a huge cougar,
which by this time we could distinctly make out standing in the
branches. Turk and Queen had already left us and were running hard to
join Tree’em, and in another minute or two all of the hounds, except the
belated Boxer and Nellie, had also come up. The cougar having now
recovered his wind, jumped down and cantered off. He had been running
for three hours before the dogs and evidently had been overtaken again
and again, but had either refused to tree, or if he did tree had soon
come down and continued his flight, the hounds not venturing to meddle
with him, and he paying little heed to them. It was a different matter,
however, with Turk and Queen along. He went up the hill and came to bay
on the top of the cliffs, where we could see him against the sky-line.
The hounds surrounded him, but neither they nor Turk came to close
quarters. Queen, however, as soon as she arrived rushed straight in, and
the cougar knocked her a dozen feet off. Turk tried to seize him as soon
as Queen had made her rush; the cougar broke bay, and they all
disappeared over the hill-top, while we hurried after them. A quarter of
a mile beyond, on the steep hillside, they again had him up a
pinyon-tree. I approached as cautiously as possible so as not to alarm
him. He stood in such an awkward position that I could not get a fair
shot at the heart, but the bullet broke his back, and the dogs seized
him as he struck the ground. There was still any amount of fight in him,
and I ran in as fast as possible, jumping and slipping over the rocks
and the bushes as the cougar and dogs rolled and slid down the steep
mountain-side—for, of course, every minute’s delay meant the chance of a
dog being killed or crippled. It was a day of misfortunes for Jim, who
was knocked completely out of the fight by a single blow. The cougar was
too big for the dogs to master, even crippled as he was; but when I came
up close Turk ran in and got the great beast by one ear, stretching out
the cougar’s head, while he kept his own forelegs tucked way back so
that the cougar could not get hold of them. This gave me my chance and I
drove the knife home, leaping back before the creature could get round
at me. Boxer did not come up for half an hour, working out every inch of
the trail for himself, and croaking away at short intervals, while
Nellie trotted calmly beside him. Even when he saw us skinning the
cougar he would not hurry nor take a short cut, but followed the scent
to where the cougar had gone up the tree, and from the tree down to
where we were; then he meditatively bit the carcass, strolled off, and
lay down, satisfied.

It was a very large cougar, fat and heavy, and the men at the ranch
believed it was the same one which had at intervals haunted the place
for two or three years, killing on one occasion a milch cow, on another
a steer, and on yet another a big work horse. Goff stated that he had on
two or three occasions killed cougars that were quite as long, and he
believed even an inch or two longer, but that he had never seen one as
large or as heavy. Its weight was 227 pounds, and as it lay stretched
out it looked like a small African lioness. It would be impossible to
wish a better ending to a hunt.

The next day Goff and I cantered thirty miles into Meeker, and my
holiday was over.




                               CHAPTER II
                          A COLORADO BEAR HUNT


In mid-April, nineteen hundred and five, our party, consisting of Philip
B. Stewart, of Colorado Springs, and Dr. Alexander Lambert, of New York,
in addition to myself, left Newcastle, Col., for a bear hunt. As guides
and hunters we had John Goff and Jake Borah, than whom there are no
better men at their work of hunting bear in the mountains with hounds.
Each brought his own dogs; all told, there were twenty-six hounds, and
four half-blood terriers to help worry the bear when at bay. We
travelled in comfort, with a big pack-train, spare horses for each of
us, and a cook, packers, and horse-wranglers. I carried one of the new
model Springfield military rifles, a 30–40, with a soft-nosed bullet—a
very accurate and hard-hitting gun.

[Illustration:

  STARTING FOR CAMP

  From a stereograph, copyright, 1905, by Underwood and Underwood
]

This first day we rode about twenty miles to where camp was pitched on
the upper waters of East Divide Creek. It was a picturesque spot. At
this altitude it was still late winter and the snow lay in drifts, even
in the creek bottom, while the stream itself was not yet clear from ice.
The tents were pitched in a grove of leafless aspens and great spruces,
beside the rushing, ice-rimmed brook. The cook tent, with its stove, was
an attractive place on the cool mornings and in stormy weather. Fry, the
cook, a most competent man, had rigged up a table, and we had folding
camp-chairs—luxuries utterly unknown to my former camping trips. Each
day we breakfasted early and dined ten or twelve hours later, on
returning from the day’s hunt; and as we carried no lunch, the two meals
were enjoyed with ravenous pleasure by the entire company. The horses
were stout, tough, shaggy beasts, of wonderful staying power, and able
to climb like cats. The country was very steep and rugged; the
mountain-sides were greasy and slippery from the melting snow, while the
snow bucking through the deep drifts on their tops and on the north
sides was exhausting. Only sure-footed animals could avoid serious
tumbles, and only animals of great endurance could have lasted through
the work. Both Johnny Goff and his partner, Brick Wells, who often
accompanied us on the hunts, were frequently mounted on animals of
uncertain temper, with a tendency to buck on insufficient provocation;
but they rode them with entire indifference up and down any incline. One
of the riders, “Al,” a very good-tempered man, a tireless worker, had as
one of his horses a queer, big-headed dun beast, with a black stripe
down its back and traces of zebra-like bands on the backs of his front
legs. He was an atavistic animal, looking much as the horses must have
looked which an age or two ago lived in this very locality and were
preyed on by sabre-toothed tigers, hyenadons, and other strange and
terrible beasts of a long-vanished era. Lambert remarked to him: “Al,
you ought to call that horse of yours ‘Fossil’; he is a hundred thousand
years old.” To which Al, with immovable face, replied: “Gee! and that
man sold him to me for a seven-year-old! I’ll have the law on him!”

The hounds were most interesting, and showed all the variations of
character and temper to be expected in such a pack; a pack in which
performance counted for everything and pedigree for nothing. One of the
best hounds was half fox terrier. Three of Johnny’s had been with us
four years before, when he and I hunted cougars together; these three
being Jim, now an old dog, who dropped behind in a hard run, but still
excellent on a cold trail; Tree’em, who, like Jim, had grown aged, but
was very sure; and Bruno, who had become one of the best of all the pack
on a hot trail, but who was apt to overrun it if it became at all
difficult and cold. The biggest dog of the pack, a very powerful animal,
was Badge, who was half foxhound and half what Johnny called Siberian
bloodhound—I suppose a Great Dane or Ulm dog. His full brother Bill came
next to him. There was a Rowdy in Jake’s pack and another Rowdy in
Johnny’s, and each got badly hurt before the hunt was through. Jake’s
Rowdy, as soon as an animal was killed, became very cross and wished to
attack any dog that came near. One of Jake’s best hounds was old Bruise,
a very sure, although not a particularly fast dog. All the members of
the pack held the usual wild-beast attitude toward one another. They
joined together for the chase and the fight, but once the quarry was
killed, their relations among themselves became those of active
hostility or selfish indifference. At feeding time each took whatever
his strength permitted, and each paid abject deference to whichever
animal was his known superior in prowess. Some of the younger dogs would
now and then run deer or coyote. But the older dogs paid heed only to
bear and bobcat; and the pack, as a body, discriminated sharply between
the hounds they could trust and those which would go off on a wrong
trail. The four terriers included a heavy, liver-colored half-breed
bulldog, a preposterous animal who looked as if his ancestry had
included a toadfish. He was a terrible fighter, but his unvarying
attitude toward mankind was one of effusive and rather foolish
affection. In a fight he could whip any of the hounds save Badge, and he
was far more willing than Badge to accept punishment. There was also a
funny little black and tan, named Skip, a most friendly little fellow,
especially fond of riding in front or behind the saddle of any one of us
who would take him up, although perfectly able to travel forty miles a
day on his own sturdy legs if he had to, and then to join in the worry
of the quarry when once it had been shot. Porcupines abounded in the
woods, and one or two of the terriers and half a dozen of the hounds
positively refused to learn any wisdom, invariably attacking each
porcupine they found; the result being that we had to spend many minutes
in removing the quills from their mouths, eyes, etc. A white
bull-terrier would come in from such a combat with his nose literally
looking like a glorified pincushion, and many of the spines we had to
take out with nippers. The terriers never ran with the hounds, but
stayed behind with the horses until they heard the hounds barking
“bayed” or “treed,” when they forthwith tore toward them. Skip adopted
me as his special master, rode with me whenever I would let him, and
slept on the foot of my bed at night, growling defiance at anything that
came near. I grew attached to the friendly, bright little fellow, and at
the end of the hunt took him home with me as a playmate for the
children.

It was a great, wild country. In the creek bottoms there were a good
many ranches; but we only occasionally passed by these, on our way to
our hunting-grounds in the wilderness along the edge of the snow-line.
The mountains crowded close together in chain, peak, and tableland; all
the higher ones were wrapped in an unrent shroud of snow. We saw a good
many deer, and fresh sign of elk, but no elk themselves, although we
were informed that bands were to be found in the high spruce timber
where the snows were so deep that it would have been impossible to go on
horseback, while going on foot would have been inconceivably fatiguing.
The country was open. The high peaks were bare of trees. Cottonwoods,
and occasionally dwarfed birch or maple and willows, fringed the
streams; aspens grew in groves higher up. There were pinyons and cedars
on the slopes of the foothills; spruce clustered here and there in the
cooler ravines and valleys and high up the mountains. The dense oak
brush and thick-growing cedars were hard on our clothes, and sometimes
on our bodies.

Bear and cougars had once been very plentiful throughout this region,
but during the last three or four years the cougars have greatly
diminished in numbers throughout northern Colorado, and the bears have
diminished also, although not to the same extent. The great grizzlies
which were once fairly plentiful here are now very rare, as they are in
most places in the United States. There remain plenty of the black and
brown bears, which are simply individual color phases of the same
species.

Bears are interesting creatures and their habits are always worth
watching. When I used to hunt grizzlies my experience tended to make me
lay special emphasis on their variation in temper. There are savage and
cowardly bears, just as there are big and little ones; and sometimes
these variations are very marked among bears of the same district, and
at other times all the bears of one district will seem to have a common
code of behavior which differs utterly from that of the bears of another
district. Readers of Lewis and Clark do not need to be reminded of the
great difference they found in ferocity between the bears of the upper
Missouri and the bears of the Columbia River country; and those who have
lived in the upper Missouri country nowadays know how widely the bears
that still remain have altered in character from what they were as
recently as the middle of the last century.

This variability has been shown in the bears which I have stumbled upon
at close quarters. On but one occasion was I ever regularly charged by a
grizzly. To this animal I had given a mortal wound, and without any
effort at retaliation he bolted into a thicket of what, in my hurry, I
thought was laurel (it being composed in reality, I suppose, of
thick-growing berry bushes). On my following him and giving him a second
wound, he charged very determinedly, taking two more bullets without
flinching. I just escaped the charge by jumping to one side, and he died
almost immediately after striking at me as he rushed by. This bear
charged with his mouth open, but made very little noise after the growl
or roar with which he greeted my second bullet. I mention the fact of
his having kept his mouth open, because one or two of my friends who
have been charged have informed me that in their cases they particularly
noticed that the bear charged with his mouth shut. Perhaps the fact that
my bear was shot through the lungs may account for the difference, or it
may simply be another example of individual variation.

On another occasion, in a windfall, I got up within eight or ten feet of
a grizzly, which simply bolted off, paying no heed to a hurried shot
which I delivered as I poised unsteadily on the swaying top of an
overthrown dead pine. On yet another occasion, when I roused a big bear
from his sleep, he at the first moment seemed to pay little or no heed
to me, and then turned toward me in a leisurely way, the only sign of
hostility he betrayed being to ruffle up the hair on his shoulders and
the back of his neck. I hit him square between the eyes, and he dropped
like a pole-axed steer.

[Illustration:

  AT DINNER

  From a photograph by Philip B. Stewart
]

On another occasion I got up quite close to and mortally wounded a bear,
which ran off without uttering a sound until it fell dead; but another
of these grizzlies, which I shot from ambush, kept squalling and yelling
every time I hit him, making a great rumpus. On one occasion one of my
cow hands and myself were able to run down on foot a she grizzly bear
and her cub, which had obtained a long start of us, simply because of
the foolish conduct of the mother. The cub—or more properly the
yearling, for it was a cub of the second year—ran on far ahead, and
would have escaped if the old she had not continually stopped and sat up
on her hind legs to look back at us. I think she did this partly from
curiosity, but partly also from bad temper, for once or twice she
grinned and roared at us. The upshot of it was that I got within range
and put a bullet in the old she, who afterward charged my companion and
was killed; and we also got the yearling.

One young grizzly which I killed many years ago dropped to the first
bullet, which entered its stomach. It then let myself and my companion
approach closely, looking up at us with alert curiosity, but making no
effort to escape. It was really not crippled at all, but we thought from
its actions that its back was broken, and my companion advanced to kill
it with his pistol. The pistol, however, did not inflict a mortal wound,
and the only effect was to make the young bear jump to its feet as if
unhurt, and race off at full speed through the timber; for though not
full-grown it was beyond cubhood, being probably about eighteen months
old. By desperate running I succeeded in getting another shot, and more
by luck than by anything else knocked it over, this time permanently.

Black bear are not, under normal conditions, formidable brutes. If they
do charge and get home they may maul a man severely, and there are a
number of instances on record in which they have killed men. Ordinarily,
however, a black bear will not charge home, though he may bluster a good
deal. I once shot one very close up which made a most lamentable outcry,
and seemed to lose its head, its efforts to escape resulting in its
bouncing about among the trees with such heedless hurry that I was
easily able to kill it. Another black bear, which I also shot at close
quarters, came straight for my companions and myself, and almost ran
over the white hunter who was with me. This bear made no sound whatever
when I first hit it, and I do not think it was charging. I believe it
was simply dazed, and by accident ran the wrong way, and so almost came
into collision with us. However, when it found itself face to face with
the white hunter, and only four or five feet away, it prepared for
hostilities, and I think would have mauled him if I had not brained it
with another bullet; for I was myself standing but six feet or so to one
side of it. None of the bears shot on this Colorado trip made a sound
when hit; they all died silently, like so many wolves.

Ordinarily, my experience has been that bears were not flurried when I
suddenly came upon them. They impressed me as if they were always
keeping in mind the place toward which they wished to retreat in the
event of danger, and for this place, which was invariably a piece of
rough ground or dense timber, they made off with all possible speed, not
seeming to lose their heads.

[Illustration:

  THE PACK STRIKES THE FRESH BEAR TRAIL

  From a photograph by Philip B. Stewart
]

Frequently I have been able to watch bears for some time while myself
unobserved. With other game I have very often done this even when within
close range, not wishing to kill creatures needlessly, or without a good
object; but with bears, my experience has been that chances to secure
them come so seldom as to make it very distinctly worth while improving
any that do come, and I have not spent much time watching any bear
unless he was in a place where I could not get at him, or else was so
close at hand that I was not afraid of his getting away. On one occasion
the bear was hard at work digging up squirrel or gopher _caches_ on the
side of a pine-clad hill; while at this work he looked rather like a big
badger. On two other occasions the bear was fussing around a carcass
preparatory to burying it. On these occasions I was very close, and it
was extremely interesting to note the grotesque, half-human movements,
and giant, awkward strength of the great beast. He would twist the
carcass around with the utmost ease, sometimes taking it in his teeth
and dragging it, at other times grasping it in his forepaws and half
lifting, half shoving it. Once the bear lost his grip and rolled over
during the course of some movement, and this made him angry, and he
struck the carcass a savage whack, just as a pettish child will strike a
table against which it has knocked itself. At another time I watched a
black bear some distance off getting his breakfast under stumps and
stones. He was very active, turning the stone or log over, and then
thrusting his muzzle into the empty space to gobble up the small
creatures below before they recovered from their surprise and the sudden
inflow of light. From under one log he put a chipmunk, and danced hither
and thither with even more agility than awkwardness, slapping at the
chipmunk with his paw while it zigzagged about, until finally he scooped
it into his mouth.

All this was in the old days when I was still-hunting, with only the
rifle. This Colorado trip was the first on which I hunted bears with
hounds. If we had run across a grizzly there would doubtless have been a
chance to show some prowess, at least in the way of hard riding. But the
black and brown bears cannot, save under exceptional circumstances,
escape from such a pack as we had with us; and the real merit of the
chase was confined to the hounds and to Jake and Johnny for their skill
in handling them. Perhaps I should add the horses, for their
extraordinary endurance and surefootedness. As for the rest of us, we
needed to do little more than to sit ten or twelve hours in the saddle
and occasionally lead the horses up or down the most precipitous and
cliff-like of the mountain-sides. But it was great fun, nevertheless,
and usually a chase lasted long enough to be interesting.

The first day after reaching camp we rode for eleven hours over a very
difficult country, but without getting above the snow-line. Finally the
dogs got on the fresh trail of a bobcat, and away they went. A bobcat
will often give a good run, much better, on the average, than a cougar;
and this one puzzled the dogs not a little at first. It scrambled out of
one deep valley, crossing and recrossing the rock ledges where its scent
was hard to follow; then plunged into another valley. Meanwhile we had
ridden up on the high mountain spur between the two valleys, and after
scrambling and galloping to and fro as the cry veered from point to
point when the dogs changed directions, we saw them cross into the
second valley. Here again they took a good deal of time to puzzle out
the trail, and became somewhat scattered. We had dismounted and were
standing by the horses’ heads, listening to the baying and trying to
decide which way we should go, when Stewart suddenly pointed us out a
bear. It was on the other side of the valley from us, and perhaps half a
mile away, galloping down hill, with two of the hounds after it, and in
the sunlight its fur looked glossy black. In a minute or two it passed
out of sight in the thick-growing timber at the bottom of the valley;
and as we afterward found, the two hounds, getting momentarily thrown
out, and hearing the others still baying on the cat trail, joined the
latter. Jake started off to go around the head of the valley, while the
rest of us plunged down into it. We found from the track that the bear
had gone up the valley, and Jake found where he had come out on the high
divide, and then turned and retraced his steps. But the hounds were
evidently all after the cat. There was nothing for us to do but follow
them. Sometimes riding, sometimes leading the horses, we went up the
steep hillside, and as soon as we reached the crest heard the hounds
barking treed. Shorty and Skip, who always trotted after the horses
while the hounds were in full cry on a trail, recognized the change of
note immediately, and tore off in the direction of the bay, while we
followed as best we could, hoping to get there in time for Stewart and
Lambert to take photographs of the lynx in a tree. But we were too late.
Both Shorty and Skip could climb trees, and although Skip was too light
to tackle a bobcat by himself, Shorty, a heavy, formidable dog, of
unflinching courage and great physical strength, was altogether too much
for any bobcat. When we reached the place we found the bobcat in the top
of a pinyon, and Shorty steadily working his way up through the branches
and very near the quarry. Evidently the bobcat felt that the situation
needed the taking of desperate chances, and just before Shorty reached
it out it jumped, Shorty yelling with excitement as he plunged down
through the branches after it. But the cat did not jump far enough. One
of the hounds seized it by the hind leg and in another second everything
was over.

Shorty was always the first of the pack to attack dangerous game, and in
attacking bear or cougar even Badge was much less reckless and more
wary. In consequence, Shorty was seamed over with scars; most of them
from bobcats, but one or two from cougars. He could speedily kill a
bobcat single-handed; for these small lynxes are not really formidable
fighters, although they will lacerate a dog quite severely. Shorty found
a badger a much more difficult antagonist than a bobcat. A bobcat in a
hole makes a hard fight, however. On this hunt we once got a bobcat
under a big rock, and Jake’s Rowdy in trying to reach it got so badly
mauled that he had to join the invalid class for several days.

The bobcat we killed this first day was a male, weighing twenty-five
pounds. It was too late to try after the bear, especially as we had only
ten or a dozen dogs out, while the bear’s tracks showed it to be a big
one; and we rode back to camp.

Next morning we rode off early, taking with us all twenty-six hounds and
the four terriers. We wished first to find whether the bear had gone out
of the country in which we had seen him, and so rode up a valley and
then scrambled laboriously up the mountain-side to the top of the
snow-covered divide. Here the snow was three feet deep in places, and
the horses plunged and floundered as we worked our way in single file
through the drifts. But it had frozen hard the previous night, so that a
bear could walk on the crust and leave very little sign. In consequence
we came near passing over the place where the animal we were after had
actually crossed out of the canyon-like ravine in which we had seen him
and gone over the divide into another set of valleys. The trail was so
faint that it puzzled us, as we could not be certain how fresh it was,
and until this point could be cleared up we tried to keep the hounds
from following it. Old Jim, however, slipped off to one side and
speedily satisfied himself that the trail was fresh. Along it he went,
giving tongue, and the other dogs were maddened by the sound, while Jim,
under such circumstances, paid no heed whatever to any effort to make
him come back. Accordingly, the other hounds were slipped after him, and
down they ran into the valley, while we slid, floundered, and scrambled
along the ridge crest parallel to them, until a couple of miles farther
on we worked our way down to some great slopes covered with dwarf
scrub-oak. At the edge of these slopes, where they fell off in abrupt
descent to the stream at the bottom of the valley, we halted. Opposite
us was a high and very rugged mountain-side covered with a growth of
pinyon—never a close-growing tree—its precipitous flanks broken by
ledges and scored by gullies and ravines. It was hard to follow the
scent across such a mountain-side, and the dogs speedily became much
scattered. We could hear them plainly, and now and then could see them,
looking like ants as they ran up and down hill and along the ledges.
Finally we heard some of them barking bayed. The volume of sound
increased steadily as the straggling dogs joined those which had first
reached the hunted animal. At about this time, to our astonishment,
Badge, usually a stanch fighter, rejoined us, followed by one or two
other hounds, who seemed to have had enough of the matter. Immediately
afterward we saw the bear, half-way up the opposite mountain-side. The
hounds were all around him, and occasionally bit at his hind quarters;
but he had evidently no intention of climbing a tree. When we first saw
him he was sitting up on a point of rock surrounded by the pack, his
black fur showing to fine advantage. Then he moved off, threatening the
dogs, and making what in Mississippi is called a walking bay. He was a
sullen, powerful beast, and his leisurely gait showed how little he
feared the pack, and how confident he was in his own burly strength. By
this time the dogs had been after him for a couple of hours, and as
there was no water on the mountain-side we feared they might be getting
exhausted, and rode toward them as rapidly as we could. It was a hard
climb up to where they were, and we had to lead the horses. Just as we
came in sight of him, across a deep gully which ran down the sheer
mountain-side, he broke bay and started off, threatening the foremost of
the pack as they dared to approach him. They were all around him, and
for a minute I could not fire; then as he passed under a pinyon I got a
clear view of his great round stern and pulled trigger. The bullet broke
both his hips, and he rolled down hill, the hounds yelling with
excitement as they closed in on him. He could still play havoc with the
pack, and there was need to kill him at once. I leaped and slid down my
side of the gully as he rolled down his; at the bottom he stopped and
raised himself on his fore quarters; and with another bullet I broke his
back between the shoulders.

[Illustration:

  DEATH OF THE BIG BEAR

  From a photograph by Philip B. Stewart
]

Immediately all the dogs began to worry the carcass, while their savage
baying echoed so loudly in the narrow, steep gully that we could with
difficulty hear one another speak. It was a wild scene to look upon, as
we scrambled down to where the dead bear lay on his back between the
rocks. He did not die wholly unavenged, for he had killed one of the
terriers and six other dogs were more or less injured. The chase of the
bear is grim work for the pack. Jim, usually a very wary fighter, had a
couple of deep holes in his thigh; but the most mishandled of the
wounded dogs was Shorty. With his usual dauntless courage he had gone
straight at the bear’s head. Being such a heavy, powerful animal, I
think if he had been backed up he could have held the bear’s head down,
and prevented the beast from doing much injury. As it was, the bear bit
through the side of Shorty’s head, and bit him in the shoulder, and
again in the hip, inflicting very bad wounds. Once the fight was over
Shorty lay down on the hillside, unable to move. When we started home we
put him beside a little brook, and left a piece of bear meat by him, as
it was obvious we could not get him to camp that day. Next day one of
the boys went back with a pack-horse to take him in; but half-way out
met him struggling toward camp, and returned. Late in the afternoon
Shorty turned up while we were at dinner, and staggered toward us,
wagging his tail with enthusiastic delight at seeing his friends. We fed
him until he could not hold another mouthful; then he curled up in a dry
corner of the cook tent and slept for forty-eight hours; and two or
three days afterward was able once more to go hunting.

The bear was a big male, weighing three hundred and thirty pounds. On
examination at close quarters, his fur, which was in fine condition, was
not as black as it had seemed when seen afar off, the roots of the hairs
being brown. There was nothing whatever in his stomach. Evidently he had
not yet begun to eat, and had been but a short while out of his hole.
Bear feed very little when they first come out of their dens, sometimes
beginning on grass, sometimes on buds. Occasionally they will feed at
carcasses and try to kill animals within a week or two after they have
left winter quarters, but this is rare, and as a usual thing for the
first few weeks after they have come out they feed much as a deer would.
Although not hog fat, as would probably have been the case in the fall,
this bear was in good condition. In the fall, however, he would
doubtless have weighed over four hundred pounds. The three old females
we got on this trip weighed one hundred and eighty, one hundred and
seventy-five, and one hundred and thirty-five pounds apiece. The
yearlings weighed from thirty-one to forty pounds. The only other black
bears I ever weighed all belonged to the sub-species _Luteolus_, and
were killed on the Little Sunflower River, in Mississippi, in the late
fall of nineteen hundred and two. A big old male, in poor condition,
weighed two hundred and eighty-five pounds, and two very fat females
weighed two hundred and twenty and two hundred and thirty-five pounds
respectively.

The next few days we spent in hunting perseveringly, but unsuccessfully.
Each day we were from six to twelve hours in the saddle, climbing with
weary toil up the mountains and slipping and scrambling down them. On
the tops and on the north slopes there was much snow, so that we had to
pick our trails carefully, and even thus the horses often floundered
belly-deep as we worked along in single file; the men on the horses
which were best at snow bucking took turns in breaking the trail. In the
worst places we had to dismount and lead the horses, often over such bad
ground that nothing less sure-footed than the tough mountain ponies
could even have kept their legs. The weather was cold, with occasional
sharp flurries of snow, and once a regular snow-storm. We found the
tracks of one or two bears, but in each case several days old, and it
was evident either that the bears had gone back to their dens, finding
the season so late, or else that they were lying quiet in sheltered
places, and travelling as little as possible. One day, after a long run
of certainly five or six miles through very difficult country, the dogs
treed a bobcat in a big cedar. It had run so far that it was badly out
of breath. Stewart climbed the tree and took several photographs of it,
pushing the camera up to within about four feet of where the cat sat.
Lambert obtained photographs of both Stewart and the cat. Shorty was at
this time still an invalid from his encounter with the bear, but Skip
worked his way thirty feet up the tree in his effort to get at the
bobcat. Lambert shot the latter with his revolver, the bobcat dying
stuck in the branches; and he then had to climb the tree to get both the
bobcat and Skip, as the latter was at such a height that we thought he
would hurt himself if he fell. Another bobcat when treed sealed his own
fate by stepping on a dead branch and falling right into the jaws of the
pack.

At this camp, as everywhere, the tiny four-striped chipmunks were
plentiful and tame; they are cheerful, attractive little animals. We
also saw white-footed mice and a big meadow mouse around camp; and we
found a young brushy-tailed pack-rat. The snowshoe rabbits were still
white on the mountains, but in the lower valleys they had changed to the
summer pelage. On the mountains we occasionally saw woodchucks and rock
squirrels of two kinds, a large and a small—_Spermophilus grammurus_ and
_armatus_. The noisy, cheerful pine squirrels were common where the
woods were thick. There were eagles and ravens in the mountains, and
once we saw sandhill cranes soaring far above the highest peaks. The
long-crested jays came familiarly around camp, but on this occasion we
only saw the whiskey jacks, Clark’s nutcrackers and magpies, while off
in the mountains. Among the pinyons, we several times came across
straggling flocks of the queer pinyon jays or blue crows, with their
unmistakable calls and almost blackbird-like habits. There were hawks of
several species, and blue grouse, while the smaller birds included
flickers, robins, and the beautiful mountain bluebirds. Juncos and
mountain chickadees were plentiful, and the ruby-crowned kinglets were
singing with astonishing power for such tiny birds. We came on two nests
of the red-tailed hawk; the birds were brooding, and seemed tame and
unwary.

[Illustration:

  STEWART AND THE BOBCAT

  From a photograph, copyright, 1905, by Alexander Lambert, M.D.
]

After a week of this we came to the conclusion that the snow was too
deep and the weather too cold for us to expect to get any more bear in
the immediate neighborhood, and accordingly shifted camp to where Clear
Creek joins West Divide Creek.

The first day’s hunt from the new camp was successful. We were absent
about eleven hours and rode some forty miles. The day included four
hours’ steady snow bucking, for the bear, as soon as they got the
chance, went through the thick timber where the snow lay deepest. Some
two hours after leaving camp we found the old tracks of a she and a
yearling, but it took us a much longer time before we finally struck the
fresh trail made late the previous night or early in the morning. It was
Jake who first found this fresh track, while Johnny with the pack was a
couple of miles away, slowly but surely puzzling out the cold trail and
keeping the dogs up to their work. As soon as Johnny came up we put all
the hounds on the tracks, and away they went, through and over the snow,
yelling their eager delight. Meanwhile we had fixed our saddles and were
ready for what lay ahead. It was wholly impossible to ride at the tail
of the pack, but we did our best to keep within sound of the baying.
Finally, after much hard work and much point riding through snow, slush,
and deep mud, on the level, and along, up, and down sheer slopes, we
heard the dogs barking treed in the middle of a great grove of aspens
high up the mountain-side. The snow was too deep for the horses, and
leaving them, we trudged heavily up on foot. The yearling was in the top
of a tall aspen. Lambert shot it with his rifle and we then put the dogs
on the trail of the old she. Some of the young ones did not know what to
make of this, evidently feeling that the tracks must be those of the
bear that they had already killed; but the veterans were in full cry at
once. We scrambled after them up the steep mountain, and then downward
along ridges and spurs, getting all the clear ground we could. Finally
we had to take to the snow, and floundered and slid through the drifts
until we were in the valley. Most of the time the dogs were within
hearing, giving tongue as they followed the trail. Finally a total
change in the note showed that they were barking treed; and as rapidly
as possible we made our way toward the sound. Again we found ourselves
unable to bring the horses up to where the bear had treed, and scrambled
thither on foot through the deep snow.

[Illustration:

  THE PACK BAYING THE BEAR

  From a photograph, copyright, 1905, by Alexander Lambert, M.D.
]

The bear was some thirty or forty feet up a tall spruce; it was a big
she, with a glossy black-brown coat. I was afraid that at our approach
she might come down; but she had been running hard for some four hours,
had been pressed close, and evidently had not the slightest idea of
putting herself of her own free will within the reach of the pack, which
was now frantically baying at the foot of the tree. I shot her through
the heart. As the bullet struck she climbed up through the branches with
great agility for six or eight feet; then her muscles relaxed, and down
she came with a thud, nearly burying herself in the snow. Little Skip
was one of the first dogs to seize her as she came down; and in another
moment he literally disappeared under the hounds as they piled on the
bear. As soon as possible we got off the skin and pushed campward at a
good gait, for we were a long way off. Just at nightfall we came out on
a bluff from which we could overlook the rushing, swirling brown
torrent, on the farther bank of which the tents were pitched.

The stomach of this bear contained nothing but buds. Like the other shes
killed on this trip, she was accompanied by her yearling young, but had
no newly born cub; sometimes bear breed only every other year, but I
have found the mother accompanied not only by her cub but by her young
of the year before. The yearling also had nothing but buds in its
stomach. When its skin was taken off, Stewart looked at it, shook his
head, and turning to Lambert said solemnly, “Alex., that skin isn’t big
enough to use for anything but a doily.” From that time until the end of
the hunt the yearlings were only known as “doily bears.”

Next morning we again went out, and this time for twelve hours steadily,
in the saddle, and now and then on foot. Most of the time we were in
snow, and it was extraordinary that the horses could get through it at
all, especially in working up the steep mountain-sides. But until it got
so deep that they actually floundered—that is, so long as they could get
their legs down to the bottom—I found that they could travel much faster
than I could. On this day some twenty good-natured, hard-riding young
fellows from the ranches within a radius of a dozen miles had joined our
party to “see the President kill a bear.” They were a cheerful and
eagerly friendly crowd, as hardy as so many young moose, and utterly
fearless horsemen; one of them rode his wild, nervous horse bareback,
because it had bucked so when he tried to put the saddle on it that
morning that he feared he would get left behind, and so abandoned the
saddle outright. Whenever they had a chance they all rode at headlong
speed, paying no heed to the slope of the mountain-side or the character
of the ground. In the deep snow they did me a real service, for of
course they had to ride their horses single file through the drifts, and
by the time my turn came we had a good trail.

[Illustration:

  A DOILY BEAR

  From a photograph, copyright, 1905, by Alexander Lambert, M.D.
]

After a good deal of beating to and fro, we found where an old she-bear
with two yearlings had crossed a hill during the night and put the
hounds on their tracks. Johnny and Jake, with one or two of the cowboys,
followed the hounds over the exceedingly difficult hillside where the
trail led; or rather, they tried to follow them, for the hounds speedily
got clear away, as there were many places where they could run on the
crust of the snow, in which the horses wallowed almost helpless. The
rest of us went down to the valley, where the snow was light and the
going easier. The bear had travelled hither and thither through the
woods on the sidehill, and the dogs became scattered. Moreover, they
jumped several deer, and four or five of the young dogs took after one
of the latter. Finally, however, the rest of the pack put up the three
bears. We had an interesting glimpse of the chase as the bears quartered
up across an open spot of the hillside. The hounds were but a short
distance behind them, strung out in a long string, the more powerful,
those which could do best in the snow bucking, taking the lead. We
pushed up the mountain-side after them, horse after horse getting down
in the snow, and speedily heard the redoubled clamor which told us that
something had been treed. It was half an hour before we could make our
way to the tree, a spruce, in which the two yearlings had taken refuge,
while around the bottom the entire pack was gathered, crazy with
excitement. We could not take the yearlings alive, both because we
lacked the means of carrying them, and because we were anxious to get
after the old bear. We could not leave them where they were, because it
would have been well-nigh impossible to get the dogs away, and because,
even if we had succeeded in getting them away, they would not have run
any other trail as long as they knew the yearlings were in the tree. It
was therefore out of the question to leave them unharmed, as we should
have been glad to do, and Lambert killed them both with his revolver;
the one that was first hit immediately biting its brother. The ranchmen
took them home to eat.

The hounds were immediately put on the trail of the old one and
disappeared over the snow. In a few minutes we followed. It was heavy
work getting up the mountain-side through the drifts, but once on top we
made our way down a nearly bare spur, and then turned to the right,
scrambled a couple of miles along a slippery sidehill, and halted. Below
us lay a great valley, on the farther side of which a spruce forest
stretched up toward the treeless peaks. Snow covered even the bottom of
the valley, and lay deep and solid in the spruce forest on the
mountain-side. The hounds were in full cry, evidently on a hot trail,
and we caught glimpses of them far on the opposite side of the valley,
crossing little open glades in the spruce timber. If the crust was hard
they scattered out. Where it was at all soft they ran in single file. We
worked our way down toward them, and on reaching the bottom of the
valley, went up it as fast as the snow would allow. Finally we heard the
pack again barking treed and started toward them. They had treed the
bear far up the mountain-side in the thick spruce timber, and a short
experiment showed us that the horses could not possibly get through the
snow. Accordingly, off we jumped and went toward the sound on foot, all
the young ranchmen and cowboys rushing ahead, and thereby again making
me an easy trail. On the way to the tree the rider of the bareback horse
pounced on a snowshoe rabbit which was crouched under a bush and caught
it with his hands. It was half an hour before we reached the tree, a big
spruce, up which the bear had gone to a height of some forty feet. I
broke her neck with a single bullet. She was smaller than the one I had
shot the day before, but full-grown. In her stomach, as in those of the
two yearlings, there were buds of rose-bushes and quaking aspens. One
yearling had also swallowed a mouse. It was a long ride to camp, and
darkness had fallen by the time we caught the gleam from the lighted
tents, across the dark stream.

With neither of these last two bear had there been any call for prowess;
my part was merely to kill the bear dead at the first shot, for the sake
of the pack. But the days were very enjoyable, nevertheless. It was good
fun to be twelve hours in the saddle in such wild and beautiful country,
to look at and listen to the hounds as they worked, and finally to see
the bear treed and looking down at the maddened pack baying beneath.

For the next two or three days I was kept in camp by a touch of Cuban
fever. On one of these days Lambert enjoyed the longest hunt we had on
the trip, after an old she-bear and three yearlings. The yearlings treed
one by one, each of course necessitating a stoppage, and it was seven in
the evening before the old bear at last went up a cottonwood and was
shot; she was only wounded, however, and in the fight she crippled
Johnny’s Rowdy before she was killed. When the hunters reached camp it
was thirteen hours since they had left it. The old bear was a very light
brown; the first yearling was reddish-brown, the second light
yellowish-brown, the third dark black-brown, though all were evidently
of the same litter.

Following this came a spell of bad weather, snow-storm and blizzard
steadily succeeding one another. This lasted until my holiday was over.
Some days we had to stay in camp. On other days we hunted; but there was
three feet of new snow on the summits and foothills, making it difficult
to get about. We saw no more bear, and, indeed, no more bear-tracks that
were less than two or three weeks old.

We killed a couple of bobcats. The chase of one was marked by several
incidents. We had been riding through a blizzard on the top of a
plateau, and were glad to plunge down into a steep sheer-sided valley.
By the time we reached the bottom there was a lull in the storm and we
worked our way with considerable difficulty through the snow, down
timber, and lava rock, toward Divide Creek. After a while the valley
widened a little, spruce and aspens fringing the stream at the bottom
while the sides were bare. Here we struck a fresh bobcat trail leading
off up one of the mountain-sides. The hounds followed it nearly to the
top, then turned and came down again, worked through the timber in the
bottom, and struck out on the hillside opposite. Suddenly we saw the
bobcat running ahead of them and doubling and circling. A few minutes
afterward the hounds followed the trail to the creek bottom and then
began to bark treed. But on reaching the point we found there was no cat
in the tree, although the dogs seemed certain that there was; and Johnny
and Jake speedily had them again running on the trail. After making its
way for some distance through the bottom, the cat had again taken to the
sidehill, and the hounds went after it hard. Again they went nearly to
the top, again they streamed down to the bottom and crossed the creek.
Soon afterward we saw the cat ahead of them. For the moment it threw
them off the track by making a circle and galloping around close to the
rearmost hounds. It then made for the creek bottom, where it climbed to
the top of a tall aspen. The hounds soon picked up the trail again, and
followed it full cry; but unfortunately just before they reached where
it had treed they ran on to a porcupine. When we reached the foot of the
aspen, in the top of which the bobcat crouched, with most of the pack
baying beneath, we found the porcupine dead and half a dozen dogs with
their muzzles and throats filled full of quills. Before doing anything
with the cat it was necessary to take these quills out. One of the
terriers, which always found porcupines an irresistible attraction, was
a really extraordinary sight, so thickly were the quills studded over
his face and chest. But a big hound was in even worse condition; the
quills were stuck in abundance into his nose, lips, cheeks, and tongue,
and in the roof of his mouth they were almost as thick as bristles in a
brush. Only by use of pincers was it possible to rid these two dogs of
the quills, and it was a long and bloody job. The others had suffered
less.

[Illustration:

  THE BIG BEAR

  From a photograph by Philip B. Stewart
]

The dogs seemed to have no sympathy with one another, and apparently all
that the rest of the pack felt was that they were kept a long time
waiting for the cat. They never stopped baying for a minute, and Shorty,
as was his habit, deliberately bit great patches of bark from the
aspens, to show his impatience; for the tree in which the cat stood was
not one which he could climb. After attending to the porcupine dogs one
of the men climbed the tree and with a stick pushed out the cat. It
dropped down through the branches forty or fifty feet, but was so quick
in starting and dodging that it actually rushed through the pack,
crossed the stream, and, doubling and twisting, was off up the creek
through the timber. It ran cunning, and in a minute or two lay down
under a bush and watched the hounds as they went by, overrunning its
trail. Then it took off up the hillside; but the hounds speedily picked
up its track, and running in single file, were almost on it. Then the
cat turned down hill, but too late, for it was overtaken within fifty
yards. This ended our hunting.

One Sunday we rode down some six miles from camp to a little blue
school-house and attended service. The preacher was in the habit of
riding over every alternate Sunday from Rifle, a little town twenty or
twenty-five miles away; and the ranchmen with their wives and children,
some on horseback, some in wagons, had gathered from thirty miles round
to attend the service. The crowd was so large that the exercises had to
take place in the open air, and it was pleasant to look at the strong
frames and rugged, weather-beaten faces of the men; while as for the
women, one respected them even more than the men.

In spite of the snow-storms spring was coming; some of the trees were
beginning to bud and show green, more and more flowers were in bloom,
and bird life was steadily increasing. In the bushes by the streams the
handsome white-crowned sparrows and green-tailed towhees were in full
song, making attractive music; although the song of neither can rightly
be compared in point of plaintive beauty with that of the white-throated
sparrow, which, except some of the thrushes, and perhaps the winter
wren, is the sweetest singer of the Northeastern forests. The spurred
towhees were very plentiful; and one morning a willow-thrush sang among
the willows like a veery. Both the crested jays and the Woodhouse jays
came around camp. Lower down the Western meadow larks were singing
beautifully, and vesper finches were abundant. Say’s flycatcher, a very
attractive bird, with pretty, soft-colored plumage, continually uttering
a plaintive single note, and sometimes a warbling twitter, flitted about
in the neighborhood of the little log ranch houses. Gangs of blackbirds
visited the corrals. I saw but one song sparrow, and curiously enough,
though I think it was merely an individual peculiarity, this particular
bird had a song entirely different from any I have heard from the
familiar Eastern bird—always a favorite of mine.

While up in the mountains hunting, we twice came upon owls, which were
rearing their families in the deserted nests of the red-tailed hawk. One
was a long-eared owl, and the other a great horned owl, of the pale
Western variety. Both were astonishingly tame, and we found it difficult
to make them leave their nests, which were in the tops of cottonwood
trees.

On the last day we rode down to where Glenwood Springs lies, hemmed in
by lofty mountain chains, which are riven in sunder by sheer-sided,
cliff-walled canyons. As we left ever farther behind us the wintry
desolation of our high hunting-grounds we rode into full spring. The
green of the valley was a delight to the eye; bird songs sounded on
every side, from the fields and from the trees and bushes beside the
brooks and irrigation ditches; the air was sweet with the spring-time
breath of many budding things. The sarvice bushes were white with bloom,
like shadblow on the Hudson; the blossoms of the Oregon grape made
yellow mats on the ground. We saw the chunky Say’s ground squirrel,
looking like a big chipmunk, with on each side a conspicuous white
stripe edged with black. In one place we saw quite a large squirrel,
grayish, with red on the lower back. I suppose it was only a pine
squirrel, but it looked like one of the gray squirrels of southern
Colorado. Mountain mockers and the handsome, bold Arkansaw king birds
were numerous. The blacktail sage sparrow was conspicuous in the
sage-brush, and high among the cliffs the white-throated swifts were
soaring. There were numerous warblers, among which I could only make out
the black-throated gray, Audubon’s, and McGillivray’s. In Glenwood
Springs itself the purple finches, house finches, and Bullock’s orioles
were in full song. Flocks of siskins passed with dipping flight. In one
rapid little stream we saw a water ousel. Humming-birds—I suppose the
broad-tailed—were common, and as they flew they made, intermittently and
almost rhythmically, a curious metallic sound; seemingly it was done
with their wings.

But the thing that interested me most in the way of bird life was
something I saw in Denver. To my delight I found that the huge hotel at
which we took dinner was monopolized by the pretty, musical house
finches, to the exclusion of the ordinary city sparrows. The latter are
all too plentiful in Denver, as in every other city, and, as always, are
noisy, quarrelsome—in short, thoroughly unattractive and disreputable.
The house finch, on the contrary, is attractive in looks, in song, and
in ways. It was delightful to hear the males singing, often on the wing.
They went right up to the top stories of the high hotel, and nested
under the eaves and in the cornices. The cities of the Southwestern
States are to be congratulated on having this spirited, attractive
little songster as a familiar dweller around their houses and in their
gardens.




                              CHAPTER III
                             WOLF-COURSING


On April eighth, nineteen hundred and five, we left the town of
Frederick, Oklahoma, for a few days’ coyote coursing in the Comanche
Reserve. Lieut.-Gen. S. B. M. Young, U. S. A., retired, Lieutenant
Fortescue, U. S. A., formerly of my regiment, and Dr. Alexander Lambert,
of New York, were with me. We were the guests of Colonel Cecil Lyon, of
Texas, of Sloan Simpson, also of Texas, and formerly of my regiment, and
of two old-style Texas cattlemen, Messrs. Burnett and Wagner, who had
leased great stretches of wire-fenced pasture from the Comanches and
Kiowas; and I cannot sufficiently express my appreciation of the
kindness of these my hosts. Burnett’s brand, the Four Sixes, has been
owned by him for forty years. Both of them had come to this country
thirty years before, in the days of the buffalo, when all game was very
plentiful and the Indians were still on the warpath. Several other
ranchmen were along, including John Abernethy, of Tesca, Oklahoma, a
professional wolf hunter. There were also a number of cowhands of both
Burnett and Wagner; among them were two former riders for the Four
Sixes, Fi Taylor and Uncle Ed Gillis, who seemed to make it their
special mission to see that everything went right with me. Furthermore
there was Captain McDonald of the Texas Rangers, a game and true man,
whose name was one of terror to outlaws and violent criminals of all
kinds; and finally there was Quanah Parker, the Comanche chief, in his
youth a bitter foe of the whites, now painfully teaching his people to
travel the white man’s stony road.

[Illustration:

  STARTING TOWARDS THE WOLF GROUNDS

  From a photograph, copyright, 1905, by Alexander Lambert, M.D.
]

We drove out some twenty miles to where camp was pitched in a bend of
Deep Red Creek, which empties into the Red River of the South.
Cottonwood, elm, and pecans formed a belt of timber along the creek; we
had good water, the tents were pitched on short, thick grass, and
everything was in perfect order. The fare was delicious. Altogether it
was an ideal camp, and the days we passed there were also ideal.
Cardinals and mocking-birds—the most individual and delightful of all
birds in voice and manner—sang in the woods; and the beautiful,
many-tinted fork-tailed fly-catchers were to be seen now and then,
perched in trees or soaring in curious zigzags, chattering loudly.

In chasing the coyote only greyhounds are used, and half a dozen
different sets of these had been brought to camp. Those of Wagner, the
“Big D” dogs, as his cow-punchers called them, were handled by Bony
Moore, who, with Tom Burnett, the son of our host Burke Burnett, took
the lead in feats of daring horsemanship, even in that field of daring
horsemen. Bevins had brought both greyhounds and rough-haired staghounds
from his Texas ranch. So had Cecil Lyon, and though his dogs had chiefly
been used in coursing the black-tailed Texas jack-rabbit, they took
naturally to the coyote chases. Finally there were Abernethy’s dogs,
which, together with their master, performed the feats I shall hereafter
relate. Abernethy has a homestead of his own not far from Frederick, and
later I was introduced to his father, an old Confederate soldier, and to
his sweet and pretty wife, and their five little children. He had run
away with his wife when they were nineteen and sixteen respectively; but
the match had turned out a happy one. Both were particularly fond of
music, including the piano, horn, and violin, and they played duets
together. General Young, whom the Comanches called “War Bonnet,” went in
a buggy with Burke Burnett, and as Burnett invariably followed the
hounds at full speed in his buggy, and usually succeeded in seeing most
of the chase, I felt that the buggy men really encountered greater
hazards than anyone else. It was a thoroughly congenial company all
through. The weather was good; we were in the saddle from morning until
night; and our camp was in all respects all that a camp should be; so
how could we help enjoying ourselves?

The coursing was done on the flats and great rolling prairies which
stretched north from our camp toward the Wichita Mountains and south
toward the Red River. There was a certain element of risk in the
gallops, because the whole country was one huge prairie-dog town, the
prairie-dogs being so numerous that the new towns and the abandoned
towns were continuous with one another in every direction. Practically
every run we had was through these prairie-dog towns, varied
occasionally by creeks and washouts. But as we always ran scattered out,
the wonderfully quick cow-ponies, brought up in this country and
spending all their time among the prairie-dog towns, were able, even
while running at headlong speed, to avoid the holes with a cleverness
that was simply marvellous. During our hunt but one horse stepped in a
hole; he turned a complete somerset, though neither he nor his rider was
hurt. Stunted mesquite bushes grew here and there in the grass, and
there was cactus. As always in prairie-dog towns, there were burrowing
owls and rattlesnakes. We had to be on our guard that the dogs did not
attack the latter. Once we thought a greyhound was certainly bitten. It
was a very fast blue bitch, which seized the rattler and literally shook
it to pieces. The rattler struck twice at the bitch, but so quick were
the bitch’s movements that she was not hit either time, and in a second
the snake was not merely dead, but in pieces. We usually killed the
rattlers with either our quirts or ropes. One which I thus killed was
over five feet long.

By rights there ought to have been carts in which the greyhounds could
be drawn until the coyotes were sighted, but there were none, and the
greyhounds simply trotted along beside the horses. All of them were fine
animals, and almost all of them of recorded pedigree. Coyotes have sharp
teeth and bite hard, while greyhounds have thin skins, and many of them
were cut in the worries. This was due to the fact that only two or three
of them seized by the throat, the others taking hold behind, which of
course exposed them to retaliation. Few of them would have been of much
use in stopping a big wolf. Abernethy’s hounds, however, though they
could not kill a big wolf, would stop it, permitting their owner to
seize it exactly as he seized coyotes, as hereafter described. He had
killed but a few of the big gray wolves; one weighed ninety-seven
pounds. He said that there were gradations from this down to the
coyotes. A few days before our arrival, after a very long chase, he had
captured a black wolf, weighing between fifty and sixty pounds.

These Southern coyotes or prairie-wolves are only about one-third the
size of the big gray timber wolves of the Northern Rockies. They are too
small to meddle with full-grown horses and cattle, but pick up young
calves and kill sheep, as well as any small domesticated animal that
they can get at. The big wolves flee from the neighborhood of anything
like close settlements, but coyotes hang around the neighborhood of man
much more persistently. They show a fox-like cunning in catching
rabbits, prairie-dogs, gophers, and the like. After nightfall they are
noisy, and their melancholy wailing and yelling are familiar sounds to
all who pass over the plains. The young are brought forth in holes in
cut banks or similar localities. Within my own experience I have known
of the finding of but two families. In one there was but a single family
of five cubs and one old animal, undoubtedly the mother; in the other
case there were ten or eleven cubs and two old females which had
apparently shared the burrow or cave, though living in separate pockets.
In neither case was any full-grown male coyote found in the
neighborhood; as regards these particular litters, the father seemingly
had nothing to do with taking care of or supporting the family. I am not
able to say whether this was accidental or whether it is a rule, that
only the mother lives with and takes care of the litter; I have heard
contrary statements about the matter from hunters who should know.
Unfortunately I have learned from long experience that it is only
exceptional hunters who can be trusted to give accurate descriptions of
the habits of any beast, save such as are connected with its chase.

[Illustration:

  GREYHOUNDS RESTING AFTER A RUN

  From a photograph by W. Sloan Simpson
]

Coyotes are sharp, wary, knowing creatures, and on most occasions take
care to keep out of harm’s way. But individuals among them have queer
freaks. On one occasion while Sloan Simpson was on the round-up he waked
at night to find something on the foot of his bed, its dark form
indistinctly visible against the white tarpaulin. He aroused a friend to
ask if it could be a dog. While they were cautiously endeavoring to find
out what it was, it jumped up and ran off; they then saw that it was a
coyote. In a short time it returned again, coming out of the darkness
toward one of the cowboys who was awake, and the latter shot it, fearing
it might have hydrophobia. But I doubt this, as in such case it would
not have curled up and gone to sleep on Simpson’s bedding. Coyotes are
subject to hydrophobia, and when under the spell of the dreadful disease
will fearlessly attack men. In one case of which I know, a mad coyote
coming into camp sprang on a sleeping man who was rolled in his bedding
and bit and worried the bedding in the effort to get at him. Two other
men hastened to his rescue, and the coyote first attacked them and then
suddenly sprang aside and again worried the bedding, by which time one
of them was able to get in a shot and killed it. All coyotes, like big
wolves, die silently and fight to the last. I had never weighed any
coyotes until on this trip. I weighed the twelve which I myself saw
caught, and they ran as follows: male, thirty pounds; female,
twenty-eight pounds; female, thirty-six pounds; male, thirty-two pounds;
male, thirty-four pounds; female, thirty pounds; female, twenty-seven
pounds; male, thirty-two pounds; male, twenty-nine pounds; young male,
twenty-two pounds; male, twenty-nine pounds; female, twenty-seven
pounds. Disregarding the young male, this makes an average of just over
thirty pounds.[2] Except the heaviest female, they were all gaunt and in
splendid running trim; but then I do not remember ever seeing a really
fat coyote.

Footnote 2:

  I sent the skins and skulls to Dr. Hart Merriam, the head of the
  Biological Survey. He wrote me about them: “All but one are the plains
  coyote, _Canis nebracensis_. They are not perfectly typical, but are
  near enough for all practical purposes. The exception is a yearling
  pup of a much larger species. Whether this is _frustor_ I dare not say
  in the present state of knowledge of the group.”

The morning of the first day of our hunt dawned bright and beautiful,
the air just cool enough to be pleasant. Immediately after breakfast we
jogged off on horseback, Tom Burnett and Bony Moore in front, with six
or eight greyhounds slouching alongside, while Burke Burnett and “War
Bonnet” drove behind us in the buggy. I was mounted on one of Tom
Burnett’s favorites, a beautiful Kiowa pony. The chuck wagon, together
with the relay of greyhounds to be used in the afternoon, was to join us
about midday at an appointed place where there was a pool of water.

We shuffled along, strung out in an irregular line, across a long flat,
in places covered with bright-green wild onions; and then up a gentle
slope where the stunted mesquite grew, while the prairie-dogs barked
spasmodically as we passed their burrows. The low crest, if such it
could be called, of the slope was reached only some twenty minutes after
we left camp, and hardly had we started down the other side than two
coyotes were spied three or four hundred yards in front. Immediately
horses and dogs were after them at a headlong, breakneck run, the
coyotes edging to the left where the creek bottom, with its deep banks
and narrow fringes of timber, was about a mile distant. The little
wolves knew their danger and ran their very fastest, while the long dogs
stretched out after them, gaining steadily. It was evident the chase
would be a short one, and there was no need to husband the horses, so
every man let his pony go for all there was in him. At such a speed, and
especially going down hill, there was not the slightest use in trying to
steer clear of the prairie-dog holes; it was best to let the veteran
cow-ponies see to that for themselves. They were as eager as their
riders, and on we dashed at full speed, curving to the left toward the
foot of the slope; we jumped into and out of a couple of broad, shallow
washouts, as we tore after the hounds, now nearing their quarry. The
rearmost coyote was overtaken just at the edge of the creek; the
foremost, which was a few yards in advance, made good its escape, as all
the dogs promptly tackled the rearmost, tumbling it over into a rather
deep pool. The scuffling and splashing told us what was going on, and we
reined our horses short up at the brink of the cut bank. The water had
hampered the dogs in killing their quarry, only three or four of them
being in the pool with him; and of those he had seized one by the nose
and was hanging on hard. In a moment one of the cowboys got hold of him,
dropped a noose over his head, and dragged him out on the bank, just as
the buggy came rattling up at full gallop. Burnett and the general,
taking advantage of the curve in our course, had driven across the chord
of the arc, and keeping their horses at a run, had seen every detail of
the chase and were in at the death.

In a few minutes the coyote was skinned, the dogs rested, and we were
jogging on once more. Hour after hour passed by. We had a couple more
runs, but in each case the coyote had altogether too long a start and
got away; the dogs no longer being as fresh as they had been. As a rule,
although there are exceptions, if the greyhounds cannot catch the coyote
within two or three miles the chances favor the escape of the little
wolf. We found that if the wolf had more than half a mile start he got
away. As greyhounds hunt by sight, cut banks enable the coyote easily to
throw off his pursuers unless they are fairly close up. The greyhounds
see the wolf when he is far off, for they have good eyes; but in the
chase, if the going is irregular, they tend to lose him, and they do not
depend much on one another in recovering sight of him; on the contrary,
the dog is apt to quit when he no longer has the quarry in view.

[Illustration:

  AT THE TAIL OF THE CHUCK WAGON

  From a photograph by W. Sloan Simpson
]

At noon we joined the chuck wagon where it stood drawn up on a slope of
the treeless, bushless prairie; and the active round-up cook soon had
the meal ready. It was the Four Sixes wagon, the brand burned into the
wood of the chuck box. Where does a man take more frank enjoyment in his
dinner than at the tail end of a chuck wagon?

Soon after eating we started again, having changed horses and dogs. I
was mounted on a Big D cow-pony, while Lambert had a dun-colored horse,
hard to hold, but very tough and swift. An hour or so after leaving camp
we had a four-mile run after a coyote, which finally got away, for it
had so long a start that the dogs were done out by the time they came
within fair distance. They stopped at a little prairie pool, some of
them lying or standing in it, panting violently; and thus we found them
as we came stringing up at a gallop. After they had been well rested we
started toward camp; but we were down in the creek bottom before we saw
another coyote. This one again was a long distance ahead, and I did not
suppose there was much chance of our catching him; but away all the dogs
and all the riders went at the usual run, and catch him we did, because,
as it turned out, the “morning” dogs, which were with the wagon, had
spied him first and run him hard, until he was in sight of the
“afternoon” dogs, which were with us. I got tangled in a washout,
scrambled out, and was galloping along, watching the country in front,
when Lambert passed me as hard as he could go; I saw him disappear into
another washout, and then come out on the other side, while the dogs
were driving the coyote at an angle down toward the creek. Pulling short
to the right, I got through the creek, hoping the coyote would cross,
and the result was that I galloped up to the worry almost as soon as the
foremost riders from the other side—a piece of good fortune for which I
had only luck to thank. The hounds caught the coyote as he was about
crossing the creek. From this point it was but a short distance into
camp.

Again next morning we were off before the sun had risen high enough to
take away the cool freshness from the air. This day we travelled several
miles before we saw our first coyote. It was on a huge, gently sloping
stretch of prairie, which ran down to the creek on our right. We were
travelling across it strung out in line when the coyote sprang up a good
distance ahead of the dogs. They ran straight away from us at first.
Then I saw the coyote swinging to the right toward the creek and I
half-wheeled, riding diagonally to the line of the chase. This gave me
an excellent view of dogs and wolf, and also enabled me to keep nearly
abreast of them. On this particular morning the dogs were Bevin’s
greyhounds and staghounds. From where the dogs started they ran about
three miles, catching their quarry in the flat where the creek circled
around in a bend, and when it was not fifty yards from the timber. By
this time the puncher, Bony Moore, had passed me, most of the other
riders having been so far to the left when the run began that they were
unable to catch up. The little wolf ran well, and the greyhounds had
about reached their limit when they caught up with it. But they lasted
just long enough to do the work. A fawn-colored greyhound and a black
staghound were the first dogs up. The staghound tried to seize the
coyote, which dodged a little to one side; the fawn-colored greyhound
struck and threw it; and in another moment the other dogs were up and
the worry began. I was able to see the run so well, because Tom Burnett
had mounted me on his fine roan cutting horse. We sat around in a
semicircle on the grass until the dogs had been breathed, and then
started off again. After some time we struck another coyote, but rather
far off, and this time the dogs were not fresh. After running two or
three miles he pulled away and we lost him, the dogs refreshing
themselves by standing and lying in a shallow prairie pool.

In the afternoon we again rode off, and this time Abernethy, on his
white horse, took the lead, his greyhounds trotting beside him. There
was a good deal of rivalry among the various owners of the hounds as to
which could do best, and a slight inclination among the cowboys to be
jealous of Abernethy. No better riders could be imagined than these same
cowboys, and their greyhounds were stanch and fast; but Abernethy, on
his tough white horse, not only rode with great judgment, but showed a
perfect knowledge of the coyote, and by his own exertions greatly
assisted his hounds. He had found out in his long experience that while
the greyhounds could outpace a coyote in a two or three mile run, they
would then fall behind; but that after going eight or ten miles, a
coyote in turn became exhausted, and if he had been able to keep his
hounds going until that time, they could, with his assistance, then stop
the quarry.

[Illustration:

  THE BIG D. COW-PONY

  From a photograph by W. Sloan Simpson
]

We had been shogging along for an hour or more when we put up a coyote
and started after it. I was riding the Big D pony I had ridden the
afternoon before. It was a good and stout horse, but one which my weight
was certain to distress if I tried to go too fast for too long a time.
Moreover, the coyote had a long start, and I made up my mind that he
would either get away or give us a hard run. Accordingly, as the cowboys
started off at their usual headlong pace, I rode behind at a gallop,
husbanding my horse. For a mile or so the going was very rough, up over
and down stony hills and among washouts. Then we went over gently
rolling country for another mile or two, and then came to a long broken
incline which swept up to a divide some four miles ahead of us. Lambert
had been riding alongside of Abernethy, at the front, but his horse
began to play out, and needed to be nursed along, so that he dropped
back level with me. By the time I had reached the foot of this incline
the punchers, riding at full speed, had shot their bolts, and one by one
I passed them, as well as most of the greyhounds. But Abernethy was far
ahead, his white horse loping along without showing any signs of
distress. Up the long slope I did not dare press my animal, and
Abernethy must have been a mile ahead of me when he struck the divide,
while where the others were I had no idea, except that they were behind
me. When I reached the divide I was afraid I might have missed
Abernethy, but to my delight he was still in sight, far ahead. As we
began to go down hill I let the horse fairly race; for by Abernethy’s
motions I could tell that he was close to the wolf and that it was no
longer running in a straight line, so that there was a chance of my
overtaking them. In a couple of miles I was close enough to see what was
going on. But one greyhound was left with Abernethy. The coyote was
obviously tired, and Abernethy, with the aid of his perfectly trained
horse, was helping the greyhound catch it. Twice he headed it, and this
enabled me to gain rapidly. They had reached a small unwooded creek by
the time I was within fifty yards; the little wolf tried to break back
to the left; Abernethy headed it and rode almost over it, and it gave a
wicked snap at his foot, cutting the boot. Then he wheeled and came
toward it; again it galloped back, and just as it crossed the creek the
greyhound made a rush, pinned it by the hind leg and threw it. There was
a scuffle, then a yell from the greyhound as the wolf bit it. At the
bite the hound let go and jumped back a few feet, and at the same moment
Abernethy, who had ridden his horse right on them as they struggled,
leaped off and sprang on top of the wolf. He held the reins of the horse
with one hand and thrust the other, with a rapidity and precision even
greater than the rapidity of the wolf’s snap, into the wolf’s mouth,
jamming his hand down crosswise between the jaws, seizing the lower jaw
and bending it down so that the wolf could not bite him. He had a stout
glove on his hand, but this would have been of no avail whatever had he
not seized the animal just as he did; that is, behind the canines, while
his hand pressed the lips against the teeth; with his knees he kept the
wolf from using its forepaws to break the hold, until it gave up
struggling. When he thus leaped on and captured this coyote it was
entirely free, the dog having let go of it; and he was obliged to keep
hold of the reins of his horse with one hand. I was not twenty yards
distant at the time, and as I leaped off the horse he was sitting
placidly on the live wolf, his hand between its jaws, the greyhound
standing beside him, and his horse standing by as placid as he was. In a
couple of minutes Fortescue and Lambert came up. It was as remarkable a
feat of the kind as I have ever seen.

Through some oversight we had no straps with us, and Abernethy had lost
the wire which he usually carried in order to tie up the wolves’
muzzles—for he habitually captured his wolves in this fashion. However,
Abernethy regarded the lack of straps as nothing more than a slight
bother. Asking one of us to hold his horse, he threw the wolf across in
front of the saddle, still keeping his grip on the lower jaw, then
mounted and rode off with us on the back track. The wolf was not tied in
any way. It was unhurt, and the only hold he had was on its lower jaw. I
was surprised that it did not strive to fight with its legs, but after
becoming satisfied that it could not bite, it seemed to resign itself to
its fate, was fairly quiet, and looked about with its ears pricked
forward. The wolves which I subsequently saw him capture, and, having
tied up their muzzles, hold before him on the saddle, acted in precisely
the same manner.

The run had been about ten miles in an almost straight line. At the
finish no other riders were in sight, but soon after we crossed the
divide on our return, and began to come down the long slope toward the
creek, we were joined by Tom Burnett and Bony Moore; while some three or
four miles ahead on a rise of the prairie we could see the wagon in
which Burke Burnett was driving General Young. Other punchers and
straggling greyhounds joined us, and as the wolf, after travelling some
five miles, began to recover his wind and show a tendency to fight for
his freedom, Abernethy tied up his jaws with his handkerchief and handed
him over to Bony Moore, who packed him on the saddle with entire
indifference, the wolf himself showing a curious philosophy. Our horses
had recovered their wind and we struck into a gallop down the slope;
then as we neared the wagon we broke into a run, Bony Moore brandishing
aloft with one hand the live wolf, its jaws tied up with a handkerchief,
but otherwise unbound. We stopped for a few minutes with Burnett and the
general to tell particulars of the hunt. Then we loped off again toward
camp, which was some half dozen miles off. I shall always remember this
run and the really remarkable feat Abernethy performed. Colonel Lyon had
seen him catch a big wolf in the same way that he caught this coyote. It
was his usual method of catching both coyotes and wolves. Almost equally
noteworthy were the way in which he handled and helped his greyhounds,
and the judgment, resolution, and fine horsemanship he displayed. His
horse showed extraordinary endurance.

The third day we started out as usual, the chuck wagon driving straight
to a pool far out on the prairie, where we were to meet it for lunch.
Chief Quanah’s three wives had joined him, together with a small boy and
a baby, and they drove in a wagon of their own. Meanwhile the riders and
hounds went south nearly to Red River. In the morning we caught four
coyotes and had a three miles run after one which started too far ahead
of the dogs, and finally got clean away. All the four that we got were
started fairly close up, and the run was a breakneck scurry, horses and
hounds going as hard as they could put feet to the ground. Twice the
cowboys distanced me; and twice the accidents of the chase, the sudden
twists and turns of the coyote in his efforts to take advantage of the
ground, favored me and enabled me to be close up at the end, when
Abernethy jumped off his horse and ran in to where the dogs had the
coyote. He was even quicker with his hands than the wolf’s snap, and in
a moment he always had the coyote by the lower jaw.

Between the runs we shogged forward across the great reaches of rolling
prairie in the bright sunlight. The air was wonderfully clear, and any
object on the sky-line, no matter how small, stood out with startling
distinctness. There were few flowers on these dry plains; in sharp
contrast to the flower prairies of southern Texas, which we had left the
week before, where many acres for a stretch would be covered by masses
of red or white or blue or yellow blossoms—the most striking of all,
perhaps, being the fields of the handsome buffalo clover. As we plodded
over the prairie the sharp eyes of the punchers were scanning the ground
far and near, and sooner or later one of them would spy the motionless
form of a coyote, or all would have their attention attracted as it ran
like a fleeting gray or brown shadow among the grays and browns of the
desolate landscape. Immediately dogs and horses would stretch at full
speed after it, and everything would be forgotten but the wild
exhilaration of the run.

[Illustration:

  ABERNETHY AND COYOTE

  From a photograph, copyright, 1905, by Alexander Lambert, M.D.
]

It was nearly noon when we struck the chuck wagon. Immediately the handy
round-up cook began to prepare a delicious dinner, and we ate as men
have a right to eat, who have ridden all the morning and are going to
ride fresh horses all the afternoon. Soon afterward the horse-wranglers
drove up the saddle band, while some of the cow-punchers made a rope
corral from the side of the wagon. Into this the horses were driven, one
or two breaking back and being brought into the bunch again only after a
gallop more exciting than most coyote chases. Fresh ponies were roped
out and the saddle band again turned loose. The dogs that had been used
during the morning then started campward with the chuck wagon. One of
the punchers was riding a young and partially broken horse; he had no
bridle, simply a rope around the horse’s neck. This man started to
accompany the wagon to the camp.

The rest of us went off at the usual cow-pony trot or running walk. It
was an hour or two before we saw anything; then a coyote appeared a long
way ahead and the dogs raced after him. The first mile was up a gentle
slope; then we turned, and after riding a couple of miles on the level
the dogs had shot their bolt and the coyote drew away. When he got too
far in front the dogs and foremost riders stopped and waited for the
rest of us to overtake them, and shortly afterward Burke Burnett and the
general appeared in their buggy. One of the greyhounds was completely
done out and we took some time attending to it. Suddenly one of the men,
either Tom Burnett or Bony Moore, called out that he saw the coyote
coming back pursued by a horseman. Sure enough, the unfortunate little
wolf had run in sight of the wagons, and the puncher on the young
unbridled horse immediately took after him, and, in spite of a fall,
succeeded in heading him back and bringing him along in our direction,
although some three-quarters of a mile away. Immediately everyone jumped
into his saddle and away we all streamed down a long slope diagonally to
the course the coyote was taking. He had a long start, but the dogs were
rested, while he had been running steadily, and this fact proved fatal
to him. Down the slope to the creek bottom at its end we rode at a run.
Then there came a long slope upward, and the heavier among us fell
gradually to the rear. When we topped the divide, however, we could see
ahead of us the foremost men streaming after the hounds, and the latter
running in a way which showed that they were well up on their game. Even
a tired horse can go pretty well down hill, and by dint of hard running
we who were behind got up in time to see the worry when the greyhounds
caught the coyote, by some low ponds in a treeless creek bed. We had
gone about seven miles, the unlucky coyote at least ten. Our journey to
camp was enlivened by catching another coyote after a short run.

Next day was the last of our hunt. We started off in the morning as
usual, but the buggy men on this occasion took with them some trail
hounds, which were managed by a sergeant of the regular army, a game
sportsman. They caught two coons in the timber of a creek two or three
miles to the south of the camp. Meanwhile the rest of us, riding over
the prairie, saw the greyhounds catch two coyotes, one after a rather
long run and one after a short one. Then we turned our faces toward
camp. I saw Abernethy, with three or four of his own hounds, riding off
to one side, but unfortunately I did not pay any heed to him, as I
supposed the hunting was at an end. But when we reached camp Abernethy
was not there, nor did he turn up until we were finishing lunch. Then he
suddenly appeared, his tired greyhounds trotting behind him, while he
carried before him on the saddle a live coyote, with its muzzle tied up,
and a dead coyote strapped behind his saddle. Soon after leaving us he
had found a coyote, and after a good run the dogs had stopped it and he
had jumped off and captured it in his usual fashion. Then while riding
along, holding the coyote before him on the saddle, he put up another
one. His dogs were tired, and he himself was of course greatly hampered
in such a full-speed run by having the live wolf on the saddle in front
of him. One by one the dogs gave out, but his encouragement and
assistance kept two of them to their work, and after a run of some seven
miles the coyote was overtaken. It was completely done out and would
probably have died by itself, even if the hounds had not taken part in
the killing. Hampered as he was, Abernethy could not take it alive in
his usual fashion. So when it was dead he packed it behind his horse and
rode back in triumph. The live wolf, as in every other case where one
was brought into camp, made curiously little effort to fight with its
paws, seeming to acquiesce in its captivity, and looking around, with
its ears thrust forward, as if more influenced by curiosity than by any
other feeling.

After lunch we rode toward town, stopping at nightfall to take supper by
the bank of a creek. We entered the town after dark, some twenty of us
on horseback. Wagner was riding with us, and he had set his heart upon
coming into and through the town in true cowboy style; and it was he who
set the pace. We broke into a lope a mile outside the limits, and by the
time we struck the main street the horses were on a run and we tore down
like a whirlwind until we reached the train. Thus ended as pleasant a
hunting trip as any one could imagine. The party got seventeen coyotes
all told, for there were some runs which I did not see at all, as now
and then both men and dogs would get split into groups.

On this hunt we did not see any of the big wolves, the so-called buffalo
or timber wolves, which I hunted in the old days on the Northern cattle
plains. Big wolves are found in both Texas and Oklahoma, but they are
rare compared to the coyotes; and they are great wanderers. Alone or in
parties of three or four or half a dozen they travel to and fro across
the country, often leaving a district at once if they are molested.
Coyotes are more or less plentiful everywhere throughout the West in
thinly settled districts, and they often hang about in the immediate
neighborhood of towns. They do enough damage to make farmers and
ranchers kill them whenever the chance offers. But this damage is not
appreciable when compared with the ravages of their grim big brother,
the gray wolf, which, wherever it exists in numbers, is a veritable
scourge to the stockmen.

Colonel Lyon’s hounds were, as I have said, used chiefly after
jack-rabbits. He had frequently killed coyotes with them, however, and
on two or three occasions one of the big gray wolves. At the time when
he did most of his wolf-hunting he had with the greyhounds a huge
fighting dog, a Great Dane, weighing one hundred and forty-five pounds.
In spite of its weight this dog could keep up well in a short chase, and
its ferocious temper and enormous weight and strength made it invaluable
at the bay. Whether the quarry were a gray wolf or coyote mattered not
in the least to it, and it made its assaults with such headlong fury
that it generally escaped damage. On the two or three occasions when the
animal bayed was a big wolf the greyhounds did not dare tackle it,
jumping about in an irregular circle and threatening the wolf until the
fighting dog came up. The latter at once rushed in, seizing its
antagonist by the throat or neck and throwing it. Doubtless it would
have killed the wolf unassisted, but the greyhounds always joined in the
killing; and once thrown, the wolf could never get on his legs. In these
encounters the dog was never seriously hurt. Rather curiously, the only
bad wound it ever received was from a coyote; the little wolf, not
one-third of its weight, managing to inflict a terrific gash down its
huge antagonist’s chest, nearly tearing it open. But of course a coyote
against such a foe could not last much longer than a rat pitted against
a terrier.

Big wolves and coyotes are found side by side throughout the Western
United States, both varying so in size that if a sufficient number of
specimens, from different localities, are examined it will be found that
there is a complete intergradation in both stature and weight. To the
northward the coyotes disappear, and the big wolves grow larger and
larger until in the arctic regions they become veritable giants. At
Point Barrow Mr. E. A. McIlhenny had six of the eight “huskies” of his
dog team killed and eaten by a huge white dog wolf. At last he shot it,
and found that it weighed one hundred and sixty-one pounds.

Good trail hounds can run down a wolf. A year ago Jake Borah’s pack in
northwestern Colorado ran a big wolf weighing one hundred and fifteen
pounds to bay in but little over an hour. He then stood with his back to
a rock, and though the dogs formed a semicircle around him, they dared
not tackle him. Jake got up and shot him. Unless well trained and with
the natural fighting edge neither trail hounds (fox-hounds) nor
greyhounds can or will kill a big wolf, and under ordinary
circumstances, no matter how numerous, they make but a poor showing
against one. But big ninety-pound or one hundred-pound greyhounds,
specially bred and trained for the purpose, stand on an entirely
different footing. Three or four of these dogs, rushing in together and
seizing the wolf by the throat, will kill him, or worry him until he is
helpless. On several occasions the Colorado Springs greyhounds have
performed this feat. Johnny Goff owned a large, fierce dog, a cross
between what he called a Siberian bloodhound (I suppose some animal like
a Great Dane) and an ordinary hound, which, on one occasion when he had
shot at and broken the hind leg of a big wolf, ran it down and killed
it. On the other hand, wolves will often attack dogs. In March of the
present year—nineteen hundred and five—Goff’s dogs were scattered over a
hillside hunting a bobcat, when he heard one of them yell, and looking
up saw that two wolves were chasing it. The other dogs were so busy
puzzling out the cat’s trail that they never noticed what was happening.
Goff called aloud, whereupon the wolves stopped. He shot one and the
other escaped. He thinks that they would have overtaken and killed the
hound in a minute or two if he had not interfered.

The big wolves shrink back before the growth of the thickly settled
districts, and in the Eastern States they often tend to disappear even
from districts that are uninhabited save by a few wilderness hunters.
They have thus disappeared almost entirely from Maine, the Adirondacks,
and the Alleghanies, although here and there they are said to be
returning to their old haunts. Their disappearance is rather mysterious
in some instances, for they are certainly not all killed off. The black
bear is much easier killed, yet the black bear holds its own in many
parts of the land from which the wolf has vanished. No animal is quite
so difficult to kill as is the wolf, whether by poison or rifle or
hound. Yet, after a comparatively few have been slain, the entire
species will perhaps vanish from certain localities. In some localities
even the cougar, the easiest of all game to kill with hounds, holds its
own better. This, however, is not generally true.

But with all wild animals, it is a noticeable fact that a course of
contact with man continuing over many generations of animal life causes
a species so to adapt itself to its new surroundings that it can hold
its own far better than formerly. When white men take up a new country,
the game, and especially the big game, being entirely unused to contend
with the new foe, succumb easily, and are almost completely killed out.
If any individuals survive at all, however, the succeeding generations
are far more difficult to exterminate than were their ancestors, and
they cling much more tenaciously to their old homes. The game to be
found in old and long-settled countries is of course much more wary and
able to take care of itself than the game of an untrodden wilderness; it
is the wilderness life, far more than the actual killing of the
wilderness game, which tests the ability of the wilderness hunter.

[Illustration:

  ABERNETHY RETURNS FROM THE HUNT

  From a photograph, copyright, 1905, by Alexander Lambert, M.D.
]

After a time, game may even, for the time being, increase in certain
districts where settlements are thin. This was true of the wolves
throughout the northern cattle country, in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado,
and the western ends of the Dakotas. In the old days wolves were very
plentiful throughout this region, closely following the huge herds of
buffaloes. The white men who followed these herds as professional
buffalo-hunters were often accompanied by other men, known as wolfers,
who poisoned these wolves for the sake of their fur. With the
disappearance of the buffalo the wolves diminished in numbers so that
they also seemed to disappear. Then in the late eighties or early
nineties the wolves began again to increase in numbers until they became
once more as numerous as ever and infinitely more wary and difficult to
kill; though as they were nocturnal in their habits they were not often
seen. Along the Little Missouri and in many parts of Montana and Wyoming
this increase was very noticeable during the last decade of the
nineteenth century. They were at that time the only big animals of the
region which had increased in numbers. Such an increase following a
previous decrease in the same region was both curious and interesting. I
never knew the wolves to be so numerous or so daring in their assaults
upon stock in the Little Missouri country as in the years 1894 to 1896
inclusive. I am unable wholly to account for these changes. The first
great diminution in the numbers of the wolves is only partially to be
explained by the poisoning; yet they seemed to disappear almost
everywhere and for a number of years continued scarce. Then they again
became plentiful, reappearing in districts from whence they had entirely
vanished, and appearing in new districts where they had been hitherto
unknown. Then they once more began to diminish in number. In
northwestern Colorado, in the White River country, cougars fairly
swarmed in the early nineties, while up to that time the big gray wolves
were almost or entirely unknown. Then they began to come in, and
increased steadily in numbers, while the cougars diminished, so that by
the winter of 1902–3 they much outnumbered the big cats, and committed
great ravages among the stock. The settlers were at their wits’ ends how
to deal with the pests. At last a trapper came in, a shiftless fellow,
but extraordinarily proficient in his work. He had some kind of scent,
the secret of which he would not reveal, which seemed to drive the
wolves nearly crazy with desire. In one winter in the neighborhood of
the Keystone Ranch he trapped forty-two big gray wolves; they still
outnumber the cougars, which in that neighborhood have been nearly
killed out, but they are no longer abundant.

At present wolves are decreasing in numbers all over Colorado, as they
are in Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas. In some localities traps have
been found most effective; in others, poison; and in yet others, hounds.
I am inclined to think that where they have been pursued in one manner
for a long time any new method will at first prove more efficacious.
After a very few wolves have been poisoned or trapped, the survivors
become so wary that only a master in the art can do anything with them,
while there are always a few wolves which cannot be persuaded to touch a
bait save under wholly exceptional circumstances. From association with
the old she-wolves the cubs learn as soon as they are able to walk to
avoid man’s traces in every way, and to look out for traps and poison.
They are so shy and show such extraordinary cunning in hiding and
slinking out of the way of the hunter that they are rarely killed with
the rifle. Personally I never shot but one. A bold and good rider on a
first-rate horse can, however, run down even a big gray wolf in fair
chase, and either rope or shoot it. I have known a number of
cow-punchers thus to rope wolves when they happened to run across them
after they had gorged themselves on their quarry. A former Colorado
ranchman, Mr. Henry N. Pancoast, who had done a good deal of
wolf-hunting, and had killed one which, judging by its skin, was a
veritable monster, wrote me as follows about his experiences:

“I captured nearly all my wolves by running them down and then either
roped or shot them. I had one mount that had great endurance, and when
riding him never failed to give chase to a wolf if I had the time to
spare; and never failed to get my quarry but two or three times. I roped
four full-grown and two cubs and shot five full-grown and three cubs—the
large wolf in question being killed that way. And he was by far the
hardest proposition I ever tried, and I candidly think I run him twenty
miles before overhauling and shooting him (he showed too much fight to
use a rope). As it was almost dark, concluded to put him on horse and
skin at ranch, but had my hands full to get him on the saddle, was so
very heavy. My plan in running wolves down was to get about three
hundred yards from them, and then to keep that distance until the wolf
showed signs of fatigue, when a little spurt would generally succeed in
landing him. In the case of the large one, however, I reckoned without
my host, as the wolf had as much go left as the horse, so I tried
slowing down to a walk and let the wolf go; he ... came down to a little
trot and soon placed a half mile between us, and finally went out of
sight over a high hill. I took my time and on reaching top of hill saw
wolf about four hundred yards off, and as I now had a down grade managed
to get my tired horse on a lope and was soon up to the wolf, which
seemed all stiffened up, and one shot from my Winchester finished him.
We always had poison out, as wolves and coyotes killed a great many
calves. Never poisoned but two wolves, and those were caught with fresh
antelope liver and entrails (coyotes were easily poisoned).”

[Illustration:

  BONY MOORE AND THE COYOTE

  From a photograph, copyright, 1905, by Alexander Lambert, M.D.
]

In the early nineties the ravages of the wolves along the Little
Missouri became so serious as thoroughly to arouse the stockmen. Not
only colts and calves, and young trail stock, but in midwinter
full-grown horses and steers were continually slain. The county
authorities put a bounty of three dollars each on wolf scalps, to which
the ranchmen of the neighborhood added a further bounty of five dollars.
This made eight dollars for every wolf, and as the skin was also worth
something, the business of killing wolves became profitable. Quite a
number of men tried poisoning or trapping, but the most successful wolf
hunter on the Little Missouri at that time was a man who did not rely on
poison at all, but on dogs. He was named Massingale, and he always had a
pack of at least twenty hounds. The number varied, for a wolf at bay is
a terrible fighter, with jaws like those of a steel trap, and teeth that
cut like knives, so that the dogs were continually disabled and
sometimes killed, and the hunter had always to be on the watch to add
animals to his pack. It was not a good-looking pack, but it was
thoroughly fit for its own work. Most of the dogs were greyhounds,
whether rough or smooth haired, but many of them were big mongrels, part
greyhound and part some other breed, such as bulldog, mastiff,
Newfoundland, bloodhound, or collie. The only two requisites were that
the dogs should run fast and fight gamely; and in consequence they
formed as wicked, hard-biting a crew as ever ran down and throttled a
wolf. They were usually taken out ten at a time, and by their aid
Massingale killed over two hundred wolves, including cubs. Of course
there was no pretence of giving the game fair play. The wolves were
killed as vermin, not for sport. The greatest havoc was in the
spring-time, when the she-wolves were followed to their dens. Some of
the hounds were very fast, and they could usually overtake a young or
weak wolf; but an old dog wolf, with a good start, unless run into at
once, would ordinarily get away if he were in running trim. Frequently,
however, he was caught when not in running trim, for the hunter was apt
to find him when he had killed a calf or taken part in dragging down a
horse or steer, and was gorged with meat. Under these circumstances he
could not run long before the pack. If possible, as with all such packs,
the hunter himself got up in time to end the worry by a stab of his
hunting-knife; but unless he was quick he had nothing to do, for the
pack was thoroughly competent to do its own killing. Grim fighter though
a great dog wolf is, he stands no show before the onslaught of ten such
hounds, agile and powerful, who rush on their antagonist in a body.
Massingale’s dogs possessed great power in their jaws, and unless he was
up within two or three minutes after the wolf was overtaken, they tore
him to death, though one or more of their number might be killed or
crippled in the fight. The wolf might be throttled without having the
hide on its neck torn; but when it was stretched out the dogs ripped
open its belly. Dogs do not get their teeth through the skin of an old
cougar; but they will tear up either a bobcat or coyote.

In 1894 and 1896 I saw a number of wolves on the Little Missouri,
although I was not looking for them. I frequently came upon the remains
of sheep and young stock which they had killed; and once, upon the top
of a small plateau, I found the body of a large steer, while the torn
and trodden ground showed that he had fought hard for his life before
succumbing. There had been two wolves engaged in the work, and the
cunning beasts had evidently acted in concert. Apparently, while one
attracted the steer’s attention in front, the other, according to the
invariable wolf habit, attacked him from behind, hamstringing him and
tearing out his flanks. His body was still warm when I came up, but the
marauders had slunk off, either seeing or smelling me. There was no
mistaking the criminals, however, for, unlike bears, which usually
attack an animal at the withers, or cougars, which attack the throat or
head, wolves almost invariably attack their victim at the hind quarters
and begin first on the hams or flanks, if the animal is of any size.
Owing to their often acting in couples or in packs, the big wolves do
more damage to horned stock than cougars, but they are not as dangerous
to colts, and they are not nearly as expert as the big cats in catching
deer and mountain sheep. When food is plentiful, good observers say that
they will not try to molest foxes; but, if hungry, they certainly snap
them up as quickly as they would fawns. Ordinarily they show complete
tolerance of the coyotes; yet one bitter winter I knew of a coyote being
killed and eaten by a wolf.

Not only do the habits of wild beasts change under changing conditions
as time goes on, but there seems to be some change even in their
appearance. Thus the early observers of the game of the Little Missouri,
those who wrote in the first half of the nineteenth century, spoke much
of the white wolves which were then so common in the region. These white
wolves represented in all probability only a color variety of the
ordinary gray wolf; and it is difficult to say exactly why they
disappeared. Yet when about the year 1890 wolves again grew common these
white wolves were very, very rare; indeed I never personally heard of
but one being seen. This was on the Upper Cannonball in 1892. A nearly
black wolf was killed not far from this spot in the year 1893. At the
present day black wolves are more common than white wolves, which are
rare indeed. But all these big wolves are now decreasing in numbers, and
in most places are decreasing rapidly.

It will be noticed that on some points my observations about wolves are
in seeming conflict with those of other observers as competent as I am;
but I think the conflict is more seeming than real, and I have concluded
to let my words stand. The great book of nature contains many pages
which are hard to read, and at times conscientious students may well
draw different interpretations of the obscure and least-known texts. It
may not be that either observer is at fault, but what is true of an
animal in one locality may not be true of the same animal in another,
and even in the same locality two individuals of the same species may
differ widely in their traits and habits.




                               CHAPTER IV
              HUNTING IN THE CATTLE COUNTRY; THE PRONGBUCK


The prongbuck is the most characteristic and distinctive of American
game animals. Zoologically speaking, its position is unique. It is the
only hollow-horned ruminant which sheds its horns, or rather the horn
sheaths. We speak of it as an antelope, and it does of course represent
on our prairies the antelopes of the Old World; but it stands apart from
all other horned animals. Its place in the natural world is almost as
lonely as that of the giraffe. In all its ways and habits it 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 prominent eyes,
single-pronged horns, and the sharply contrasted white, brown and
reddish of its coat. The brittle hair is stiff, coarse and springy; on
the rump it is brilliantly white, and is erected when the animal is
alarmed or excited, so as to be very conspicuous. In marked contrast to
deer, antelope never seek to elude observation; all they care for is to
be able themselves to see. 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 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.

In the old days the prongbuck was found as soon as the westward-moving
traveller left the green bottom-lands of the Mississippi, and from
thence across to the dry, open valleys of California, and northward to
Canada and southward into Mexico. It has everywhere been gradually
thinned out, and has vanished altogether from what were formerly the
extreme easterly and westerly limits of its range. The rates of
extermination of the different kinds of big game have been very unequal
in different localities. Each kind of big game has had its own peculiar
habitat in which it throve best, and each has also been found more or
less plentifully in other regions where the circumstances were less
favorable; and in these comparatively unfavorable regions it early tends
to disappear before the advance of man. In consequence, where the ranges
of the different game animals overlap and are intertwined, one will
disappear first in one locality, and another will disappear first where
the conditions are different. Thus the whitetail deer had thrust forward
along the very narrow river bottoms into the domain of the mule-deer and
the prongbuck among the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and in these
places it was exterminated from the narrow strips which it inhabited
long before the mule-deer vanished from the high hills, or the prongbuck
from the great open plains. But along great portions of the Missouri
there are plenty of whitetails yet left in the river bottoms, while the
mule-deer that once dwelt in the broken hills behind them, and the
prongbuck which lived on the prairie just back of these bluffs, have
both disappeared. In the same way the mule-deer and the prongbuck are
often found almost intermingled through large regions in which plains,
hills, and mountains alternate. If such a region is mainly mountainous,
but contains a few valleys and table-lands, the prongbuck is sure to
vanish from the latter before the mule-deer vanishes from the broken
country. But if the region is one primarily of plains, with here and
there rows of rocky hills in which the mule-deer is found, the latter is
killed off long before the prongbuck can be hunted out of the great open
stretches. The same is true of the pronghorn and the wapiti. The size
and value of the wapiti make it an object of eager persecution on the
part of hunters. But as it can live in the forest-clad fastnesses of the
Rockies, into which settlement does not go, it outlasts over great
regions the pronghorn, whose abode is easily penetrated by sheep and
cattle men. Under anything like even conditions, however, the prongbuck,
of course, outlasts the wapiti. This was the case on the Little
Missouri. On that stream the bighorn also outlasted the wapiti. In 1881
wapiti were still much more plentiful than bighorns. Within the next
decade they had almost totally disappeared, while the bighorn was still
to be found; I shot one and saw others in 1893, at which time I had not
authentic information of a single wapiti remaining anywhere on the river
in my neighborhood, although it is possible that one or two still lurked
in some out-of-the-way recess. In Colorado at one time the bighorn was
nearly exterminated, while the wapiti still withstood the havoc made
among its huge herds; then followed a period in which the rapidity of
destruction of the wapiti increased far beyond that of the bighorn.

I mention these facts partly because they are of interest in themselves,
but chiefly because they tend to explain the widely different opinions
expressed by competent observers about what superficially seem to be
similar facts. It cannot be too often repeated that allowance must be
made for the individual variability in the traits and characters of
animals of the same species, and especially of the same species under
different circumstances and in different localities; and allowance must
also be made for the variability of the individual factor in the
observers themselves. Many seemingly contradictory observations of the
habits of deer, wapiti, and prongbuck will be found in books by the best
hunters. Take such questions as the keenness of sight of the deer as
compared with the prongbuck, and of the pugnacity of the wapiti, both
actual and relative, and a wide difference of opinion will be found in
three such standard works as Dodge’s “The Hunting-grounds of the Great
West,” Caton’s “Deer and Antelope of America,” and the contributions of
Mr. Grinnell to the “Century Book of Sports.” Sometimes the difference
will be in mere matters of opinion, as, for instance, in the belief as
to the relative worth of the sport furnished by the chase of the
different creatures; but sometimes there is a direct conflict of fact.
Colonel Dodge, for instance, has put it upon record that the wapiti is
an exceedingly gentle animal, less dangerous than a whitetail or
blacktail buck in a close encounter, and that the bulls hardly ever
fight among themselves. My own experience leads me to traverse in the
most emphatic manner every one of these conclusions, and all hunters
whom I have met feel exactly as I do; yet no one would question for a
moment Colonel Dodge’s general competency as an observer. In the same
way Mr. Grinnell has a high opinion of the deer’s keenness of sight.
Judge Caton absolutely disagrees with him, and my own experience tends
to agree with that of the Judge—at least to the extent of placing the
deer’s vision far below that of the prongbuck and even that of the
bighorn, and only on a par with that of the wapiti. Yet Mr. Grinnell is
an unusually competent observer, whose opinion on any such subject is
entitled to unqualified respect.

Difference in habits may be due simply to difference of locality, or to
the need of adaptation to new conditions. The prongbuck’s habits about
migration offer examples of the former kind of difference. Over portions
of its range the prongbuck is not migratory at all. In other parts the
migrations are purely local. In yet other regions the migrations are
continued for great distances, immense multitudes of the animals going
to and fro in the spring and fall along well-beaten tracks. I know of
one place in New Mexico where the pronghorn herds are tenants of certain
great plains throughout the entire year. I know another region in
northwestern Colorado where the very few prongbucks still left, though
they shift from valley to valley, yet spend the whole year in the same
stretch of rolling, barren country. On the Little Missouri, however,
during the eighties and early nineties, there was a very distinct though
usually local migration. Before the Black Hills had been settled they
were famous wintering places for the antelope, which swarmed from great
distances to them when cold weather approached; those which had summered
east of the Big Missouri actually swam the river in great herds, on
their journey to the Hills. The old hunters around my ranch insisted
that formerly the prongbuck had for the most part travelled from the
Little Missouri Bad Lands into the Black Hills for the winter.

[Illustration:

  ON THE LITTLE MISSOURI
]

When I was ranching on that river, however, this custom no longer
obtained, for the Black Hills were too well settled, and the herds of
prongbuck that wintered there were steadily diminishing in numbers. At
that time, from 1883 to 1896, the seasonal change in habits, and shift
of position, of the prongbucks were well marked. As soon as the new
grass sprang they appeared in great numbers upon the plains. They were
especially fond of the green, tender blades that came up where the
country had been burned over. If the region had been devastated by
prairie fires in the fall, the next spring it was certain to contain
hundreds and thousands of prongbucks. All through the summer they
remained out on these great open plains, coming to drink at the little
pools in the creek beds, and living where there was no shelter of any
kind. As winter approached they began to gather in bands. Some of these
bands apparently had regular wintering places to the south of us, in
Pretty Buttes and beyond; and close to my ranch, at the crossing of the
creek called Beaver, there were certain trails which these antelope
regularly travelled, northward in the spring and southward in the fall.
But other bands would seek out places in the Bad Lands near by,
gathering together on some succession of plateaus which were protected
by neighboring hills from the deep drifts of snow. Here they passed the
winter, on short commons, it is true (they graze, not browsing like
deer), but without danger of perishing in the snowdrifts. On the other
hand, if the skin-hunters discovered such a wintering place, they were
able to butcher practically the entire band, if they so desired, as the
prongbucks were always most reluctant to leave such a chosen ground.

Normally the prongbuck avoids both broken ground and timber. It is a
queer animal, with keen senses, but with streaks of utter folly in its
character. Time and again I have known bands rush right by me, when I
happened to surprise them feeding near timber or hills, and got between
them and the open plains. The animals could have escaped without the
least difficulty if they had been willing to go into the broken country,
or through even a few rods of trees and brush; and yet they preferred to
rush madly by me at close range, in order to get out to their favorite
haunts. But nowadays there are certain localities where the prongbucks
spend a large part of their time in the timber or in rough, hilly
country, feeding and bringing up their young in such localities.

Typically, however, the prongbuck is preeminently a beast of the great
open plains, eating their harsh, dry pasturage, and trusting to its own
keen senses and speed for its safety. All the deer are fond of skulking;
the whitetail preeminently so. The prongbuck, on the contrary, never
endeavors to elude observation. Its sole aim is to be able to see its
enemies, and it cares nothing whatever about its enemies seeing it. Its
coloring is very conspicuous, and is rendered still more so by its habit
of erecting the white hair on its rump. It has a very erect carriage,
and when it thinks itself in danger it always endeavors to get on some
crest or low hill from which it can look all about. The big bulging
eyes, situated at the base of the horns, scan the horizon far and near
like twin telescopes. They pick out an object at such a distance that it
would entirely escape the notice of a deer. When suspicious, they have a
habit of barking, uttering a sound something like “kau,” and repeating
it again and again, as they walk up and down, endeavoring to find out if
danger lurks in the unusual object. They are extremely curious, and in
the old days it was often possible to lure them toward the hunter by
waving a red handkerchief to and fro on a stick, or even by lying on
one’s back and kicking the legs. Nowadays, however, there are very few
localities indeed in which they are sufficiently unsophisticated to make
it worth while trying these time-honored tricks of the long-vanished
trappers and hunters.

Along the Little Missouri the fawns, sometimes one and sometimes two in
number, were dropped in May or early in June. At that time the antelope
were usually found in herds which the mother did not leave until she was
about to give birth to the fawn. During the first few days the fawn’s
safety is to be found only in its not attracting attention. During this
time it normally lies perfectly flat on the ground, with its head
outstretched, and makes no effort to escape. While out on the spring
round-up I have come across many of these fawns. Once, in company with
several cowboys, I was riding behind a bunch of cattle which, as we
hurried them, spread out in open order ahead of us. Happening to cast
down my eyes I saw an antelope fawn directly ahead of me. The bunch of
cattle had passed all around it, but it made not the slightest sign, not
even when I halted, got off my pony, and took it up in my arms. It was
useless to take it to camp and try to rear it, and so I speedily put it
down again. Scanning the neighborhood, I saw the doe hanging about some
half a mile off, and when I looked back from the next divide I could see
her gradually drawing near to the fawn.

If taken when very young, antelope make cunning and amusing pets, and I
have often seen them around the ranches. There was one in the ranch of a
Mrs. Blank who had a station on the Deadwood stage line some eighteen
years ago. She was a great worker in buckskin, and I got her to make me
the buckskin shirt I still use. There was an antelope fawn that lived at
the house, wandering wherever it wished; but it would not permit me to
touch it. As I sat inside the house it would come in and hop up on a
chair, looking at me sharply all the while. No matter how cautiously I
approached, I could never put my hand upon it, as at the last moment it
would spring off literally as quick as a bird would fly. One of my
neighbors on the Little Missouri, Mr. Howard Eaton, had at one time upon
his ranch three little antelope whose foster-mother was a sheep, and who
were really absurdly tame. I was fond of patting them and of giving them
crusts, and the result was that they followed me about so closely that I
had to be always on the lookout to see that I did not injure them. They
were on excellent terms with the dogs, and were very playful. It was a
comic sight to see them skipping and hopping about the old ewe when
anything happened to alarm her and she started off at a clumsy waddle.
Nothing could surpass the tameness of the antelope that are now under
Mr. Hornaday’s care at the Bronx Zoological Garden in New York. The last
time that I visited the garden some repairs were being made inside the
antelope enclosure, and a dozen workmen had gone in to make them. The
antelope regarded the workmen with a friendliness and curiosity
untempered by the slightest touch of apprehension. When the men took off
their coats the little creatures would nose them over to see if they
contained anything edible, and they would come close up and watch the
men plying the pick with the utmost interest. Mr. Hornaday took us
inside, and they all came up in the most friendly manner. One or two of
the bucks would put their heads against our legs and try to push us
around, but not roughly. Mr. Hornaday told me that he was having great
difficulty, exactly as with the mule-deer, in acclimatizing the
antelope, especially as the food was so different from what they were
accustomed to in their native haunts.

The wild fawns are able to run well a few days after they are born. They
then accompany the mother everywhere. Sometimes she joins a band of
others; more often she stays alone with her fawn, and perhaps one of the
young of the previous year, until the rut begins. Of all game the
prongbuck seems to me the most excitable during the rut. The males run
the does much as do the bucks of the mule and whitetail deer. If there
are no does present, I have sometimes watched a buck run to and fro by
himself. The first time I saw this I was greatly interested, and could
form no idea of what the buck was doing. He was by a creek bed in a
slight depression or shallow valley, and was grazing uneasily. After a
little while he suddenly started and ran just as hard as he could, off
in a straight direction, nearly away from me. I thought that somehow or
other he had discovered my presence; but he suddenly wheeled and came
back to the original place, still running at his utmost speed. Then he
halted, moved about with the white hairs on his rump outspread, and
again dashed off at full speed, halted, wheeled, and came back. Two or
three times he did this, and let me get very close to him before he
discovered me. I was too much interested in what he was doing to desire
to shoot him.

In September, sometimes not earlier than October, the big bucks begin to
gather the does into harems. Each buck is then constantly on the watch
to protect his harem from outsiders, and steal another doe if he can get
a chance. I have seen a comparatively young buck who had appropriated a
doe, hustle her hastily out of the country as soon as he saw another
antelope in the neighborhood; while, on the other hand, a big buck,
already with a good herd of does, will do his best to appropriate any
other that comes in sight. The bucks fight fearlessly but harmlessly
among themselves, locking their horns and then pushing as hard as they
can.

Although their horns are not very formidable weapons, they are bold
little creatures, and if given a chance will stand at bay before either
hound or coyote. A doe will fight most gallantly for her fawn, and is an
overmatch for a single coyote, but of course she can do but little
against a large wolf. The wolves are occasionally very destructive to
the herds. The cougar, however, which is a much worse foe than the wolf
to deer and mountain sheep, can but rarely molest the prongbuck, owing
to the nature of the latter’s haunts. Eagles, on occasion, take the
fawns, as they do those of deer.

I have always been fond of the chase of the prongbuck. While I lived on
my ranch on the Little Missouri it was, next to the mule-deer, the game
which I most often followed, and on the long wagon strips which I
occasionally took from my ranch to the Black Hills, to the Big Horn
Mountains, or into eastern Montana, prongbuck venison was our usual
fresh meat, save when we could kill prairie-chickens and ducks with our
rifles, which was not always feasible. In my mind the prongbuck is
always associated with the open prairies during the spring, summer, or
early fall. It has happened that I have generally pursued the bighorn in
bitter weather; and when we laid in our stock of winter meat, mule-deer
was our usual game. Though I have shot prongbuck in winter, I never
liked to do so, as I felt the animals were then having a sufficiently
hard struggle for existence anyhow. But in the spring the meat of the
prongbuck was better than that of any other game, and, moreover, there
was not the least danger of mistaking the sexes, and killing a doe
accidentally, and accordingly I rarely killed anything but pronghorns at
that season. In those days we never got any fresh meat, whether on the
ranch or while on the round-up or on a wagon trip, unless we shot it,
and salt pork became a most monotonous diet after a time.

Occasionally I killed the prongbuck in a day’s hunt from my ranch. If I
started with the intention of prongbuck hunting, I always went on
horseback; but twice I killed them on foot when I happened to run across
them by accident while looking for mule-deer. I shall always remember
one of these occasions. I was alone in the Elkhorn ranch-house at the
time, my foreman and the only cow-puncher who was not on the round-up
having driven to Medora, some forty miles away, in order to bring down
the foreman’s wife and sister, who were going to spend the summer with
him. It was the fourth day of his absence. I expected him in the evening
and wanted to have fresh meat, and so after dinner I shouldered my rifle
and strolled off through the hills. It was too early in the day to
expect to see anything, and my intention was simply to walk out until I
was five or six miles from the ranch, and then work carefully home
through a likely country toward sunset, as by this arrangement I would
be in a good game region at the very time that the animals were likely
to stir abroad. It was a glaring, late-spring day, and in the hot sun of
mid-afternoon I had no idea that anything would be moving, and was not
keeping a very sharp lookout. After an hour or two’s steady tramping I
came into a long, narrow valley, bare of trees and brushwood, and
strolled along it, following a cattle trail that led up the middle. The
hills rose steeply into a ridge crest on each side, sheer clay shoulders
breaking the mat of buffalo-grass which elsewhere covered the sides of
the valley as well as the bottom. It was very hot and still, and I was
paying but little attention to my surroundings, when my eye caught a
sudden movement on the ridge crest to my right, and, dropping on one
knee as I wheeled around, I saw the head and neck of a prongbuck rising
above the crest. The animal was not above a hundred yards off, and stood
motionless as it stared at me. At the crack of the rifle the head
disappeared; but as I sprang clear of the smoke I saw a cloud of dust
rise on the other side of the ridge crest, and felt convinced that the
quarry had fallen. I was right. On climbing the ridge crest I found that
on the other side it sank abruptly in a low cliff of clay, and at the
foot of this, thirty feet under me, the prongbuck lay with its neck
broken. After dressing it I shouldered the body entire, thinking that I
should like to impress the new-comers by the sight of so tangible a
proof of my hunting prowess as whole prongbuck hanging up in the
cottonwoods by the house. As it was a well-grown buck the walk home
under the hot sun was one of genuine toil.

The spot where I ran across this prongbuck was miles away from the
nearest plains, and it was very unusual to see one in such rough
country. In fact, the occurrence was wholly exceptional; just as I once
saw three bighorn rams, which usually keep to the roughest country,
deliberately crossing the river bottom below my ranch, and going for
half a mile through the thick cottonwood timber. Occasionally, however,
parties of prongbuck came down the creek bottoms to the river. Once I
struck a couple of young bucks in the bottom of a creek which led to the
Chimney Butte ranch-house, and stalked them without difficulty; for as
prongbuck make no effort to hide, if there is good cover even their
sharp eyes do not avail them. On another occasion several does and
fawns, which we did not molest, spent some time on what we called “the
corral bottom,” which was two or three miles above the ranch-house. In
the middle of this bottom we had built a corral for better convenience
in branding the calves when the round-up came near our ranch—as the
bottom on which the ranch-house stood was so thickly wooded as to make
it difficult to work cattle thereon. The does and fawns hung around the
corral bottom for some little time, and showed themselves very curious
and by no means shy.

When I went from the ranch for a day’s prongbuck hunting of set purpose,
I always rode a stout horse and started by dawn. The prongbucks are
almost the only game that can be hunted as well during the heat of the
day as at any other time. They occasionally lie down for two or three
hours about noon in some hollow where they cannot be seen, but usually
there is no place where they are sure they can escape observation even
when resting; and when this is the case they choose a somewhat
conspicuous station and trust to their own powers of observation,
exactly as they do when feeding. There is therefore no necessity, as
with deer, of trying to strike them at dawn or dusk. The reason why I
left the ranch before sunrise and often came back long after dark was
because I had to ride at least a dozen miles to get out to the ground
and a dozen to get back, and if after industrious walking I failed at
first to find my game, I would often take the horse again and ride for
an hour or two to get into new country. Prongbuck water once a day,
often travelling great distances to or from some little pool or spring.
Of course, if possible, I liked to leave the horse by such a pool or
spring. On the great plains to which I used to make these excursions
there was plenty of water in early spring, and it would often run, here
and there, in the upper courses of some of the creeks—which, however,
usually contained running water only when there had been a cloudburst or
freshet. As the season wore on the country became drier and drier. Water
would remain only in an occasional deep hole, and few springs were left
in which there was so much as a trickle. In a strange country I could
not tell where these water-holes were, but in the neighborhood of the
ranch I of course knew where I was likely to find them. Often, however,
I was disappointed; and more than once after travelling many miles to
where I hoped to find water, there would be nothing but sun-cracked mud,
and the horse and I would have eighteen hours of thirst in consequence.
A ranch horse, however, is accustomed to such incidents, and of course
when a man spends half the time riding, it is merely a matter of slight
inconvenience to go so long without a drink.

Nevertheless, if I did reach a spring, it turned the expedition into
pleasure instead of toil. Even in the hot weather the ride toward the
plains over the hills was very lovely. It was beautiful to see the red
dawn quicken from the first glimmering gray in the east, and then to
watch the crimson bars glint on the tops of the fantastically shaped
barren hills when the sun flamed, burning and splendid, above the
horizon. In the early morning the level beams threw into sharp relief
the strangely carved and channelled cliff walls of the buttes. There was
rarely a cloud to dim the serene blue of the sky. By the time the heat
had grown heavy I had usually reached the spring or pool, where I
unsaddled the horse, watered him, and picketed him out to graze. Then,
under the hot sun, I would stride off for the hunting proper. On such
occasions I never went to where the prairie was absolutely flat. There
were always gently rolling stretches broken by shallow watercourses,
slight divides, and even low mounds, sometimes topped with strangely
shaped masses of red scoria or with petrified trees. My object, of
course, was, either with my unaided eyes or with the help of my glasses,
to catch sight of the prongbucks before they saw me. I speedily found,
by the way, that if they were too plentiful this was almost impossible.
The more abundant deer are in a given locality the more apt one is to
run across them, and of course if the country is sufficiently broken,
the same is true of prongbucks; but where it is very flat and there are
many different bands in sight at the same time, it is practically
impossible to keep out of sight of all of them, and as they are also all
in sight of one another, if one flees the others are certain to take the
alarm. Under such circumstances I have usually found that the only
pronghorns I got were obtained by accident, so to speak; that is, by
some of them unexpectedly running my way, or by my happening to come
across them in some nook where I could not see them, or they me.

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 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 once 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 the 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 moment 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 her. 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.

Normally, a horseman without greyhounds can hope for nothing more than
to get within fair shooting range; and this only by taking advantage of
the prongbucks’ peculiarity of running straight ahead in the direction
in which they are pointed, when once they have settled into their pace.
Usually, as soon as they see a hunter they run straight away from him;
but sometimes they make their flight at an angle, and as they do not
like to change their course when once started, it is thus possible, with
a good horse, to cut them off from the point toward which they are
headed, and get a reasonably close shot.

I have done a good deal of coursing with greyhounds at one time or
another, but always with scratch packs. There are a few ranchmen 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 was precisely of this character. At
different times I had on my ranch one or two high-classed greyhounds and
Scotch deerhounds, with which we coursed deer and antelope, as well as
jack-rabbits, foxes, and coyotes; and we 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 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 blacktail or
whitetail 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. 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 usually
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 always fired, 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, on which our dogs fairly ran down
and killed unwounded 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
cross-bred 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 cunning 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 cross-bred, 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 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 good fun, and I shall always have enjoyable memories of the rapid
gallops across the prairie, on the trail of a flying prongbuck.

Usually my pronghorn hunting has been done while I have been off with a
wagon on a trip intended primarily for the chase, or else while
travelling for some other purpose.

[Illustration:

  CAMPING ON THE ANTELOPE GROUNDS
]

All life in the wilderness is so pleasant that the temptation is to
consider each particular variety, while one is enjoying it, as better
than any other. A canoe trip through the great forests, a trip with a
pack-train among the mountains, a trip on snowshoes through the silent,
mysterious fairyland of the woods in winter—each has its peculiar charm.
To some men the sunny monotony of the great plains is wearisome;
personally there are few things I have enjoyed more than journeying over
them where the game was at all plentiful. Sometimes I have gone off for
three or four days alone on horseback, with a slicker or oilskin coat
behind the saddle, and some salt and hardtack as my sole provisions. But
for comfort on a trip of any length it was always desirable to have a
wagon. My regular outfit consisted of a wagon and team driven by one man
who cooked, together with another man and four riding ponies, two of
which we rode, while the other two were driven loose or led behind the
wagon. While it is eminently desirable that a hunter should be able to
rough it, and should be entirely willing to put up with the bare minimum
of necessities, and to undergo great fatigue and hardship, it is yet not
at all necessary that he should refrain from comfort of a wholesome sort
when it is obtainable. By taking the wagon we could carry a tent to put
up if there was foul weather. I had a change of clothes to put on if I
was wet, two or three books to read—and nothing adds more to the
enjoyment of a hunting trip—as well as plenty of food; while having two
men made me entirely foot-loose as regards camp, so that I could hunt
whenever I pleased, and, if I came in tired, I simply rested, instead of
spending two or three hours in pitching camp, cooking, tethering horses,
and doing the innumerable other little things which in the aggregate
amount to so much.

On such a trip, when we got into unknown country, it was of course very
necessary to stay near the wagon, especially if we had to hunt for
water. But if we knew the country at all, we would decide in the morning
about where the camp was to be made in the afternoon, and then I would
lope off on my own account, while the wagon lumbered slowly across the
rough prairie sward straight toward its destination. Sometimes I took
the spare man with me, and sometimes not. It was convenient to have him,
for there are continually small emergencies in which it is well to be
with a companion. For instance, if one jumps off for a sudden shot,
there is always a slight possibility that any but a thoroughly trained
horse will get frightened and gallop away. On some of my horses I could
absolutely depend, but there were others, and very good ones too, which
would on rare occasions fail me; and few things are more disheartening
than a long stern chase after one’s steed under such circumstances, with
the unpleasant possibility of seeing him leave the country entirely and
strike out for the ranch fifty or sixty miles distant. If there is a
companion with one, all danger of this is over. Moreover, in galloping
at full speed after the game it is impossible now and then to avoid a
tumble, as the horse may put his leg into a prairie-dog hole or badger
burrow; and on such occasions a companion may come in very handily. On
the other hand, there is so great a charm in absolute solitude, in the
wild, lonely freedom of the great plains, that often I would make some
excuse and go off entirely by myself.

Such rides had a fascination of their own. Hour after hour the wiry pony
shuffled onward across the sea of short, matted grass. On every side the
plains stretched seemingly limitless. Sometimes there would be no object
to break the horizon; sometimes across a score of miles there would loom
through the clear air the fantastic outlines of a chain of buttes,
rising grim and barren. Occasionally there might be a slightly marked
watercourse, every drop of moisture long dried; and usually there would
not be as much as the smallest sage-brush anywhere in sight. As the sun
rose higher and higher the shadows of horse and rider shortened, and the
beams were reflected from the short, bleached blades until in the hot
air all the landscape afar off seemed to dance and waver. Often on such
trips days went by without our coming across another human being, and
the loneliness and vastness of the country seemed as unbroken as if the
old vanished days had returned—the days of the wild wilderness
wanderers, and the teeming myriads of game they followed, and the
scarcely wilder savages against whom they warred.

Now and then prongbuck would appear, singly or in bands; and their sharp
bark of alarm or curiosity would come to me through the still, hot air
over great distances, as they stood with head erect looking at me, the
white patches on their rumps shining in the sun, and the bands and
markings on their heads and necks showing as if they were in livery.
Scan the country as carefully as I would, they were far more apt to see
me than I was them, and once they had seen me, it was normally hopeless
to expect to get them. But their strange freakishness of nature
frequently offsets the keenness of their senses. At least half of the
prongbucks which I shot were obtained, not by stalking, but by coming
across them purely through their own fault. Though the prairie seemed
level, there was really a constant series of undulations, shallow and of
varying width. Now and then as I topped some slight rise I would catch a
glimpse of a little band of pronghorns feeding, and would slip off my
horse before they could see me. A hasty determination as to where the
best chance of approaching them lay would be followed by a half-hour’s
laborious crawl, a good part of the time flat on my face. They might
discover me when I was still too far for a shot; or by taking advantage
of every little inequality I might get within long range before they got
a glimpse of me, and then in a reasonable proportion of cases I would
bag my buck. At other times the buck would come to me. Perhaps one would
suddenly appear over a divide himself, and his curiosity would cause him
to stand motionless long enough to give me a shot; while on other
occasions I have known one which was out of range to linger around,
shifting his position as I shifted mine, until by some sudden gallop or
twist I was able to get close enough to empty my magazine at him.

When the shadows had lengthened, but before any coolness had come into
the air, I would head for the appointed camping-place. Sometimes this
would be on the brink of some desolate little pool under a low, treeless
butte, or out on the open prairie where the only wood was what we had
brought with us. At other times I would find the wagon drawn up on the
edge of some shrunken plains river, under a line of great cottonwoods
with splintered branches and glossy leaves that rustled all day long.
Such a camp was always comfortable, for there was an abundance of wood
for the fire, plenty of water, and thick feed in which the horses
grazed—one or two being picketed and the others feeding loose until
night came on. If I had killed a prongbuck, steaks were speedily
sizzling in the frying-pan over the hot coals. If I had failed to get
anything, I would often walk a mile or two down or up the river to see
if I could not kill a couple of prairie-chickens or ducks. If the
evening was at all cool, we built a fire as darkness fell, and sat
around it, while the leaping flames lit up the trunks of the cottonwoods
and gleamed on the pools of water in the half-dry river bed. Then I
would wrap myself in my blanket and lie looking up at the brilliant
stars until I fell asleep.

In both 1893 and 1894 I made trips to a vast tract of rolling prairie
land, some fifty miles from my ranch, where I had for many years enjoyed
the keen pleasure of hunting the prongbuck. In 1893 the prong-horned
bands were as plentiful in this district as I have ever seen them
anywhere. Lambert was with me; and in a week’s trip, including the
journey out and back, we easily shot all the antelope we felt we had any
right to kill; for we only shot to get meat, or an unusually fine head.
Lambert did most of the shooting; and I have never seen a professional
hunter do better in stalking antelope on the open prairie. I myself
fired at only two antelope, both of which had already been missed. In
each case a hard run and much firing at long ranges, together with in
one case some skilful manœuvring, got me my game; yet one buck cost ten
cartridges and the other eight. In 1894 I had exactly the reverse
experience. I killed five antelope for thirty-six shots, but each one
that I killed was killed with the first bullet, and in not one case
where I missed the first time did I hit with any subsequent shot. These
five antelope were killed at an average distance of about 150 yards.
Those that I missed were, of course, much farther off on an average, and
I usually emptied my magazine at each. The number of cartridges spent
would seem extraordinary to a tyro; and an unusually skilful shot, or
else a very timid shot who fears to take risks, will of course make a
better showing per head killed; but I doubt if men with experience in
antelope hunting, who keep an accurate account of the cartridges they
expend, will see anything much out of the way in the performance.

During the years I have hunted in the West I have always, where
possible, kept a record of the number of cartridges expended for every
head of game killed, and of the distances at which it was shot. I have
found that with bison, bear, moose, elk, caribou, bighorn and white
goat, where the animals shot at were mostly of large size and usually
stationary, and where the mountainous or wooded country gave chance for
a close approach, the average distance at which I have killed the game
has been eighty yards, and the average number of cartridges expended per
head slain, three; one of these representing the death-shot, and the
others standing either for misses outright, of which there were not
many, or else for wounding game which escaped, or which I afterward
overtook, or for stopping cripples or charging beasts. I have killed but
two peccaries, using but one cartridge for each; they were close up. My
experiences with cougar have already been narrated. At wolves and
coyotes I have generally had to take running shots at very long range,
and I have shot but two—one of each—for fifty cartridges. Blacktail deer
I have generally shot at about ninety yards, at an expenditure of about
four cartridges apiece. Whitetail I have killed at shorter range; but
the shots were generally running, often taken under difficult
circumstances, so that my expenditure of cartridges was rather larger.
Antelope, on the other hand, I have on the average shot at a little
short of 150 yards, and they have cost me about nine cartridges apiece.
This, of course, as I have explained above, does not mean that I have
missed eight out of nine antelope, for often the entire nine cartridges
would be spent at an antelope which I eventually got. It merely means
that, counting all the shots of every description fired at antelope, I
had one head to show for each nine cartridges expended.

Thus, the first antelope I shot in 1893 cost me ten cartridges, of which
three hit him, while the seven that missed were fired at over 400 yards’
distance while he was running. We saw him while we were with the wagon.
As we had many miles to go before sunset, we cared nothing about
frightening other game, and, as we had no fresh meat, it was worth while
to take some chances to procure it. When I first fired, the prongbuck
had already been shot at and was in full flight. He was beyond all
reasonable range, but some of our bullets went over him and he began to
turn. By running to one side I got a shot at him at a little over 400
paces, as he slowed to a walk, bewildered by the firing, and the bullet
broke his hip. I missed him two or three times as he plunged off, and
then by hard running down a watercourse got a shot at 180 paces and
broke his shoulder, and broke his neck with another bullet when I came
up.

This one was shot while going out to the hunting-ground. While there
Lambert killed four others. I did not fire again until on our return,
when I killed another buck one day while we were riding with the wagon.
The day was gray and overcast. There were slight flurries of snow, and
the cold wind chilled us as it blew across the endless reaches of
sad-colored prairie. Behind us loomed Sentinel Butte, and all around the
rolling surface was broken by chains of hills, by patches of bad lands,
or by isolated, saddle-shaped mounds. The ranch wagon jolted over the
uneven sward, and plunged in and out of the dry beds of the occasional
water courses; for we were following no road, but merely striking
northward across the prairie toward the P. K. ranch. We went at a good
pace, for the afternoon was bleak, the wagon was lightly loaded, and the
Sheriff of the county, whose deputy I had been, and who was serving for
the nonce as our teamster and cook, kept the two gaunt, wild-looking
horses trotting steadily. Lambert and I rode to one side on our unkempt
cow-ponies, our rifles slung across the saddle bows.

Our stock of fresh meat was getting low and we were anxious to shoot
something; but in the early hours of the afternoon we saw no game. Small
parties of horned larks ran along the ground ahead of the wagon,
twittering plaintively as they rose, and now and then flocks of
long-spurs flew hither and thither; but of larger life we saw nothing,
save occasional bands of range horses. The drought had been severe and
we were far from the river, so that we saw no horned stock. Horses can
travel much farther to water than cattle, and, when the springs dry up,
they stay much farther out on the prairie.

At last we did see a band of four antelope, lying in the middle of a
wide plain, but they saw us before we saw them, and the ground was so
barren of cover that it was impossible to get near them. Moreover, they
were very shy and ran almost as soon as we got our eyes on them. For an
hour or two after this we jogged along without seeing anything, while
the gray clouds piled up in the west and the afternoon began to darken;
then, just after passing Saddle Butte, we struck a rough prairie road,
which we knew led to the P. K. ranch—a road very faint in places, while
in others the wheels had sunk deep in the ground and made long, parallel
ruts.

Almost immediately after striking this road, on topping a small rise, we
discovered a young prongbuck standing off a couple of hundred yards to
one side, gazing at the wagon with that absorbed curiosity which in this
game so often conquers its extreme wariness and timidity, to a certain
extent offsetting the advantage conferred upon it by its marvellous
vision. The little antelope stood broadside on, gazing at us out of its
great bulging eyes, the sharply contrasted browns and whites of its coat
showing plainly. Lambert and I leaped off our horses immediately, and I
knelt and pulled trigger; but the cartridge snapped, and the little
buck, wheeling round, cantered off, the white hairs on its rump standing
erect. There was a strong cross-wind, almost a gale, blowing, and
Lambert’s bullet went just behind him; off he went at a canter, which
changed to a breakneck gallop, as we again fired; and he went out of
sight unharmed, over the crest of the rising ground in front. We ran
after him as hard as we could pelt up the hill, into a slight valley,
and then up another rise, and again got a glimpse of him standing, but
this time farther off than before; and again our shots went wild.

However, the antelope changed its racing gallop to a canter while still
in sight, going slower and slower, and, what was rather curious, it did
not seem much frightened. We were naturally a good deal chagrined at our
shooting and wished to retrieve ourselves, if possible; so we ran back
to the wagon, got our horses and rode after the buck. He had continued
his flight in a straight line, gradually slackening his pace, and a
mile’s brisk gallop enabled us to catch a glimpse of him, far ahead and
merely walking. The wind was bad, and we decided to sweep off and try to
circle round ahead of him. Accordingly, we dropped back, turned into a
slight hollow to the right, and galloped hard until we came to the foot
of a series of low buttes, when we turned more to the left; and, when we
judged that we were about across the antelope’s line of march, leaped
from our horses, threw the reins over their heads, and left them
standing, while we stole up the nearest rise; and, when close to the
top, took off our caps and pushed ourselves forward, flat on our faces
to peep over. We had judged the distance well, for we saw the antelope
at once, now stopping to graze. Drawing back, we ran along some little
distance nearer, then drew up over the same rise. He was only about 125
yards off, and this time there was no excuse for my failing to get him;
but fail I did, and away the buck raced again, with both of us shooting.
My first two shots were misses, but I kept correcting my aim and holding
farther in front of the flying beast. My last shot was taken just as the
antelope reached the edge of the broken country, in which he would have
been safe; and almost as I pulled the trigger I had the satisfaction of
seeing him pitch forward and, after turning a complete somerset, lie
motionless. I had broken his neck. He had cost us a good many
cartridges, and, though my last shot was well aimed, there was doubtless
considerable chance in my hitting him, while there was no excuse at all
for at least one of my previous misses. Nevertheless, all old hunters
know that there is no other kind of shooting in which so many cartridges
are expended for every head of game bagged.

As we knelt down to butcher the antelope, the clouds broke and the rain
fell. Hastily we took off the saddle and hams, and, packing them behind
us on our horses, loped to the wagon in the teeth of the cold storm.
When we overtook it, after some sharp riding, we threw in the meat, and
not very much later, when the day was growing dusky, caught sight of the
group of low ranch buildings toward which we had been headed. We were
received with warm hospitality, as one always is in a ranch country. We
dried our streaming clothes inside the warm ranch-house and had a good
supper, and that night we rolled up in our blankets and tarpaulins, and
slept soundly in the lee of a big haystack. The ranch-house stood in the
winding bottom of a creek; the flanking hills were covered with stunted
cedar, while dwarf cottonwood and box-elder grew by the pools in the
half-dried creek bed.

Next morning we had risen by dawn. The storm was over, and it was clear
and cold. Before sunrise we had started. We were only some thirty miles
away from my ranch, and I directed the Sheriff how to go there, by
striking east until he came to the main divide, and then following that
down till he got past a certain big plateau, when a turn to the right
down any of the coulees would bring him into the river bottom near the
ranch-house. We wished ourselves to ride off to one side and try to pick
up another antelope. However, the Sheriff took the wrong turn after
getting to the divide, and struck the river bottom some fifteen miles
out of his way, so that we reached the ranch a good many hours before he
did.

When we left the wagon we galloped straight across country, looking out
from the divide across the great rolling landscape, every feature
standing clear through the frosty air. Hour after hour we paced and
loped on and on over the grassy seas in the glorious morning. Once we
stopped, and I held the horses while Lambert stalked and shot a fine
prongbuck; then we tied his head and hams to our saddles and again
pressed forward along the divide. We had hoped to get lunch at a spring
that I knew of some twelve miles from my ranch, but when we reached it
we found it dry and went on without halting. Early in the afternoon we
came out on the broad, tree-clad bottom on which the ranch-house stands,
and, threading our way along the cattle trails soon drew up in front of
the gray empty buildings.


Just as we were leaving the hunting-grounds on this trip, after having
killed all the game we felt we had a right to kill, we encountered bands
of Sioux Indians from the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River reservations
coming in to hunt, and I at once felt that the chances for much future
sport in that particular district were small. Indians are not good
shots, but they hunt in large numbers, killing everything, does, fawns
and bucks alike, and they follow the wounded animals with the utmost
perseverance, so that they cause much destruction of game.

Accordingly, in 1894, when I started for these same grounds, it was with
some misgivings; but I had time only to make a few days’ hunt, and I
knew of no other accessible grounds where prongbuck were plentiful. My
foreman was with me, and, as usual, we took the ranch wagon, driven this
time by a cowboy who had just come up over the trail with cattle from
Colorado. On reaching our happy hunting-grounds of the previous season,
I found my fears sadly verified; and one unforeseen circumstance, also
told against me. Not only had the Indians made a great killing of
antelope the season before, but in the spring one or two sheep men had
moved into the country. We found that the big flocks had been moving
from one spring pool to another, eating the pasturage bare, while the
shepherds whom we met—wild-looking men on rough horses, each accompanied
by a pair of furtive sheep dogs—had taken every opportunity to get a
shot at antelope, so as to provide themselves with fresh meat. Two days
of fruitless hunting in this sheep-ridden region was sufficient to show
that the antelope were too scarce and shy to give us hope for sport, and
we shifted quarters, a long day’s journey, to the head of another creek;
and we had to go to yet another before we found much game. As so often
happens on such a trip, when we started to have bad luck we had plenty.
One night two of the three saddle horses stampeded and went straight as
the crow flies back to the home range, so that we did not get them until
on our return from the trip. On another occasion the team succeeded in
breaking the wagon pole; and as there was an entire absence of wood
where we were at the time, we had to make a splice for it with the two
tent poles and the picket ropes. Nevertheless, it was very enjoyable out
on the great grassy plains. Although we had a tent with us, I always
slept in the open in my buffalo bag, with the tarpaulin to pull over me
if it rained. On each night before going to sleep, I lay for many
minutes gazing at the stars above, or watching the rising of the red
moon, which was just at or past the full.

We had plenty of fresh meat—prairie fowl and young sage fowl at first,
and antelope venison afterward. We camped by little pools, generally
getting fair water; and from the camps where there was plenty of wood we
took enough to build the fires at those where there was none. The nights
were frosty, and the days cool and pleasant, and from sunrise to sunset
we were off riding or walking among the low hills and over the uplands,
so that we slept well and ate well, and felt the beat of hardy life in
our veins.

Much of the time we were on a high divide between two creek systems,
from which we could see the great landmarks of all the regions
roundabout, Sentinel Butte, Square Butte and Middle Butte, far to the
north and east of us. Nothing could be more lonely and nothing more
beautiful than the view at nightfall across the prairies to these huge
hill masses, when the lengthening shadows had at last merged into one
and the faint afterglow of the red sunset filled the west. The endless
waves of rolling prairie, sweeping, vast and dim, to the feet of the
great hills, grew purple as the evening darkened, and the buttes loomed
into vague, mysterious beauty as their sharp outlines softened in the
twilight.

Even when we got out of reach of the sheep men we never found antelope
very plentiful, and they were shy, and the country was flat, so that the
stalking was extremely difficult; yet I had pretty good sport. The first
animal I killed was a doe, shot for meat, because I had twice failed to
get bucks at which I emptied my magazine at long range, and we were all
feeling hungry for venison. After that I killed nothing but bucks. Of
the five antelope killed, one I got by a headlong gallop to cut off his
line of flight. As sometimes happens with this queer, erratic animal,
when the buck saw that I was trying to cut off his flight he simply
raced ahead just as hard as he knew how, and, as my pony was not fast,
he got to the little pass for which he was headed 200 yards ahead of me.
I then jumped off, and his curiosity made him commit the fatal mistake
of halting for a moment to look round at me. He was standing end on, and
offered a very small mark at 200 yards; but I made a good line shot,
and, though I held a trifle too high, I hit him in the head, and down he
came. Another buck I shot from under the wagon early one morning as he
was passing just beyond the picketed horses. I have several times shot
antelope which unexpectedly came into camp in this fashion. The other
three I got after much manœuvring and long, tedious stalks.

In some of the stalks, after infinite labor, and perhaps after crawling
on all-fours for an hour, or pulling myself flat on my face among some
small sage-brush for ten or fifteen minutes, the game took alarm and
went off. Too often, also, when I finally did get a shot, it was under
such circumstances that I missed. Sometimes the game was too far;
sometimes it had taken alarm and was already in motion; sometimes the
trouble could only be ascribed to lack of straight powder, and I was
covered with shame as with a garment. Once in the afternoon I had to
spend so much time waiting for the antelope to get into a favorable
place that, when I got up close, I found the light already so bad that
my front sight glimmered indistinctly, and the bullet went wild. Another
time I met with one of those misadventures which are especially
irritating. It was at midday, and I made out at a long distance a band
of antelope lying for their noon rest in a slight hollow. A careful
stalk brought me up within fifty yards of them. I was crawling flat on
my face, for the crest of the hillock sloped so gently that this was the
only way to get near them. At last, peering through the grass, I saw the
head of a doe. In a moment she saw me and jumped to her feet, and up
stood the whole band, including the buck. I immediately tried to draw a
bead on the latter, and to my horror found that, lying flat as I was,
and leaning on my elbows, I could not bring the rifle above the tall
shaking grass, and was utterly unable to get a sight. In another second
away tore all the antelope. I jumped to my feet, took a snap shot at the
buck as he raced round a low-cut bank and missed, and then walked
drearily home, chewing the cud of my ill-luck. Yet again in more than
one instance, after making a good stalk upon a band seen at some
distance, I found it contained only does and fawns, and would not shoot
at them.

Three times, however, the stalk was successful. Twice I was out alone;
the other time my foreman was with me, and held my horse while I
manœuvred hither and thither, and finally succeeded in getting into
range. In both the first instances I got a standing shot, but on this
last occasion, when my foreman was with me, two of the watchful does
which were in the band saw me before I could get a shot at the old buck.
I was creeping up a low washout, and, by ducking hastily down again and
running back and up a side coulee, I managed to get within long range of
the band as they cantered off, not yet thoroughly alarmed. The buck was
behind, and I held just ahead of him. He plunged to the shot, but went
off over the hill-crest. When I had panted up to the ridge I found him
dead just beyond.

One of the antelope I killed while I was out on foot toward nightfall, a
couple of miles from the wagon. I saw the prongbuck quite half a mile
off, and though I dropped at once I was uncertain whether he had seen
me. He was in a little hollow or valley. A long, smoothly sloping
plateau led up to one edge of it. Across this plateau I crawled, and
when I thought I was near the run I ventured slowly to look up, and
almost immediately saw vaguely through the tops of the long grasses what
I took to be the head and horns of the buck, looking in my direction.
There was no use in going back, and I dropped flat on my face again and
crawled another hundred yards, until it was evident that I was on the
rise from which the plateau sank into the shallow valley beyond. Raising
my head inch by inch, I caught sight of the object toward which I had
been crawling, and after a moment’s hesitation recognized it as a dead
sunflower, the stalks and blossoms so arranged as to be in a V shape.
Completely puzzled, I started to sit up, when by sheer good luck I
caught sight of the real prongbuck, still feeding, some three hundred
yards off, and evidently unaware of my presence. It was feeding toward a
slight hill to my left. I crept off until behind this, and then walked
up until I was in line with a big bunch of weeds on its shoulder.
Crawling on all-fours to the weeds, I peeped through and saw the
prongbuck still slowly feeding my way. When he was but seventy yards
off, I sat up and shot him; and trudged back to the wagon, carrying the
saddle and hams.

In packing an antelope or deer behind the saddle, I cut slashes through
the sinews of the legs just above the joints; then I put the buck behind
the saddle, run the picket rope from the horn of the saddle, under the
belly of the horse, through the slashes in the legs on the other side,
bring the end back, swaying well down on it, and fasten it to the horn;
then I repeat the same feat for the other side. Packed in this way, the
carcass always rides steady, and cannot shake loose, no matter what
antics the horse may perform.


In the fall of 1896 I spent a fortnight on the range with the ranch
wagon. I was using for the first time one of the new small calibre,
smokeless-powder rifles, with the usual soft-nosed bullet. While
travelling to and fro across the range we usually moved camp each day,
not putting up the tent at all during the trip; but at one spot we spent
three nights. It was in a creek bottom, bounded on either side by rows
of grassy hills, beyond which stretched the rolling prairie. The creek
bed, which at this season was of course dry in most places, wound in
S-shaped curves, with here and there a pool and here and there a fringe
of stunted wind-beaten timber. We were camped near a little grove of
ash, box-elder, and willow, which gave us shade at noonday; and there
were two or three pools of good water in the creek bed—one so deep that
I made it my swimming-bath.

The first day that I was able to make a hunt I rode out with my foreman,
Sylvane Ferris. I was mounted on Muley. Twelve years before, when Muley
was my favorite cutting pony on the round-up, he never seemed to tire or
lose his dash, but Muley was now sixteen years old, and on ordinary
occasions he liked to go as soberly as possible; yet the good old pony
still had the fire latent in his blood, and at the sight of game—or,
indeed, of cattle or horses—he seemed to regain for the time being all
the headlong courage of his vigorous and supple youth.

On the morning in question it was two or three hours before Sylvane and
I saw any game. Our two ponies went steadily forward at a single-foot or
shack, as the cow-punchers term what Easterners call a “fox trot.” Most
of the time we were passing over immense grassy flats, where the mat of
short curled blades lay brown and parched under the bright sunlight.
Occasionally we came to ranges of low barren hills, which sent off
gently rounded spurs into the plain.

It was on one of these ranges that we first saw our game. As we were
travelling along the divide we spied eight antelope far ahead of us.
They saw us as soon as we saw them, and the chance of getting to them
seemed small; but it was worth an effort, for by humoring them when they
started, so as to let them wheel and zigzag before they became really
frightened, and then, when they had settled into their run, by galloping
toward them at an angle oblique to their line of flight, there was
always some little chance of getting a shot. Sylvane was on a light
buckskin horse, and I left him on the ridge crest to occupy their
attention while I cantered off to one side. The pronghorns became uneasy
as I galloped away, and ran off the ridge crest in a line nearly
parallel to mine. They did not go very fast, and I held in Muley, who
was all on fire at the sight of the game. After crossing two or three
spurs, the antelope going at half speed, they found I had come closer to
them, and turning, they ran up one of the valleys between two spurs. Now
was my chance, and wheeling at right angles to my former course, I
galloped Muley as hard as I knew how up the valley nearest and parallel
to where the antelope had gone. The good old fellow ran like a
quarter-horse, and when we were almost at the main ridge crest I leaped
off, and ran ahead with my rifle at the ready, crouching down as I came
to the sky-line. Usually on such occasions I find that the antelope have
gone on, and merely catch a glimpse of them half a mile distant, but on
this occasion everything went right. The band had just reached the ridge
crest about 220 yards from me across the head of the valley, and had
halted for a moment to look around. They were starting as I raised my
rifle, but the trajectory is very flat with these small-bore
smokeless-powder weapons, and taking a coarse front sight I fired at a
young buck which was broadside to me. There was no smoke, and as the
band raced away I saw him sink backward, the ball having broken his
hips.

We packed him bodily behind Sylvane on the buckskin and continued our
ride, as there was no fresh meat in camp, and we wished to bring in a
couple of bucks if possible. For two or three hours we saw nothing. The
unshod feet of the horses made hardly any noise on the stretches of
sun-cured grass, but now and then we passed through patches of thin
weeds, their dry stalks rattling curiously, making a sound like that of
a rattlesnake. At last, coming over a gentle rise of ground, we spied
two more prongbucks, half a mile ahead of us and to our right.

Again there seemed small chance of bagging our quarry, but again fortune
favored us. I at once cantered Muley ahead, not toward them, but so as
to pass them well on one side. After some hesitation they started, not
straight away, but at an angle to my own course. For some moments I kept
at a hand gallop, until they got thoroughly settled in their line of
flight; then I touched Muley, and he went as hard as he knew how.
Immediately the two panic-stricken and foolish beasts seemed to feel
that I was cutting off their line of retreat, and raced forward at mad
speed. They went much faster than I did, but I had the shorter course,
and when they crossed me they were not fifty yards ahead—by which time I
had come nearly a mile. At the pull of the rein Muley stopped short,
like the trained cow-pony he is; I leaped off, and held well ahead of
the rearmost and largest buck. At the crack of the little rifle down he
went with his neck broken. In a minute or two he was packed behind me on
Muley, and we bent our steps toward camp.

During the remainder of my trip we were never out of fresh meat, for I
shot three other bucks—one after a smart chase on horseback, and the
other two after careful stalks; and I missed two running shots.

The game being both scarce and shy, I had to exercise much care, and
after sighting a band I would sometimes have to wait and crawl round for
two or three hours before they would get into a position where I had any
chance of approaching. Even then they were more apt to see me and go off
than I was to get near them.

Antelope are the only game that can be hunted as well at noonday as in
the morning or evening, for their times for sleeping and feeding are
irregular. They never seek shelter from the sun, and when they lie down
for a noonday nap they are apt to choose a hollow, so as to be out of
the wind; in consequence, if the band is seen at all at this time, it is
easier to approach them than when they are up and feeding. They
sometimes come down to water in the middle of the day, sometimes in the
morning or evening. On this trip I came across bands feeding and resting
at almost every hour of the day. They seemed usually to rest for a
couple of hours, then began feeding again.

The last shot I got was when I was out with Joe Ferris, in whose company
I had killed my first buffalo, just thirteen years before, and not very
far from this same spot. We had seen two or three bands that morning,
and in each case, after a couple of hours of useless effort, I failed to
get near enough. At last, toward midday, after riding and tramping over
a vast extent of broken sun-scorched country, we got within range of a
small band lying down in a little cup-shaped hollow in the middle of a
great flat. I did not have a close shot, for they were running about 180
yards off. The buck was rearmost, and at him I aimed; the bullet struck
him in the flank, coming out of the opposite shoulder, and he fell in
his next bound. As we stood over him, Joe shook his head, and said, “I
guess that little rifle is the ace;” and I told him I guessed so too.




                               CHAPTER V
                       A SHOT AT A MOUNTAIN SHEEP


In the fall of 1893 I was camped on the Little Missouri, some ten miles
below my ranch. The bottoms were broad and grassy, and were walled in by
curving rows of high, steep bluffs. Back of them lay a mass of broken
country, in many places almost impassable for horses. The wagon was
drawn up on the edge of the fringe of tall cottonwoods which stretched
along the brink of the shrunken river. The weather had grown cold, and
at night the frost gathered thickly on our sleeping-bags. Great flocks
of sandhill cranes passed overhead from time to time, the air resounding
with their strange, musical, guttural clangor.

For several days we had hunted perseveringly, but without success,
through the broken country. We had come across tracks of mountain sheep,
but not the animals themselves, and the few blacktail which we had seen
had seen us first and escaped before we could get within shot. The only
thing killed had been a young whitetail, which Lambert, who was with me,
had knocked over by a very pretty shot as we were riding through a long,
heavily-timbered bottom. Four men in stalwart health and taking much
outdoor exercise have large appetites, and the flesh of the whitetail
was almost gone.

One evening Lambert and I hunted nearly to the head of one of the creeks
which opened close to our camp, and, in turning to descend what we
thought was one of the side coulees leading into it, we contrived to get
over the divide into the coulees of an entirely different creek system,
and did not discover our error until it was too late to remedy it. We
struck the river about nightfall, and were not quite sure where, and had
six miles’ tramp in the dark along the sandy river bed and through the
dense timber bottoms, wading the stream a dozen times before we finally
struck camp, tired and hungry, and able to appreciate to the full the
stew of hot venison and potatoes, and afterward the comfort of our
buffalo and caribou hide sleeping-bags. The next morning the Sheriff’s
remark of “Look alive, you fellows, if you want any breakfast,” awoke
the other members of the party shortly after dawn. It was bitterly cold
as we scrambled out of our bedding, and, after a hasty wash, huddled
around the fire, where the venison was sizzling and the coffee-pot
boiling, while the bread was kept warm in the Dutch oven. About a third
of a mile away to the west the bluffs, which rose abruptly from the
river bottom, were crowned by a high plateau, where the grass was so
good that overnight the horses had been led up and picketed on it, and
the man who had led them up had stated the previous evening that he had
seen what he took to be fresh footprints of a mountain sheep crossing
the surface of a bluff fronting our camp. From the footprints it
appeared that the animal had been there since the camp was pitched. The
face of the bluff on this side was very sheer, the path by which the
horses scrambled to the top being around a shoulder and out of sight of
camp.

[Illustration:

  RANCH WAGON RETURNING FROM HUNT
]

While sitting close around the fire finishing breakfast, and just as the
first level sunbeams struck the top of the plateau, we saw on this cliff
crest something moving, and at first supposed it to be one of the horses
which had broken loose from its picket pin. Soon the thing, whatever it
was, raised its head, and we were all on our feet in a moment,
exclaiming that it was a deer or a sheep. It was feeding in plain sight
of us only about a third of a mile distant, and the horses, as I
afterward found, were but a few rods beyond it on the plateau. The
instant I realized that it was game of some kind I seized my rifle,
buckled on my cartridge-belt, and slunk off toward the river bed. As
soon as I was under the protection of the line of cottonwoods, I trotted
briskly toward the cliff, and when I got up to where it impinged on the
river I ran a little to the left, and, selecting what I deemed to be a
favorable place, began to make the ascent. The animal was on a grassy
bench, some eight or ten feet below the crest, when I last saw it; but
it was evidently moving hither and thither, sometimes on this bench and
sometimes on the crest itself, cropping the short grass and browsing on
the young shrubs. The cliff was divided by several shoulders or ridges,
there being hollows like vertical gullies between them, and up one of
these I scrambled, using the utmost caution not to dislodge earth or
stones. Finally I reached the bench just below the sky-line, and then,
turning to the left, wriggled cautiously along it, hat in hand. The
cliff was so steep and bulged so in the middle, and, moreover, the
shoulders or projecting ridges in the surface spoken of above were so
pronounced, that I knew it was out of the question for the animal to
have seen me, but I was afraid it might have heard me. The air was
absolutely still, and so I had no fear of its sharp nose. Twice in
succession I peered with the utmost caution around shoulders of the
cliff, merely to see nothing beyond save another shoulder some forty or
fifty yards distant. Then I crept up to the edge and looked over the
level plateau. Nothing was in sight excepting the horses, and these were
close up to me, and, of course, they all raised their heads to look. I
nervously turned half round, sure that if the animal, whatever it was,
was in sight, it would promptly take the alarm. However, by good luck,
it appeared that at this time it was below the crest on the terrace or
bench already mentioned, and, on creeping to the next shoulder, I at
last saw it—a yearling mountain sheep—walking slowly away from me, and
evidently utterly unsuspicious of any danger. I straightened up,
bringing my rifle to my shoulder, and as it wheeled I fired, and the
sheep made two or three blind jumps in my direction. So close was I to
the camp, and so still was the cold morning, that I distinctly heard one
of the three men, who had remained clustered about the fire eagerly
watching my movements, call, “By George, he’s missed! I saw the bullet
strike the cliff.” I had fired behind the shoulders, and the bullet,
going through, had buried itself in the bluff beyond. The wound was
almost instantaneously fatal, and the sheep, after striving in vain to
keep its balance, fell heels over head down a crevice, where it jammed.
I descended, released the carcass, and pitched it on ahead of me, only
to have it jam again near the foot of the cliff. Before I got it loose I
was joined by my three companions, who had been running headlong toward
me through the brush ever since the time they had seen the animal fall.

I never obtained another sheep under circumstances which seemed to me
quite so remarkable as these; for sheep are, on the whole, the wariest
of game. Nevertheless, with all game there is an immense amount of
chance in the chase, and it is perhaps not wholly uncharacteristic of a
hunter’s luck that, after having hunted faithfully in vain and with much
hard labor for several days through a good sheep country, we should at
last have obtained one within sight and earshot of camp. Incidentally I
may mention that I have never tasted better mutton, or meat of any kind,
than that furnished by this tender yearling.

The nomenclature and exact specific relationships of American sheep,
deer and antelope offer difficulties not only to the hunter but to the
naturalist. As regards the nomenclature, we share the trouble
encountered by all peoples of European descent who have gone into
strange lands. The incomers are almost invariably men who are not
accustomed to scientific precision of expression. Like other people,
they do not like to invent names if they can by any possibility make use
of those already in existence, and so in a large number of cases they
call the new birds and animals by names applied to entirely different
birds and animals of the Old World to which, in the eyes of the
settlers, they bear some resemblance. In South America the Spaniards,
for instance, christened “lion” and “tiger” the great cats which are
properly known as cougar and jaguar. In South Africa the Dutch settlers,
who came from a land where all big game had long been exterminated, gave
fairly grotesque names to the great antelopes, calling them after the
European elk, stag, and chamois. The French did but little better in
Canada. Even in Ceylon the English, although belonging for the most part
to the educated classes, did no better than the ordinary pioneer
settlers, miscalling the sambur stag an elk, and the leopard a cheetah.
Our own pioneers behaved in the same way. Hence it is that we have no
distinctive name at all for the group of peculiarly American game birds
of which the bobwhite is the typical representative; and that, when we
could not use the words quail, partridge, or pheasant, we went for our
terminology to the barn-yard, and called our fine grouse, fool-hens,
sage-hens, and prairie-chickens. The bear and wolf our people recognized
at once. The bison they called a buffalo, which was no worse than the
way in which in Europe the Old World bison was called an aurochs. The
American true elk and reindeer were rechristened moose and
caribou—excellent names, by the way, derived from the Indian. The huge
stag was called an elk. The extraordinary antelope of the high Western
peaks was christened the white goat; not unnaturally, as it has a most
goatlike look. The prongbuck of the plains, an animal standing entirely
alone among ruminants, was simply called antelope. Even when we invented
names for ourselves, we applied them loosely. The ordinary deer is
sometimes known as the red deer, sometimes as the Virginia deer, and
sometimes as the whitetail deer—the last being by far the best and most
distinctive term.

In the present condition of zoological research it is not possible to
state accurately how many “species” of deer and sheep there are in North
America, both because mammalogists have not at hand a sufficient amount
of material in the way of large series of specimens from different
localities, and because they are not agreed among themselves as to the
value of “species,” or indeed as to exactly what is denoted by the term.
Of course, if we had a complete series of specimens of extinct and
fossil deer before us, there would be a perfect intergradation among all
the existing forms through their long-vanished ancestral types, as the
existing gaps have been created by the extinction and transformation of
those former types. Where the gap is very broad and well marked no
difficulty exists in using terms which shall express the difference.
Thus the gap separating the moose, the caribou, and the wapiti from one
another, and from the smaller American deer, is so wide, and there is so
complete a lack of transitional forms, that the differences among them
are expressed by naturalists by the use of different generic terms. The
gap between the whitetail and the different forms of blacktail, though
much less, is also clearly marked. But when we come to consider the
blacktail among themselves, we find two very distinct types which yet
show a certain tendency to intergrade; and with the whitetail very wide
differences exist, even in the United States, both individually among
the deer of certain localities, and also as between all the deer of one
locality when compared with all the deer of another. Our present
knowledge of the various forms hardly justifies us in dogmatizing as to
their exact relative worth; and even if our knowledge was more complete,
naturalists are as yet wholly at variance as to the laws which should
govern specific nomenclature. However, the hunter, the mere field
naturalist, and the lover of outdoor life, are only secondarily
interested in the niceness of these distinctions.

In addition to being a true sportsman and not a game butcher, in
addition to being a humane man as well as keen-eyed, strong-limbed, and
stout-hearted, the big game hunter should be a field naturalist. If
possible, he should be an adept with the camera; and hunting with the
camera will tax his skill far more than hunting with the rifle, while
the results in the long run give much greater satisfaction. Wherever
possible he should keep a note-book, and should carefully study and
record the habits of the wild creatures, especially when in some remote
regions to which trained scientific observers but rarely have access. If
we could only produce a hunter who would do for American big game what
John Burroughs has done for the smaller wild life of hedgerow and
orchard, farm and garden and grove, we should indeed be fortunate. Yet
even though a man does not possess the literary faculty and the powers
of trained observation necessary for such a task, he can do his part
toward adding to our information by keeping careful notes of all the
important facts which he comes across. Such note-books would show the
changed habits of game with the changed seasons, their abundance at
different times and different places, the melancholy data of their
disappearance, the pleasanter facts as to their change of habits which
enable them to continue to exist in the land, and, in short, all their
traits. A real and lasting service would thereby be rendered not only to
naturalists, but to all who care for nature.

Along the Little Missouri there have been several curious changes in the
fauna within my own knowledge. Thus magpies have greatly decreased in
numbers. This is, I believe, owing to the wolf hunters, for magpies
often come around carcasses and pick up poisoned baits. I have seen as
many as seven lying dead around a bait. They are much less plentiful
than they formerly were. In 1894 I was rather surprised at meeting a
porcupine, usually a beast of the timber, at least twenty miles from
trees. He was grubbing after sage-brush roots on the edge of a cut bank
by a half-dried creek. I was stalking an antelope at the time, and
stopped to watch him for about five minutes. He paid no heed to me,
though I was within three or four paces of him. Porcupines are easily
exterminated; and they have diminished in numbers in this neighborhood.
Both the lucivee, or northern lynx, and the wolverene have been found on
the Little Missouri, near the Kildeer Mountains, but I do not know of a
specimen of either that has been killed there for some years past.
Bobcats are still not uncommon. The blackfooted ferret was always rare,
and is rare now. But few beaver are left; they were very abundant in
1880, but were speedily trapped out when the Indians vanished and the
Northern Pacific Railroad was built. While this railroad was building,
the beaver frequently caused much trouble by industriously damming the
culverts.

With us the first animal to disappear was the buffalo. In the old days,
say from 1870 to 1880, the buffalo were probably the most abundant of
all animals along the Little Missouri in the region that I know,
ranging, say, from Pretty Buttes to the Kildeer Mountains. They were
migratory, and at times almost all of them might leave; but, on the
whole, they were the most abundant of the game animals. In 1881 they
were still almost as numerous as ever. In 1883 all were killed but a few
stragglers, and the last of these stragglers that I heard of as seen in
our immediate neighborhood was in 1885. The second game animal in point
of abundance was the blacktail. It did not go out on the prairies, but
in the broken country adjoining the river it was far more plentiful than
any other kind of game. Blacktail were not much slaughtered until the
buffalo began to give out, say in 1882; but by 1896 they were not a
twentieth—probably not a fiftieth—as plentiful as they had been in 1882.
A few are still found in out-of-the-way places, where the ground is very
rough. Elk were plentiful in 1880, though never anything like as
abundant as the buffalo and the blacktail. Only straggling parties or
individuals have been seen since 1883. The last I shot near my ranch was
in 1886; but two or three have been shot since, and a cow and calf were
seen, chased and almost roped by the riders on the round-up in the fall
of 1892. Whitetail were never as numerous as the other game, but they
held their own better, and a few can be shot yet. In 1883 probably
twenty blacktail were killed for every one whitetail; in 1896 the
numbers were about equal. Antelope were plentiful in the old days,
though not nearly so much so as the buffalo and blacktail. The hunters
did not molest them while the buffalo and elk lasted, and they then
turned their attention to the blacktail. For some years after 1883 I
think the pronghorn in our neighborhood positively increased in numbers.
In 1886 I thought them more plentiful than I had ever known them before.
Then they decreased; after 1893 the decrease was rapid. A few still
remain. Mountain sheep were never very plentiful, and decreased
proportionately with less rapidity than any other game; but they are now
almost exterminated. Bears likewise were never plentiful, and cougars
were always scarce.

There were two stages of hunting in this country, as in almost all other
countries similarly situated. In 1880 the Northern Pacific Railroad was
built nearly to the edge of the Bad Lands, and the danger of Indian war
was totally eliminated. A great inrush of hunters followed. In 1881,
1882 and 1883 buffalo, elk and blacktail were slaughtered in enormous
numbers, and a good many whitetail and prongbuck were killed too. By
1884 the game had been so thinned out that hide-hunting and meat-hunting
ceased to pay. A few professional hunters remained, but most of them
moved elsewhere, or were obliged to go into other business. From that
time the hunting has chiefly been done by ranchers and occasional small
grangers. In consequence, for six or eight years the game about held its
own—the antelope, as I have said above, at one time increasing; but the
gradual growth in the number of actual settlers then began to tell, and
the game became scarce. Nowadays settlers along the Little Missouri can
kill an occasional deer or antelope; but it can hardly be called a game
country.




                               CHAPTER VI
                           THE WHITETAIL DEER


The whitetail deer is now, as it always has been, the most plentiful and
most widely distributed of American big game. It holds its own in the
land better than any other species, because it is by choice a dweller in
the thick forests and swamps, the places around which the tide of
civilization flows, leaving them as islets of refuge for the wild
creatures which formerly haunted all the country. The range of the
whitetail is from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Canadian to
the Mexican borders, and somewhat to the north and far to the south of
these limits. The animal shows a wide variability, both individually and
locally, within these confines; from the hunter’s standpoint it is not
necessary to try to determine exactly the weight that attaches to these
local variations.

There is also a very considerable variation in habits. As compared with
the mule-deer, the whitetail is not a lover of the mountains. As
compared with the prongbuck, it is not a lover of the treeless plains.
Yet in the Alleghanies and the Adirondacks, at certain seasons
especially, and in some places at all seasons, it dwells high among the
densely wooded mountains, wandering over their crests and sheer sides,
and through the deep ravines; while in the old days there were parts of
Texas and the Indian Territory where it was found in great herds far out
on the prairie. Moreover, the peculiar nature of its chosen habitat,
while generally enabling it to resist the onslaught of man longer than
any of its fellows, sometimes exposes it to speedy extermination. To the
westward of the rich bottom-lands and low prairies of the Mississippi
Valley proper, when the dry plains country is reached, the natural
conditions are much less favorable for whitetail than for other big
game. The black bear, which in the East has almost precisely the same
habitat as the whitetail, disappears entirely on the great plains, and
reappears in the Rockies in regions which the whitetail does not reach.
All over the great plains, into the foothills of the Rockies, the
whitetail is found, but only in the thick timber of the river bottoms.
Throughout the regions of the Upper Missouri and Upper Platte, the Big
Horn, Powder, Yellowstone, and Cheyenne, over all of which I have
hunted, the whitetail lives among the cottonwood groves and dense brush
growth that fringe the river beds and here and there extend some
distance up the mouths of the large creeks. In these places the
whitetail and the mule-deer may exist in close proximity; but normally
neither invades the haunts of the other.

Along the ordinary plains river, such as the Little Missouri, where I
ranched for many years, there are three entirely different types of
country through which a man passes as he travels away from the bed of
the river. There is first the alluvial river bottom covered with
cottonwood and box-elder, together with thick brush. These bottoms may
be a mile or two across, or they may shrink to but a few score yards.
After the extermination of the wapiti, which roamed everywhere, the only
big game animal found in them was the whitetail deer. Beyond this level
alluvial bottom the ground changes abruptly to bare, rugged hills or
fantastically carved and shaped Bad Lands rising on either side of the
river, the ravines, coulees, creeks, and canyons twisting through them
in every direction. Here there are patches of ash, cedar, pine, and
occasionally other trees, but the country is very rugged, and the cover
very scanty. This is the home of the mule-deer, and, in the roughest and
wildest parts, of the bighorn. The absolutely clear and sharply defined
line of demarkation between this rough, hilly country, flanking the
river, and the alluvial river bottom, serves as an equally clearly
marked line of demarkation between the ranges of the whitetail and the
mule-deer. This belt of broken country may be only a few hundred yards
in width; or it may extend for a score of miles before it changes into
the open prairies, the high plains proper. As soon as these are reached,
the prongbuck’s domain begins.

As the plains country is passed, and the vast stretches of mountainous
region entered, the river bottoms become narrower, and the plains on
which the prongbuck is found become of very limited extent, shrinking to
high valleys and plateaus, while the mass of rugged foothills and
mountains add immensely to the area of the mule-deer’s habitat.

Given equal areas of country, of the three different types alluded to
above, that in which the mule-deer is found offers the greatest chance
of success to the rifle-bearing hunter, because there is enough cover to
shield him and not enough to allow his quarry to escape by stealth and
hiding. On the other hand, the thick river bottoms offer him the
greatest difficulty. In consequence, where the areas of distribution of
the different game animals are about equal, the mule-deer disappears
first before the hunter, the prongbuck next, while the whitetail holds
out the best of all. I saw this frequently on the Yellowstone, the
Powder, and the Little Missouri. When the ranchmen first came into this
country the mule-deer swarmed, and yielded a far more certain harvest to
the hunter than did either the prongbuck or the whitetail. They were the
first to be thinned out, the prongbuck lasting much better. The cowboys
and small ranchmen, most of whom did not at the time have hounds, then
followed the prongbuck; and this, in its turn, was killed out before the
whitetail. But in other places a slight change in the conditions
completely reversed the order of destruction. In parts of Wyoming and
Montana the mountainous region where the mule-deer dwelt was of such
vast extent, and the few river bottoms on which the whitetail were found
were so easily hunted, that the whitetail was completely exterminated
throughout large districts where the mule-deer continued to abound.
Moreover, in these regions the table-lands and plains upon which the
prongbuck was found were limited in extent, and although the prongbuck
outlasted the whitetail, it vanished long before the herds of the
mule-deer had been destroyed from among the neighboring mountains.

The whitetail was originally far less common in the forests of northern
New England than was the moose, for in the deep snows the moose had a
much better chance to escape from its brute foes and to withstand cold
and starvation. But when man appeared upon the scene he followed the
moose so much more eagerly than he followed the deer that the conditions
were reversed and the moose was killed out. The moose thus vanished
entirely from the Adirondacks, and almost entirely from Maine; but the
excellent game laws of the latter State, and the honesty and efficiency
with which they have been executed during the last twenty years, have
resulted in an increase of moose during that time. During the same
period the whitetail deer has increased to an even greater extent. It is
doubtless now more plentiful in New York and New England than it was a
quarter of a century ago. Stragglers are found in Connecticut, and, what
is still more extraordinary, even occasionally come into wild parts of
densely populated little Rhode Island—my authority for the last
statement being Mr. C. Grant La Farge. Of all our wild game, the
whitetail responds most quickly to the efforts for its protection, and
except the wapiti, it thrives best in semi-domestication; in
consequence, it has proved easy to preserve it, even in such places as
Cape Cod in Massachusetts and Long Island in New York; while it has
increased greatly in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, and has more
than held its own in the Adirondacks. Mr. James R. Sheffield, of New
York City, in the summer of 1899, spent several weeks on a fishing trip
through northern Maine. He kept count of the moose and deer he saw, and
came across no less than thirty-five of the former and over five hundred
and sixty of the latter. In the most lonely parts of the forest deer
were found by the score, feeding in broad daylight on the edges of the
ponds. Deer are still plentiful in many parts of the Alleghany
Mountains, from Pennsylvania southward, and also in the swamps and
canebrakes of the South Atlantic and Gulf States.

Where the differences in habitat and climate are so great there are many
changes of habits, and some of them of a noteworthy kind. Mr. John A.
McIlhenny, of Avery’s Island, Louisiana, formerly a lieutenant in my
regiment, lives in what is still a fine game country. His plantation is
in the delta of the Mississippi, among the vast marshes, north of which
lie the wooded swamps. Both the marshes and the swamps were formerly
literally thronged with whitetail deer, and the animals are still
plentiful in them. Mr. McIlhenny has done much deer-hunting, always
using hounds. He informs me that the breeding times are unexpectedly
different from those of the northern deer. In the North, in different
localities, the rut takes place in October or November, and the fawns
are dropped in May or June. In the Louisiana marshes around Avery’s
Island the rut begins early in July and the fawns are dropped in
February. In the swamps immediately north of these marshes the dates are
fully a month later. The marshes are covered with tall reeds and grass
and broken by bayous, while there are scattered over them what are
called “islands” of firmer ground overgrown with timber. In this
locality the deer live in the same neighborhood all the year round, just
as, for instance, they do on Long Island. So on the Little Missouri, in
the neighborhood of my ranch, they lived in exactly the same localities
throughout the entire year. Occasionally they would shift from one river
bottom to another, or go a few miles up or down stream because of
scarcity of food. But there was no general shifting.

On the Little Missouri, in one place where they were not molested, I
knew a particular doe and fawn with whose habits I became quite
intimately acquainted. When the moon was full they fed chiefly by night,
and spent most of the day lying in the thick brush. When there was
little or no moon they would begin to feed early in the morning, then
take a siesta, and then—what struck me as most curious of all—would go
to a little willow-bordered pool about noon to drink, feeding for some
time both before and after drinking. After another siesta they would
come out late in the afternoon and feed until dark.

In the Adirondacks the deer often completely alter their habits at
different seasons. Soon after the fawns are born they come down to the
water’s edge, preferring the neighborhood of the lakes, but also
haunting the stream banks. The next three months, during the hot
weather, they keep very close to the water, and get a large proportion
of their food by wading in after the lilies and other aquatic plants.
Where they are much hunted, they only come to the water’s edge after
dark, but in regions where they are little disturbed they are quite as
often diurnal in their habits. I have seen dozens feeding in the
neighborhood of a lake, some of them two or three hundred yards out in
shallow places, up to their bellies; and this after sunrise, or two or
three hours before sunset. Before September the deer cease coming to the
water, and go back among the dense forests and on the mountains. There
is no genuine migration, as in the case of the mule-deer, from one big
tract to another, and no entire desertion of any locality. But the food
supply which drew the animals to the water’s edge during the summer
months shows signs of exhaustion toward fall; the delicate water-plants
have vanished, the marsh-grass is dying, and the lilies are less
succulent. An occasional deer still wanders along the shores or out into
the lake, but most of them begin to roam the woods, eating the berries
and the leaves and twig ends of the deciduous trees, and even of some of
the conifers—although a whitetail is fond of grazing, especially upon
the tips of the grass. I have seen moose feeding on the tough old lily
stems and wading after them when the ice had skimmed the edges of the
pool. But the whitetail has usually gone back into the woods long before
freezing-time.

From Long Island south there is not enough snow to make the deer alter
their habits in the winter. As soon as the rut is over, which in
different localities may be from October to December, whitetail are apt
to band together—more apt than at any other season, although even then
they are often found singly or in small parties. While nursing, the does
have been thin, and at the end of the rut the bucks are gaunt, with
their necks swollen and distended. From that time on bucks and does
alike put on flesh very rapidly in preparation for the winter. Where
there is no snow, or not enough to interfere with their travelling, they
continue to roam anywhere through the woods and across the natural
pastures and meadows, eating twigs, buds, nuts, and the natural hay
which is cured on the stalk.

In the Northern woods they form yards during the winter. These yards are
generally found in a hardwood growth which offers a supply of winter
food, and consist simply of a tangle of winding trails beaten out
through the snow by the incessant passing and repassing of the animal.
The yard merely enables the deer to move along the various paths in
order to obtain food. If there are many deer together, the yards may
connect by interlacing paths, so that a deer can run a considerable
distance through them. Often, however, each deer will yard by itself, as
food is the prime consideration, and a given locality may only have
enough to support a single animal. When the snows grow deep the deer is
wholly unable to move, once the yard is left, and hence it is absolutely
at the mercy of a man on snowshoes, or of a cougar or a wolf, if found
at such times. The man on snowshoes can move very comfortably; and the
cougar and the wolf, although hampered by the snow, are not rendered
helpless like the deer. I have myself scared a deer out of a yard, and
seen it flounder helplessly in a great drift before it had gone thirty
rods. When I came up close it ploughed its way a very short distance
through the drifts, making tremendous leaps. But as the snow was over
six feet deep, so that the deer sank below the level of the surface at
each jump, and yet could not get its feet on the solid ground, it became
so exhausted that it fell over on its side and bleated in terror as I
came up. After looking at it I passed on. Hide-hunters and frontier
settlers sometimes go out after the deer on snowshoes when there is a
crust, and hence this method of killing is called crusting. It is simple
butchery, for the deer cannot, as the moose does, cause its pursuer a
chase which may last days. No self-respecting man would follow this
method of hunting save from the necessity of having meat.

In very wild localities deer sometimes yard on the ice along the edges
of lakes, eating off all the twigs and branches, whether of hardwood
trees or of conifers, which they can reach.

At the beginning of the rut the does flee from the bucks, which follow
them by scent at full speed. The whitetail buck rarely tries to form a
herd of does, though he will sometimes gather two or three. The mere
fact that his tactics necessitate a long and arduous chase after each
individual doe prevents his organizing herds as the wapiti bull does.
Sometimes two or three bucks will be found strung out one behind the
other, following the same doe. The bucks wage desperate battle among
themselves during this season, coming together with a clash, and then
pushing and straining for an hour or two at a time, with their mouths
open, until the weakest gives way. As soon as one abandons the fight he
flees with all possible speed, and usually escapes unscathed. While head
to head there is no opportunity for a disabling thrust, but if, in the
effort to retreat, the beaten buck gets caught, he may be killed. Owing
to the character of the antlers, whitetail bucks are peculiarly apt to
get them interlocked in such a fight, and if the efforts of the two
beasts fail to disentangle them, both ultimately perish by starvation. I
have several times come across a pair of skulls with interlocked
antlers. The same thing occurs, though far less frequently, to the
mule-deer and even the wapiti.

The whitetail is the most beautiful and graceful of all our game animals
when in motion. I have never been able to agree with Judge Caton that
the mule-deer is clumsy and awkward in his gait. I suppose all such
terms are relative. Compared to the moose or caribou the mule-deer is
light and quick in his movements, and to me there is something very
attractive in the poise and power with which one of the great bucks
bounds off, all four legs striking the earth together and shooting the
body upward and forward as if they were steel springs. But there can be
no question as to the infinitely superior grace and beauty of the
whitetail when he either trots or runs. The mule-deer and blacktail
bound, as already described. The prongbuck gallops with an even gait,
and so does the bighorn, when it happens to be caught on a flat; but the
whitetail moves with an indescribable spring and buoyancy. If surprised
close up, and much terrified, it simply runs away as hard as it can, at
a gait not materially different from that of any other game animal under
like circumstances, while its head is thrust forward and held down, and
the tail is raised perpendicularly. But normally its mode of
progression, whether it trots or gallops, is entirely unique. In
trotting, the head and tail are both held erect, and the animal throws
out its legs with a singularly proud and free motion, bringing the feet
well up, while at every step there is an indescribable spring. In the
canter or gallop the head and tail are also held erect, the flashing
white brush being very conspicuous. Three or four low, long,
marvellously springy bounds are taken, and then a great leap is made
high in the air, which is succeeded by three or four low bounds, and
then by another high leap. A whitetail going through the brush in this
manner is a singularly beautiful sight. It has been my experience that
they are not usually very much frightened by an ordinary slow
track-hound, and I have seen a buck play along in front of one,
alternately trotting and cantering, head and flag up, and evidently
feeling very little fear.

To my mind the chase of the whitetail, as it must usually be carried on,
offers less attraction than the chase of any other kind of our large
game. But this is a mere matter of taste, and such men as Judge Caton
and Mr. George Bird Grinnell have placed it above all others as a game
animal. Personally I feel that the chase of any animal has in it two
chief elements of attraction. The first is the chance given to be in the
wilderness; to see the sights and hear the sounds of wild nature. The
second is the demand made by the particular kind of chase upon the
qualities of manliness and hardihood. As regards the first, some kinds
of game, of course, lead the hunter into particularly remote and wild
localities; and the farther one gets into the wilderness, the greater is
the attraction of its lonely freedom. Yet to camp out at all implies
some measure of this delight. The keen, fresh air, the breath of the
pine forests, the glassy stillness of the lake at sunset, the glory of
sunrise among the mountains, the shimmer of the endless prairies, the
ceaseless rustle of the cottonwood leaves where the wagon is drawn up on
the low bluff of the shrunken river—all these appeal intensely to any
man, no matter what may be the game he happens to be following. But
there is a wide variation, and indeed contrast, in the qualities called
for in the chase itself, according as one quarry or another is sought.

The qualities that make a good soldier are, in large part, the qualities
that make a good hunter. Most important of all is the ability to shift
for one’s self, the mixture of hardihood and resourcefulness which
enables a man to tramp all day in the right direction, and, when night
comes, to make the best of whatever opportunities for shelter and warmth
may be at hand. Skill in the use of the rifle is another trait;
quickness in seeing game, another; ability to take advantage of cover,
yet another; while patience, endurance, keenness of observation,
resolution, good nerves, and instant readiness in an emergency, are all
indispensable to a really good hunter.

If a man lives on a ranch, or is passing some weeks in a lodge in a game
country, and starts out for two or three days, he will often do well to
carry nothing whatever but a blanket, a frying-pan, some salt pork, and
some hardtack. If the hunting-ground is such that he can use a wagon or
a canoe, and the trip is not to be too long, he can carry about anything
he chooses, including a tent, any amount of bedding, and if it is very
cold, a small, portable stove, not to speak of elaborate cooking
apparatus. If he goes with a pack-train, he will also be able to carry a
good deal; but in such a case he must rely on the judgment of the
trained packers, unless he is himself an expert in the diamond hitch. If
it becomes necessary to go on foot for any length of time, he must be
prepared to do genuine roughing, and must get along with the minimum of
absolute necessities.

It is hardly necessary to point out that the hunter worthy of the name
should be prepared to shift for himself in emergencies. A ranchman, or
any other man whose business takes him much in the mountains and out on
the great plains or among the forests, ought to be able to get along
entirely on his own account. But this cannot usually be done by those
whose existence is habitually more artificial. When a man who normally
lives a rather over-civilized life, an over-luxurious life—especially in
the great cities—gets off for a few weeks’ hunting, he cannot expect to
accomplish much in the way of getting game without calling upon the
services of a trained guide, woodsman, plainsman, or mountain man, whose
life-work it has been to make himself an adept in all the craft of the
wilderness. Until a man unused to wilderness life, even though a good
sportsman, has actually tried it, he has no idea of the difficulties and
hardships of shifting absolutely for himself, even for only two or three
days. Not only will the local guide have the necessary knowledge as to
precisely which one of two seemingly similar places is most apt to
contain game; not only will he possess the skill in packing horses, or
handling a canoe in rough water, or finding his way through the
wilderness, which the amateur must lack; but even the things which the
amateur does, the professional will do so much more easily and rapidly,
as in the one case to leave, and in the other case not to leave, ample
time for the hunting proper. Therefore the ordinary amateur sportsman,
especially if he lives in a city, must count upon the services of
trained men, possibly to help him in hunting, certainly to help him in
travelling, cooking, pitching camp, and the like; and this he must do,
if he expects to get good sport, no matter how hardy he may be, and no
matter how just may be the pride he ought to take in his own craft,
skill, and capacity to undergo fatigue and exposure. But while normally
he must take advantage of the powers of others, he should certainly make
a point of being able to shift for himself whenever the need arises; and
he can only be sure of possessing this capacity by occasionally
exercising it. It ought to be unnecessary to point out that the
wilderness is not a place for those who are dependent upon luxuries, and
above all for those who make a camping trip an excuse for debauchery.
Neither the man who wants to take a French cook and champagne on a
hunting trip, nor his equally objectionable though less wealthy brother
who is chiefly concerned with filling and emptying a large whiskey jug,
has any place whatever in the real life of the wilderness.

The chase of an animal should rank according as it calls for the
exercise in a high degree of a large number of these qualities. The
grizzly is almost our only dangerous game, and under certain conditions
shooting the grizzly calls for considerable courage on the part of the
hunter. Disregarding these comparatively rare occasions, the chase of
mountain game, especially the bighorn, demands more hardihood, power of
endurance, and moral and physical soundness than any other kind of
sport, and so must come first. The wapiti and mule-deer rank next, for
they too must be killed by stalking as a result of long tramps over very
rough ground. To kill a moose by still hunting is a feat requiring a
high degree of skill, and entailing severe fatigue. When game is
followed on horseback, it means that the successful hunter must ride
well and boldly.

The whitetail is occasionally found where it yields a very high quality
of sport. But normally it lives in regions where it is extremely
difficult to kill it legitimately, as the wapiti and mule-deer are
killed, and yet comparatively easy to kill it under circumstances which
make no demand for any particular prowess on the part of the hunter. It
is far more difficult to still hunt successfully in the dense brushy
timber frequented by the whitetail than in the open glades, the
mountains, and the rocky hills, through which the wapiti and mule-deer
wander. The difficulty arises, however, because the chief requirement is
stealth, noiselessness. The man who goes out into the hills for a
mule-deer must walk hard and far, must be able to bear fatigue, and
possibly thirst and hunger, must have keen eyes, and be a good shot. He
does not need to display the extraordinary power of stealthy advance
which is necessary to the man who would creep up to and kill a whitetail
in thick timber. Now, the qualities of hardihood and endurance are
better than the quality of stealth, and though all three are necessary
in both kinds of chase, yet it is the chase of the mule-deer which most
develops the former, and the chase of the whitetail which most develops
the latter. When the woods are bare and there is some snow on the
ground, however, still hunting the whitetail becomes not only possible,
but a singularly manly and attractive kind of sport. Where the whitetail
can be followed with horse and hound, the sport is also of a very high
order. To be able to ride through woods and over rough country at full
speed, rifle or shotgun in hand, and then to leap off and shoot at a
running object, is to show that one has the qualities which made the
cavalry of Forrest so formidable in the Civil War. There could be no
better training for the mounted rifleman, the most efficient type of
modern soldier.

By far the easiest way to kill the whitetail is in one or other of
certain methods which entail very little work or skill on the part of
the hunter. The most noxious of these, crusting in the deep snows, has
already been spoken of. No sportsman worthy of the name would ever
follow so butcherly a method. Fire hunting must also normally be ruled
out. It is always mere murder if carried on by a man who sits up at a
lick, and is not much better where the hunter walks through the
fields—not to mention the fact that on such a walk he is quite as apt to
kill stock as to kill a deer. But fire hunting from a boat, or jacking,
as it is called, though it entails absolutely no skill in the hunter,
and though it is, and ought to be, forbidden, as it can best be carried
on at the season when nursing does are particularly apt to be the
victims, nevertheless has a certain charm of its own. The first deer I
ever killed, when a boy, was obtained in this way, and I have always
been glad to have had the experience, though I have never been willing
to repeat it. I was at the time camped out in the Adirondacks.

Two or three of us, all boys of fifteen or sixteen, had been enjoying
what was practically our first experience in camping out, having gone
out with two guides, Hank Martin and Mose Sawyer, from Paul Smith’s on
Lake St. Regis. My brother and cousin were fond of fishing and I was
not, so I was deputed to try to bring in a deer. I had a
double-barrelled 12–bore gun, French pinfire, with which I had
industriously collected “specimens” on a trip to Egypt and Palestine and
on Long Island; except for three or four enthralling but not
over-successful days after woodcock and quail, I had done no game
shooting. As to every healthy boy with a taste for outdoor life, the
Northern forests were to me a veritable land of enchantment. We were
encamped by a stream among the tall pines, and I had enjoyed everything;
poling and paddling the boat, tramping through the woods, the cries of
chickaree and chipmunk, of jay, woodpecker, chickadee, nuthatch, and
cross-bill, which broke the forest stillness; and, above all, the great
reaches of sombre woodland themselves. The heart-shaped footprints which
showed where the deer had come down to drink and feed on the marshy
edges of the water made my veins thrill; and the nights around the
flickering camp-fire seemed filled with romance.

My first experiment in jacking was a failure. The jack, a bark lantern,
was placed upon a stick in the bow of the boat, and I sat in a cramped
huddle behind it, while Mose Sawyer plied the paddle with noiseless
strength and skill in the stern. I proved unable to respond even to the
very small demand made upon me, for when we actually did come upon a
deer I failed to see it until it ran, when I missed it; and on the way
back capped my misfortune by shooting a large owl which perched on a log
projecting into the water, looking at the lantern with two glaring eyes.

All next day I was miserably conscious of the smothered disfavor of my
associates, and when night fell was told I would have another chance to
redeem myself. This time we started across a carry, the guide carrying
the light boat, and launched it in a quiet little pond about a mile off.
Dusk was just turning into darkness when we reached the edge of the
little lake, which was perhaps a mile long by three-quarters of a mile
across, with indented shores. We did not push off for half an hour or
so, until it was entirely dark; and then for a couple of hours we saw no
deer. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the ghostly, mysterious,
absolutely silent night ride over the water. Not the faintest splash
betrayed the work of the paddler. The boat glided stealthily alongshore,
the glare of the lantern bringing out for one moment every detail of the
forest growth on the banks, which the next second vanished into absolute
blackness. Several times we saw muskrats swimming across the lane of
light cut by the lantern through the darkness, and two or three times
their sudden plunging and splashing caused my heart to leap. Once when
we crossed the lake we came upon a loon floating buoyantly right out in
the middle of it. It stayed until we were within ten yards, so that I
could see the minute outlines of the feathers and every movement of the
eye. Then it swam off, but made no cry. At last, while crossing the
mouth of a bay we heard a splashing sound among the lilies inshore,
which even my untrained ears recognized as different from any of the
other noises we had yet heard, and a jarring motion of the paddle showed
that the paddler wished me to be on the alert. Without any warning, the
course of the boat was suddenly changed, and I was aware that we were
moving stern foremost. Then we swung around, and I could soon make out
that we were going down the little bay. The forest-covered banks
narrowed; then the marsh at the end was lighted up, and on its hither
edge, knee-deep among the water-lilies, appeared the figure of a
yearling buck still in the red. It stood motionless, gazing at the light
with a curiosity wholly unmixed with alarm, and at the shot wheeled and
fell at the water’s edge. We made up our mind to return to camp that
night, as it was before midnight. I carried the buck and the torch, and
the guide the boat, and the mile walk over the dim trail, occasionally
pitching forward across a stump or root, was a thing to be remembered.
It was my first deer, and I was very glad to get it; but although only a
boy, I had sense enough to realize that it was not an experience worth
repeating. The paddler in such a case deserves considerable credit, but
the shooter not a particle, even aside from the fact to which I have
already alluded, that in too many cases such shooting results in the
killing of nursing does. No matter how young a sportsman is, if he has a
healthy mind, he will not long take pleasure in any method of hunting in
which somebody else shows the skill and does the work so that his share
is only nominal. The minute that sport is carried on on these terms it
becomes a sham, and a sham is always detrimental to all who take part in
it.

Whitetail are comparatively easily killed with hounds, and there are
very many places where this is almost the only way they can be killed at
all. Formerly in the Adirondacks this method of hunting was carried on
under circumstances which rendered those who took part in it objects of
deserved contempt. The sportsman stood in a boat while his guides put
out one or two hounds in the chosen forest side. After a longer or
shorter run the deer took to the water; for whitetail are excellent
swimmers, and when pursued by hounds try to shake them off by wading up
or down stream or by swimming across a pond, and, if tired, come to bay
in some pool or rapid. Once the unfortunate deer was in the water, the
guide rowed the boat after it. If it was yet early in the season, and
the deer was still in the red summer coat, it would sink when shot, and
therefore the guide would usually take hold of its tail before the
would-be Nimrod butchered it. If the deer was in the blue, the carcass
would float, so it was not necessary to do anything quite so palpably
absurd. But such sport, so far as the man who did the shooting was
concerned, had not one redeeming feature. The use of hounds has now been
prohibited by law.

In regions where there are no lakes, and where the woods are thick, the
shooters are stationed at runways by which it is supposed the deer may
pass when the hounds are after them. Under such circumstances the man
has to show the skill requisite to hit the running quarry, and if he
uses the rifle, this means that he must possess a certain amount of
address in handling the weapon. But no other quality is called for, and
so even this method, though often the only possible one (and it may be
necessary to return to it in the Adirondacks), can never rank high in
the eyes of men who properly appreciate what big game hunting should be.
It is the usual method of killing deer on Long Island, during the three
or four days of each year when they can be legally hunted. The deer are
found along the south and centre of the eastern half of the island; they
were nearly exterminated a dozen years ago, but under good laws they
have recently increased greatly. The extensive grounds of the various
sportsmen’s clubs, and the forests of scrub-oak in the sparsely settled
inland region, give them good harbors and sanctuaries. On the days when
it is legal to shoot them, hundreds of hunters turn out from the
neighborhood, and indeed from all the island and from New York. On such
a day it is almost impossible to get any work done; for the sport is
most democratic, and is shared by everybody. The hunters choose their
position before dawn, lying in lines wherever deer are likely to pass,
while the hounds are turned into every patch of thick cover. A most
lively day follows, the fusillade being terrific; some men are
invariably shot, and a goodly number of deer are killed, mostly by wily
old hunters who kill ducks and quail for a living in the fall.

When the horse is used together with the hounds the conditions are
changed. To ride a horse over rough country after game always implies
hardihood and good horsemanship, and therefore makes the sport a worthy
one. In very open country—in such country, for instance, as the
whitetail formerly frequented both in Texas and the Indian Territory—the
horseman could ride at the tail of the pack until the deer was fairly
run down. But nowadays I know of no place where this is possible, for
the whitetail’s haunts are such as to make it impracticable for any
rider to keep directly behind the hounds. What he must do is to try to
cut the game off by riding from point to point. He then leaps off the
horse and watches his chance for a shot. This is the way in which Mr.
McIlhenny has done most of his deer-hunting, in the neighborhood of his
Louisiana plantation.

Around my ranch I very rarely tried to still-hunt whitetail, because it
was always easier to get mule-deer or prongbuck, if I had time to go off
for an all-day’s hunt. Occasionally, however, we would have at the ranch
hounds, usually of the old black-and-tan Southern type, and then if we
needed meat, and there was not time for a hunt back in the hills, we
would turn out and hunt one or two of the river bottoms with these
hounds. If I rode off to the prairies or the hills I went alone, but if
the quarry was a whitetail, our chance of success depended upon our
having a sufficient number of guns to watch the different passes and
runways. Accordingly, my own share of the chase was usually limited to
the fun of listening to the hounds, and of galloping at headlong speed
from one point where I thought the deer would not pass to some other,
which, as a matter of fact, it did not pass either. The redeeming
feature of the situation was that if I did get a shot, I almost always
got my deer. Under ordinary circumstances to merely wound a deer is
worse than not hitting it; but when there are hounds along they are
certain to bring the wounded animal to bay, and so on these hunts we
usually got venison.

[Illustration:

  ELKHORN RANCH
]

Of course, I occasionally got a whitetail when I was alone, whether with
the hounds or without them. There were whitetail on the very bottom on
which the ranch-house stood, as well as on the bottom opposite, and on
those to the right and left up and down stream. Occasionally I have
taken the hounds out alone, and then as they chevied the whitetail
around the bottom, have endeavored by rapid running on foot or on
horseback to get to some place from which I could obtain a shot. The
deer knew perfectly well that the hounds could not overtake them, and
they would usually do a great deal of sneaking round and round through
the underbrush and cottonwoods before they finally made up their minds
to leave the bottom. On one occasion a buck came sneaking down a game
trail through the buck brush where I stood, going so low that I could
just see the tips of his antlers, and though I made desperate efforts I
was not able to get into a position from which I could obtain a shot. On
another occasion, while I was looking intently into a wood through which
I was certain a deer would pass, it deliberately took to the open ground
behind me, and I did not see it until it was just vanishing. Normally,
the end of my efforts was that the deer went off and the hounds
disappeared after it, not to return for six or eight hours. Once or
twice things favored me; I happened to take the right turn or go in the
right direction, and the deer happened to blunder past me; and then I
returned with venison for supper. Two or three times I shot deer about
nightfall or at dawn, in the immediate neighborhood of the ranch,
obtaining them by sneaking as noiselessly as possible along the cattle
trails through the brush and timber, or by slipping along the edge of
the river bank. Several times I saw deer while I was sitting on the
piazza or on the doorstep of the ranch, and on one occasion I stepped
back into the house, got the rifle, and dropped the animal from where I
stood.

On yet other occasions I obtained whitetail which lived not on the river
bottoms but among the big patches of brush and timber in the larger
creeks. When they were found in such country I hunted them very much as
I hunted the mule-deer, and usually shot one when I was expecting as
much to see a mule-deer as a whitetail. When the game was plentiful I
would often stay on my horse until the moment of obtaining the shot,
especially if it was in the early morning or late evening. My method
then was to ride slowly and quietly down the winding valleys and across
the spurs, hugging the bank, so that, if deer were feeding in the open,
I would get close up before either of us saw the other. Sometimes the
deer would halt for a moment when it saw me, and sometimes it would
bound instantly away. In either case my chance lay in the speed with
which I could jump off the horse and take my shot. Even in favorable
localities this method was of less avail with whitetail than mule-deer,
because the former were so much more apt to skulk.

As soon as game became less plentiful my hunting had to be done on foot.
My object was to be on the hunting-ground by dawn, or else to stay out
there until it grew too dark to see the sights of my rifle. Often all I
did was to keep moving as quietly as possible through likely ground,
ever on the alert for the least trace of game; sometimes I would select
a lookout and carefully scan a likely country to see if I could not
detect something moving. On one occasion I obtained an old whitetail
buck by the simple exercise of patience. I had twice found him in a
broad basin, composed of several coulees, all running down to form the
head of a big creek, and all of them well timbered. He dodged me on both
occasions, and I made up my mind that I would spend a whole day in
watching for him from a little natural ambush of sage-bush and cedar on
a high point which overlooked the entire basin. I crept up to my ambush
with the utmost caution early in the morning, and there I spent the
entire day, with my lunch and a water-bottle, continually scanning the
whole region most carefully with the glasses. The day passed less
monotonously than it sounds, for every now and then I would catch a
glimpse of wild life; once a fox, once a coyote, and once a badger;
while the little chipmunks had a fine time playing all around me. At
last, about mid-afternoon, I suddenly saw the buck come quietly out of
the dense thicket in which he had made his midday bed, and deliberately
walk up a hillside and lie down in a thin clump of ash where the sun
could get at him—for it was in September, just before the rut began.
There was no chance of stalking him in the place he had chosen, and all
I could do was to wait. It was nearly sunset before he moved again,
except that I occasionally saw him turn his head. Then he got up, and
after carefully scrutinizing all the neighborhood, moved down into a
patch of fairly thick brush, where I could see him standing and
occasionally feeding, all the time moving slowly up the valley. I now
slipped most cautiously back and trotted nearly a mile until I could
come up behind one of the ridges bounding the valley in which he was.
The wind had dropped and it was almost absolutely still when I crawled
flat on my face to the crest, my hat in my left hand, my rifle in my
right. There was a big sage-bush conveniently near, and under this I
peered. There was a good deal of brush in the valley below, and if I had
not known that the buck was there, I would never have discovered him. As
it was, I watched for a quarter of an hour, and had about made up my
mind that he must have gone somewhere else, when a slight movement
nearly below me attracted my attention, and I caught a glimpse of him
nearly three hundred yards off, moving quietly along by the side of a
little dry watercourse which was right in the middle of the brush. I
waited until he was well past, and then again slipped back with the
utmost care, and ran on until I was nearly opposite the head of the
coulee, when I again approached the ridge-line. Here there was no
sage-bush, only tufts of tall grass, which were stirring in the little
breeze which had just sprung up, fortunately in the right direction.
Taking advantage of a slight inequality in the soil, I managed to get
behind one of these tufts, and almost immediately saw the buck. Toward
the head of the coulee the brush had become scanty and low, and he was
now walking straight forward, evidently keeping a sharp lookout. The sun
had just set. His course took him past me at a distance of eighty yards.
When directly opposite I raised myself on my elbows, drawing up the
rifle, which I had shoved ahead of me. The movement of course caught his
eye at once; he halted for one second to look around and see what it
was, and during that second I pulled the trigger. Away he went, his
white flag switching desperately, and though he galloped over the hill,
I felt he was mine. However, when I got to the top of the rise over
which he had gone, I could not see him, and as there was a deep though
narrow coulee filled with brush on the other side, I had a very ugly
feeling that I might have lost him, in spite of the quantity of blood he
had left along his trail. It was getting dark, and I plunged quickly
into the coulee. Usually a wounded deer should not be followed until it
has had time to grow stiff, but this was just one of the cases where the
rule would have worked badly; in the first place, because darkness was
coming on, and in the next place, because the animal was certain to die
shortly, and all that I wanted was to see where he was. I followed his
trail into the coulee, and expected to find that he had turned down it,
but a hurried examination in the fading light showed me that he had
taken the opposite course, and I scrambled hastily out on the other
side, and trotted along, staring into the brush, and now and then
shouting or throwing in a clod of earth. When nearly at the head there
was a crackling in the brush, and out burst the wounded buck. He
disappeared behind a clump of elms, but he had a hard hill to go up, and
the effort was too much for him. When I next saw him he had halted, and
before I could fire again down he came.

On another occasion I spied a whole herd of whitetail feeding in a
natural meadow, right out in the open, in mid-afternoon, and was able to
get up so close that when I finally shot a yearling buck (which was one
of the deer farthest away from me, there being no big buck in the
outfit), the remaining deer, all does and fawns, scattered in every
direction, some galloping right past me in their panic. Once or twice I
was able to perform a feat of which I had read, but in which I scarcely
believed. This was, to creep up to a deer while feeding in the open, by
watching when it shook its tail, and then remaining motionless. I cannot
say whether the habit is a universal one, but on two occasions at least
I was able thus to creep up to the feeding deer, because before lifting
its head it invariably shook its tail, thereby warning me to stay
without moving until it had lifted its head, scrutinized the landscape,
and again lowered its head to graze. The eyesight of the whitetail, as
compared with that of the pronghorn antelope, is poor. It notes whatever
is in motion, but it seems unable to distinguish clearly anything that
is not in motion. On the occasions in question no antelope that I have
ever seen would have failed to notice me at once and to take alarm. But
the whitetail, although it scrutinized me narrowly, while I lay
motionless with my head toward it, seemed in each case to think that I
must be harmless, and after a while it would go on feeding. In one
instance the animal fed over a ridge and walked off before I could get a
shot; in the other instance I killed it.

In 1894, on the last day I spent at the ranch, and with the last bullet
I fired from my rifle, I killed a fine whitetail buck. I left the
ranch-house early in the afternoon on my favorite pony, Muley, my
foreman, Sylvane Ferris, riding with me. We forded the shallow river and
rode up a long winding coulee, with belts of timber running down its
bottom. After going a couple of miles, by sheer good luck we stumbled on
three whitetail—a buck, a doe and a fawn. When we saw them they were
trying to sneak off, and immediately my foreman galloped toward one end
of the belt of timber in which they were, and started to ride down
through it, while I ran Muley to the other end to intercept them. They
were, of course, quite likely to break off to one side; but this
happened to be one of the occasions when everything went right. When I
reached the spot from which I covered the exits from the timber, I
leaped off, and immediately afterward heard a shout from my foreman that
told me the deer were on foot. Muley was a pet horse, and enjoyed
immensely the gallop after game; but his nerves invariably failed him at
the shot. On this occasion he stood snorting beside me, and finally, as
the deer came in sight, away he tore—only to go about 200 yards,
however, and stand and watch us, snorting, with his ears pricked forward
until, when I needed him, I went for him. At the moment, however, I paid
no heed to Muley, for a cracking in the brush told me the game was
close, and I caught the shadowy outlines of the doe and the fawn as they
scudded through the timber. By good luck, the buck, evidently flurried,
came right on the edge of the woods next to me, and as he passed,
running like a quarter-horse, I held well ahead of him and pulled
trigger. The bullet broke his neck and down he went—a fine fellow with a
handsome ten-point head, and fat as a prize sheep; for it was just
before the rut. Then we rode home, and I sat in a rocking-chair on the
ranch-house veranda, looking across the wide, sandy river bed at the
strangely shaped buttes and the groves of shimmering cottonwoods until
the sun went down and the frosty air bade me go in.




                              CHAPTER VII
               THE MULE-DEER, OR ROCKY MOUNTAIN BLACKTAIL


This is the largest and finest of our three smaller deer. Throughout its
range it is known as the blacktail deer, and it has as good a historic
claim to the title as its Pacific coast kinsman, the coast or true
blacktail. In writing purely of this species, it seems like pedantry to
call it by its book name of mule-deer, a name which conveys little or no
meaning to the people who live in its haunts and who hunt it; but it is
certainly very confusing to know two distinct types of deer by one name,
and as both the Rocky Mountain blacktail and Coast blacktail are thus
known, and as the former is occasionally known as mule-deer, I shall,
for convenience’ sake, speak of it under this name—a name given it
because of its great ears, which rather detract from its otherwise very
handsome appearance.

The mule-deer is a striking and beautiful animal. As is the case with
our other species, it varies greatly in size, but is on the average
heavier than either the whitetail or the true blacktail. The horns also
average longer and heavier, and in exceptional heads are really
noteworthy trophies. Ordinarily a full-grown buck has a head of ten
distinct and well-developed points, eight of which consist of the
bifurcations of the two main prongs into which each antler divides,
while in addition there are two shorter basal or frontal points. But the
latter are very irregular, being sometimes missing; while sometimes
there are two or three of them on each antler. When missing it usually
means that the antlers are of young animals that have not attained their
full growth. A yearling will sometimes have merely a pair of spikes, and
sometimes each spike will be bifurcated so as to make two points. A
two-year-old may develop antlers which, though small, possess the normal
four points. Occasionally, where unusually big heads are developed,
there are a number of extra points. If these are due to deformity, they
simply take away from the beauty of the head; but where they are
symmetrical, while at the same time the antlers are massive, they add
greatly to the beauty. All the handsomest and largest heads show this
symmetrical development of extra points. It is rather hard to lay down a
hard-and-fast rule for counting them. The largest and finest antlers are
usually rough, and it is not easy to say when a particular point in
roughness has developed so that it may legitimately be called a prong.
The largest head I ever got to my own rifle had twenty-eight points,
symmetrically arranged, the antlers being rough and very massive as well
as very long. The buck was an immense fellow, but no bigger than other
bucks I have shot which possessed ordinary heads.

The mule-deer is found from the rough country which begins along the
eastern edges of the great plains, across the Rocky Mountains to the
eastern slopes of the coast ranges, and into southern California. It
extends into Canada on the north and Mexico on the south. On the west it
touches, and here and there crosses, the boundaries of the Coast
blacktail. The whitetail is found in places throughout its habitat from
east to west and from north to south. But there are great regions in
this territory which are peculiarly fitted for the mule-deer, but in
which the whitetail is never found, as the habits of the two are
entirely different. In the mountains of western Colorado and Wyoming,
for instance, the mule-deer swarms, but the whole region is unfit for
the whitetail, which is accordingly only found in a very few narrowly
restricted localities.

The mule-deer does not hold its own as well as the whitetail in the
presence of man, but it is by no means as quickly exterminated as the
wapiti. The outside limits of its range have not shrunk materially in
the century during which it has been known to white hunters. It was
never found until the fertile, moist country of the Mississippi Valley
was passed and the dry plains region to the west of it reached, and it
still exists in some numbers here and there in this country, as, for
instance, in the Bad Lands along the Little Missouri, and in the Black
Hills. But although its limits of distribution have not very sensibly
diminished, there are large portions of the range within these limits
from which it has practically vanished, and in most places its numbers
have been woefully thinned. It holds its own best among the more
inaccessible mountain masses of the Rockies, and from Chihuahua to
Alberta there are tracts where it is still abundant. Yet even in these
places the numbers are diminishing, and this process can be arrested
only by better laws, and above all, by a better administration of the
law. The national Government could do much by establishing its forest
reserves as game reserves, and putting on a sufficient number of forest
rangers who should be empowered to prevent all hunting on the reserves.
The State governments can do still more. Colorado has good laws, but
they are not well enforced. The easy method of accounting for this fact
is to say that it is due to the politicians; but in reality the
politicians merely represent the wishes, or more commonly the
indifference, of the people. As long as the good citizens of a State are
indifferent to game protection, or take but a tepid interest in it, the
politicians, through their agents, will leave the game laws unenforced.
But if the people of Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana come to feel the
genuine interest in the enforcement of these laws that the people of
Maine and Vermont have grown to take during the past twenty years, that
the people of Montana and Wyoming who dwell alongside the Yellowstone
Park are already taking—then not only will the mule-deer cease to
diminish, but it will positively increase. It is a mistake to suppose
that such a change would only be to the advantage of well-to-do
sportsmen. Men who are interested in hunting for hunting’s sake, men who
come from the great cities remote from the mountains in order to get
three or four weeks’ healthy, manly holiday, would undoubtedly be
benefited; but the greatest benefit would be to the people of the
localities, of the neighborhoods round about. The presence of the game
would attract outsiders who would leave in the country money, or its
equivalent, which would many times surpass in value the game they
actually killed; and furthermore, the preservation of the game would
mean that the ranchmen and grangers who live near its haunts would have
in perpetuity the chance of following the pleasantest and healthiest of
all out-of-door pastimes; whereas, if through their short-sightedness
they destroy, or permit to be destroyed, the game, they are themselves
responsible for the fact that their children and children’s children
will find themselves forever debarred from a pursuit which must under
such circumstances become the amusement only of the very rich. If we are
really alive to our opportunities under our democratic social and
political system, we can keep for ourselves—and by “ourselves” I mean
the enormous bulk of men whose means range from moderate to very
small—ample opportunity for the enjoyment of hunting and shooting, of
vigorous and blood-stirring out-of-doors sport. If we fail to take
advantage of our possibilities, if we fail to pass, in the interest of
all, wise game laws, and to see that these game laws are properly
enforced, we shall then have to thank ourselves if in the future the
game is only found in the game preserves of the wealthy; and under such
circumstances only these same wealthy people will have the chance to
hunt it.

The mule-deer differs widely from the whitetail in its habits, and
especially in its gait, and in the kind of country which it frequents.
Although in many parts of its range it is found side by side with its
whitetail cousin, the two do not actually associate together, and their
propinquity is due simply to the fact, that the river bottoms being a
favorite haunt of the whitetail, long tongues of the distribution area
of this species are thrust into the domain of its bolder, less stealthy
and less crafty kinsman. Throughout the plains country the whitetail is
the deer of the river bottoms, where the rank growth gives it secure
hiding-places, as well as ample food. The mule-deer, on the contrary,
never comes down into the dense growths of the river bottoms. Throughout
the plains country it is the deer of the broken Bad Lands which fringe
these river bottoms on either side, and of the rough ravines which wind
their way through the Bad Lands to the edge of the prairie country which
lies back of them. The broken hills, their gorges filled with patches of
ash, buck brush, cedar, and dwarf pine, form a country in which the
mule-deer revels. The whitetail will, at times, wander far out on the
prairies where the grass is tall and rank; but it is not nearly so bold
or fond of the open as the mule-deer. The latter is frequently found in
hilly country where the covering is so scanty that the animal must be
perpetually on the watch, as if it were a bighorn or prongbuck, in order
to spy its foes at a distance and escape before they can come near;
whereas the whitetail usually seeks to elude observation by hiding—by
its crouching, stealthy habits.

It must be remembered, however, that with the mule-deer, as with all
other species of animals, there is a wide variability in habits under
different conditions. This is often forgotten even by trained
naturalists, who accept the observations made in one locality as if they
applied throughout the range of the species. Thus in the generally good
account of the habits of this species in Mr. Lydeker’s book on the “Deer
of All Lands” it is asserted that mule-deer never dwell permanently in
the forest, and feed almost exclusively on grass. The first statement is
entirely, the second only partly, true of the mule-deer of the plains
from the Little Missouri westward to the headwaters of the Platte, the
Yellowstone, and the Big Horn; but there are large parts of the Rockies
in which neither statement applies at all. In the course of several
hunting trips among the densely wooded mountains of western Montana,
along the water-shed separating the streams that flow into Clarke’s Fork
of the Columbia from those that ultimately empty into Kootenay Lake, I
found the mule-deer plentiful in many places where practically the whole
country was covered by dense forest, and where the opportunities for
grazing were small indeed, as we found to our cost in connection with
our pack-train. In this region the mule-deer lived the entire time among
the timber, and subsisted for the most part on browse. Occasionally they
would find an open glade and graze; but the stomachs of those killed
contained not grass, but blueberries and the leaves and delicate tips of
bushes. I was not in this country in winter, but it was evident that
even at that season the deer must spend their time in the thick timber.
There was no chance for them to go above the timber line, because the
mountains were densely wooded to their summits, and the white goats of
the locality also lived permanently in the timber.[3] It was far harder
to get the mule-deer than it was to get the white goats, for the latter
were infinitely more conspicuous, were slower in their movements, and
bolder and less shy. Almost the only way we succeeded in killing the
deer was by finding one of their well-trodden paths and lying in wait
beside it very early in the morning or quite late in the afternoon. The
season was August and September, and the deer were astir long before
sunset. They usually, but not always, lay high up on the mountain-sides,
and while they sometimes wandered to and fro browsing on the mountains,
they often came down to feed in the valleys, where the berries were
thicker. Their paths were well beaten, although, like all game trails,
after being as plainly marked as a pony track for a quarter of a mile or
so, they would suddenly grow faint and vanish. The paths ran nearly
straight up and down hill, and even when entirely undisturbed, the deer
often came down them at a great rate, bouncing along in a way that
showed that they had no fear of developing the sprung knees which we
should fear for a domestic animal which habitually tried the same
experiment.

Footnote 3:

  I call particular attention to this fact concerning the white goat, as
  certain recent writers, including Mr. Madison Grant, have erroneously
  denied it.

In other habits also the deer vary widely in different localities. For
instance, there is an absolute contrast as regards their migratory
habits between the mule-deer which live in the Bad Lands along the
Little Missouri, and those which live in northwestern Colorado; and this
difference is characteristic generally of the deer which in the summer
dwell in the high mountains, as contrasted with those which bear and
rear their young in the low, broken hill-country. Along the Little
Missouri there was no regular or clearly defined migration of the
mule-deer in a mass. Some individuals, or groups of individuals, shifted
their quarters for a few miles, so that in the spring, for instance, a
particular district of a few square miles, in which they had been
abundant before, might be wholly without them. But there were other
districts, which happened to afford at all times sufficient food and
shelter, in which they were to be found the year round; and the animals
did not band and migrate as the prongbucks did in the same region. In
the immediate neighborhood of my ranch there were groups of high hills
containing springs of water, good grass, and an abundance of cedar, ash,
and all kinds of brush in which the mule-deer were permanent residents.
There were big dry creeks, with well-wooded bottoms, lying among rugged
hills, in which I have found whitetail and mule-deer literally within a
stone’s throw of one another. I once started from two adjoining pockets
in this particular creek two does, each with a fawn, one being a
mule-deer and the other a whitetail. On another occasion, on an early
spring afternoon, just before the fawns were born, I came upon a herd of
twenty whitetails, does, and young of the preceding year, grazing
greedily on the young grass; and half a mile up the creek, in an almost
exactly similar locality, I came upon just such a herd of mule-deer. In
each case the animals were so absorbed in the feasting, which was to
make up for their winter privations, that I was able to stalk to within
fifty yards, though of course I did not shoot.

In northwestern Colorado the conditions are entirely different.
Throughout this region there are no whitetail and never have been,
although in the winter range of the mule-deer there are a few prongbuck;
and the wapiti once abounded. The mule-deer are still plentiful. They
make a complete migration summer and winter, so that in neither season
is a single individual to be found in the haunts they frequent during
the other season. In the summer they live and bring forth their young
high up in the main chain of the mountains, in a beautiful country of
northern forest growth, dotted with trout-filled brooks and clear lakes.
The snowfall is so deep in these wooded mountains that the deer would
run great risk of perishing if they stayed therein, and indeed could
only winter there at all in very small numbers. Accordingly, when the
storms begin in the fall, usually about the first of October, just
before the rut, the deer assemble in bands and move west and south to
the lower, drier country, where the rugged hills are here and there
clothed with an open growth of pinyon and cedar, instead of the tall
spruces and pines of the summer range. The migrating bands follow one
another along definite trails over mountains, through passes and
valleys, and across streams; and their winter range swarms with them a
few days after the forerunners have put in their appearance in what has
been, during the summer, an absolutely deerless country.

In January and February, 1901, I spent five weeks north of the White
River, in northwestern Colorado. It was in the heart of the wintering
ground of the great Colorado mule-deer herd. Forty miles away to the
east, extending north, lay the high mountains in which these deer had
spent the summer. The winter range, in which I was at the time hunting
cougars, is a region of comparatively light snowfall, though the cold is
bitter. On several occasions during my stay the thermometer went down to
twenty degrees below zero. The hills, or low mountains, for it was
difficult to know which to call them, were steep and broken, and
separated by narrow flats covered with sage-brush. The ordinary trees
were the pinyon and cedar, which were scattered in rather open groves
over the mountain-sides and the spurs between the ravines. There were
also patches of quaking asp, scrub-oak, and brush. The entire country
was thinly covered with ranches, and there were huge pastures enclosed
by wire fences. I have never seen the mule-deer so numerous anywhere as
they were in this country at this time; although in 1883, on the Little
Missouri, they were almost as plentiful. There was not a day we did not
see scores, and on some days we saw hundreds. Frequently they were found
in small parties of two or three, or a dozen individuals, but on
occasions we saw bands of thirty or forty. Only rarely were they found
singly. The fawns were of course well grown, being eight or nine months
old, and long out of the spotted coat. They were still accompanying
their mothers. Ordinarily a herd would consist of does, fawns, and
yearlings, the latter carrying their first antlers. But it was not
possible to lay down a universal rule. Again and again I saw herds in
which there were one or two full-grown bucks associating with the
females and younger deer. At other times we came across small bands of
full-grown bucks by themselves, and occasionally a solitary buck.
Considering the extent to which these deer must have been persecuted, I
did not think them shy. We were hunting on horseback, and had hounds
with us, so we made no especial attempt to avoid noise. Yet very
frequently we would come close on the deer before they took alarm; and
even when alarmed they would sometimes trot slowly off, halting and
looking back. On one occasion, in some bad lands, we came upon four
bucks which had been sunning themselves on the face of a clay wall. They
jumped up and went off one at a time, very slowly, passing diagonally by
us, certainly not over seventy yards off. All four could have been shot
without effort, and as they had fine antlers I should certainly have
killed one, had it been the open season.

When we came on these Colorado mule-deer suddenly, they generally
behaved exactly as their brethren used to in the old days on the Little
Missouri; that is, they would run off at a good speed for a hundred
yards or so, then slow up, halt, gaze inquisitively at us for some
seconds, and again take to flight. While the sun was strong they liked
to lie out in the low brush on slopes where they would get the full
benefit of the heat. During the heavy snow-storms they usually retreated
into some ravine where the trees grew thicker than usual, not stirring
until the weight of the storm was over. Most of the night, especially if
it was moonlight, they fed; but they were not at all regular about this.
I frequently saw them standing up and grazing, or more rarely browsing,
in the middle of the day, and in the late afternoon they often came down
to graze on the flats within view of the different ranch houses where I
happened to stop. The hours for feeding and resting, however, always
vary accordingly as the deer are or are not persecuted. In wild
localities I have again and again found these deer grazing at all hours
of the day, and coming to water at high noon; whereas, where they have
been much persecuted, they only begin to feed after dusk, and come to
water after dark. Of course during this winter weather they could get no
water, snow supplying its place.

I was immensely interested with the way they got through the wire
fences. A mule-deer is a great jumper; I have known them to clear with
ease high timber corral fences surrounding hayricks. If the animals had
chosen, they could have jumped any of the wire fences I saw; yet never
in a single instance did I see one of them so jump a fence, nor did I
ever find in the tell-tale snow tracks which indicated their having done
so. They paid no heed whatever to the fences, so far as I could see, and
went through them at will; but they always got between the wires, or
went under the lowest wire. The dexterity with which they did this was
extraordinary. When alarmed they would run full speed toward a wire
fence, would pass through it, often hardly altering their stride, and
never making any marks in the snow which looked as though they had
crawled. Twice I saw bands thus go through a wire fence, once at speed,
the other time when they were not alarmed. On both occasions they were
too far off to allow me to see exactly their mode of procedure, but on
examining the snow where they had passed, there was not the slightest
mark of their bodies, and the alteration in their gait, as shown by the
footprints, was hardly perceptible. In one instance, however, where I
scared a young buck which ran over a hill and through a wire fence on
the other side, I found one of his antlers lying beside the fence, it
having evidently been knocked off by the wire. Their antlers were
getting very loose, and toward the end of our stay they had begun to
shed them.

The deer were preyed on by many foes. Sportsmen and hide-hunters had
been busy during the fall migrations, and the ranchmen of the
neighborhood were shooting them occasionally for food, even when we were
out there. The cougars at this season were preying upon them practically
to the exclusion of everything else. We came upon one large fawn which
had been killed by a bobcat. The gray wolves were also preying upon
them. A party of these wolves can sometimes run down even an unwounded
blacktail; I have myself known of their performing this feat. Twice on
this very hunt we came across the carcasses of blacktail which had thus
been killed by wolves, and one of the cow-punchers at a ranch where we
were staying came in and reported to us that while riding among the
cattle that afternoon he had seen two coyotes run a young mule-deer to a
standstill, and they would without doubt have killed it had they not
been frightened by his approach. Still the wolf is very much less
successful than the cougar in killing these deer, and even the cougar
continually fails in his stalks. But the deer were so plentiful that at
this time all the cougars we killed were very fat, and evidently had no
difficulty in getting as much venison as they needed. The wolves were
not as well off, and now and then made forays on the young stock of the
ranchmen, which at this season the cougar let alone, reserving his
attention to them for the summer season when the deer had vanished.

In the Big Horn Mountains, where I also saw a good deal of the
mule-deer, their habits were intermediate between those of the species
that dwell on the plains and those that dwell in the densely timbered
regions of the Rockies farther to the northwest. In the summer time they
lived high up on the plateaus of the Big Horn, sometimes feeding in the
open glades and sometimes in the pine forests. In the fall they browsed
on certain of the bushes almost exclusively. In winter they came down
into the low country. South of the Yellowstone Park, where the wapiti
swarmed, the mule-deer were not numerous. I believe that by choice they
prefer rugged, open country, and they certainly care comparatively
little for bad weather, as they will often visit bleak, wind-swept
ridges in midwinter, as being places where they can best get food at
that season, when the snow lies deep in the sheltered places.
Nevertheless, many of the species pass their whole life in thick timber.

[Illustration:

  THE RANCH-HOUSE
]

My chief opportunities for observing the mule-deer were in the eighties,
when I spent much of my time on my ranch on the Little Missouri.
Mule-deer were then very plentiful, and I killed more of them than of
all other game put together. At that time in the cattle country no
ranchman ever thought of killing beef, and if we had fresh meat at all
it was ordinarily venison. In the fall we usually tried to kill enough
deer to last out the winter. Until the settlers came in, the Little
Missouri country was an ideal range for mule-deer, and they fairly
swarmed; while elk were also plentiful, and the restless herds of the
buffalo surged at intervals through the land. After 1882 and 1883 the
buffalo and elk were killed out, the former completely, and the latter
practically, and by that time the skin-hunters, and then the ranchers,
turned their attention chiefly to the mule-deer. It lived in open
country where there was cover for the stalker, and so it was much easier
to kill than either the whitetail, which was found in the dense cover of
the river bottoms, or the prongbuck, which was found far back from the
river, on the flat prairies where there was no cover at all. I have been
informed of other localities in which the antelope has disappeared long
before the mule-deer, and I believe that in the Rockies the mule-deer
has a far better chance of survival than the antelope has on the plains;
but on the Little Missouri the antelope continued plentiful long after
the mule-deer had become decidedly scarce. In 1886 I think the antelope
were fully as abundant as ever they were, while the mule-deer had
woefully diminished. In the early nineties there were still regions
within thirty or forty miles of my ranch where the antelope were very
plentiful—far more so than the mule-deer were at that time. Now they are
both scarce along the Little Missouri, and which will outlast the other
I cannot say.

In the old days, as I have already said, it was by no means infrequent
to see both the whitetail and the mule-deer close together, and when,
under such circumstances, they were alarmed, one got a clear idea of the
extraordinary gait which is the mule-deer’s most striking
characteristic. It trots well, gallops if hard pressed, and is a good
climber, though much inferior to the mountain sheep. But its normal gait
consists of a series of stiff-legged bounds, all four feet leaving and
striking the ground at the same time. This gait differs more from the
gait of bighorn, prongbuck, whitetail, and wapiti than the gaits of
these latter animals differ among themselves. The wapiti, for instance,
rarely gallops, but when he does, it is a gallop of the ordinary type.
The prongbuck runs with a singularly even gait; whereas the whitetail
makes great bounds, some much higher than others. But fundamentally in
all cases the action is the same, and has no resemblance to the
stiff-legged buck jumping which is the ordinary means of progression of
the mule-deer. These jumps carry it not only on the level, but up and
down hill at a great speed. It is said to be a tiresome gait for the
animal, if hunted for any length of time on the level; but of this I
cannot speak with full knowledge.

Compared to the wapiti, the mule-deer, like our other small deer, is a
very silent animal. For a long time I believed it uttered no sound
beyond the snort of alarm and the rare bleat of the doe to her fawn; but
one afternoon I heard two bucks grunting or barking at one another in a
ravine back of the ranch-house, and crept up and shot them. I was still
uncertain whether this was an indication of a regular habit; but a
couple of years later, on a moonlight night just after sunset, I heard a
big buck travelling down a ravine and continually barking, evidently as
a love challenge. I have been informed by some hunters that the bucks at
the time of the rut not infrequently thus grunt and bark; but most
hunters are ignorant of this habit; and it is certainly not a common
practice.

The species is not nearly as gregarious as the wapiti or caribou. During
the winter the bucks are generally found singly, or in small parties by
themselves, although occasionally one will associate with a party of
does and of young deer. When in May or June—for the exact time varies
with the locality—the doe brings forth her young, she retires to some
lonely thicket. Sometimes one and sometimes two fawns are brought forth.
They lie very close for the first few days. I have picked them up and
handled them without their making the slightest effort to escape, while
the mother hung about a few hundred yards off. On one occasion I by
accident surprised a doe in the very act of giving birth to two fawns.
One had just been born and the other was born as the doe made her first
leap away. She ran off with as much speed and unconcern as if nothing
whatever had happened. I passed on immediately, lest she should be so
frightened as not to come back to the fawns. It has happened that where
I have found the newly born fawns I have invariably found the doe to be
entirely alone, but her young of the previous year must sometimes at
least be in the neighborhood, for a little later I have frequently seen
the doe and her fawn or fawns, and either one or two young of the
previous year, together. Often, however, these young deer will be alone,
or associated with an older doe which is barren. The bucks at the same
time go to secluded places; sometimes singly, while sometimes an old
buck will be accompanied by a younger one, or a couple of old bucks will
lie together. They move about as little as possible while their horns
are growing, and if a hunter comes by, they will lie far closer than at
any other time of the year, squatting in the dense thickets as if they
were whitetails.

When in the Bad Lands of the Western Dakotas the late September breezes
grow cold, then the bucks, their horns already clean of velvet which
they have thrashed off on the bushes and saplings, feel their necks
begin to swell; and early in October—sometimes not until November—they
seek the does. The latter, especially the younger ones, at first flee in
frantic haste. As the rut goes on the bucks become ever bolder and more
ardent. Not only do they chase the does by night, but also by day. I
have sat on the side of a ravine in the Bad Lands at noon and seen a
young doe race past me as if followed by a wolf. When she was out of
sight a big buck appeared on her trail, following it by scent, also at
speed. When he had passed I got up, and the motion frightened a younger
buck which was following two or three hundred yards in the rear of the
big one. After a while the doe yields, and the buck then accompanies
her. If, however, it is early in the season, he may leave her entirely
in order to run after another doe. Later in the season he will have a
better chance of adding the second doe to his harem, or of robbing
another buck of the doe or does which he has accumulated. I have often
seen merely one doe and one buck together, and I have often seen a
single doe which for several days was accompanied by several bucks, one
keeping off the others. But generally the biggest bucks collect each for
himself several does, yearlings also being allowed in the band. The
exact amount of companionship with the does allowed these young bucks
depends somewhat upon the temper of the master buck. In books by
imperfectly informed writers we often see allusions to the buck as
protecting the doe, or even taking care of the fawn. Charles Dudley
Warner, for instance, in describing with great skill and pathos an
imaginary deer hunt, after portraying the death of the doe, portrays the
young fawn as following the buck when the latter comes back to it in the
evening.[4] As a matter of fact, while the fawn is so young as to be
wholly dependent upon the doe, the buck never comes near either.
Moreover, during the period when the buck and the doe are together, the
buck’s attitude is merely that of a brutal, greedy, and selfish tyrant.
He will unhesitatingly rob the doe of any choice bit of food, and though
he will fight to keep her if another buck approaches, the moment that a
dangerous foe appears his one thought is for his own preservation. He
will not only desert the doe, but if he is an old and cunning buck, he
will try his best to sacrifice her by diverting the attention of the
pursuer to her and away from him.

Footnote 4:

  While the situation thus described was an impossible one, the purpose
  of Mr. Warner’s article was excellent, it being intended as a protest
  against hunting deer while the fawns are young, and against killing
  them in the water.

By the end of the rut the old bucks are often exhausted, their sides are
thin, their necks swollen; though they are never as gaunt as wapiti
bulls at this time. They then rest as much as possible, feeding all the
time to put on fat before winter arrives, and rapidly attaining a very
high condition.

Except in dire need no one would kill a deer after the hard weather of
winter begins or before the antlers of the buck are full-grown and the
fawns are out of the spotted coat. Even in the old days we, who lived in
the ranch country, always tried to avoid killing deer in the spring or
early summer, though we often shot buck antelope at those times. The
close season for deer varies in different States, and now there is
generally a limit set to the number any one hunter can kill; for the old
days of wasteful plenty are gone forever.

To my mind there is a peculiar fascination in hunting the mule-deer. By
the time the hunting season has arrived the buck is no longer the
slinking beast of the thicket, but a bold and yet wary dweller in the
uplands. Frequently he can be found clear of all cover, often at midday,
and his habits at this season are, from the hunter’s standpoint, rather
more like those of the wapiti than of the whitetail; but each band,
though continually shifting its exact position, stays permanently in the
same tract of country, whereas wapiti are apt to wander.

In the old days, when mule-deer were plentiful in country through which
a horse could go at a fair rate of speed, it was common for the hunter
to go on horseback, and not to dismount save at the moment of the shot.
In the early eighties, while on my ranch on the Little Missouri, this
was the way in which I usually hunted. When I first established my ranch
I often went out, in the fall, after the day’s work was over, and killed
a deer before dark. If it was in September, I would sometimes start
after supper. Later in the year I would take supper when I got back.
Under such circumstances my mode of procedure was simple. Deer were
plentiful. Every big tangle of hills, every set of grassy coulees
winding down to a big creek bottom, was sure to contain them. The time
being short, with at most only an hour or two of light, I made no effort
to find the tracks of a deer or to spy one afar off. I simply rode
through the likely places, across the heads of the ravines or down the
winding valleys, until I jumped a deer close enough up to give me a
shot. The unshod hoofs of the horse made but little noise as he shuffled
along at the regular cow-pony fox trot, and I kept him close into the
bank or behind cover, so as to come around each successive point without
warning. If the ground was broken and rugged, I made no attempt to go
fast. If, on the other hand, I struck a smooth ravine with gentle
curves, I would often put the pony to a sharp canter or gallop, so as to
come quickly on any deer before it could quite make up its mind what
course was best to follow. Sooner or later, as I passed a thick clump of
young ash or buck brush, or came abruptly around a sharp bend, there
would be a snort, and then the thud, thud, thud, of four hoofs striking
the ground exactly in unison, and away would go a mule-deer with the
peculiar bounding motion of its kind. The pony, well accustomed to the
work, stopped short, and I was off its back in an instant. If the deer
had not made out exactly what I was, it would often show by its gait
that it was not yet prepared to run straight out of sight. Under such
circumstances I would wait until it stopped and turned round to look
back. If it was going very fast, I took the shot running. Once I put up
a young buck from some thick brush in the bottom of a winding washout. I
leaped off the pony, standing within ten yards of the washout. The buck
went up a hill on my left, and as he reached the top and paused for a
second on the sky-line, I fired. At the shot there was a great
scrambling and crashing in the washout below me, and another and larger
buck came out and tore off in frantic haste. I fired several shots at
him, finally bringing him down. Meanwhile, the other buck had
disappeared, but there was blood on his trail, and I found him lying
down in the next coulee, and finished him. This was not much over a mile
from the ranch-house, and after dressing the deer, I put one behind the
saddle and one on it, and led the pony home.

Such hunting, though great fun, does not imply any particular skill
either in horsemanship, marksmanship, or plains-craft and knowledge of
the animal’s habits; and it can of course be followed only where the
game is very plentiful. Ordinarily the mule-deer must be killed by long
tramping among the hills, skilful stalking, and good shooting. The
successful hunter should possess good eyes, good wind, and good muscles.
He should know how to take cover and how to use his rifle. The work is
sufficiently rough to test any man’s endurance, and yet there is no such
severe and intense toil as in following true mountain game, like the
bighorn or white goat. As the hunter’s one aim is to see the deer before
it sees him, he can only use the horse to take him to the
hunting-ground. Then he must go through the most likely ground and from
every point of vantage scan with minute care the landscape round about,
while himself unseen. If the country is wild and the deer have not been
much molested, he will be apt to come across a band that is feeding.
Under such circumstances it is easy to see them at once. But if lying
down, it is astonishing how the gray of their winter coats fits in with
the color of their surroundings. Too often I have looked carefully over
a valley with my glasses until, thinking I had searched every nook, I
have risen and gone forward, only to see a deer rise and gallop off out
of range from some spot which I certainly thought I had examined with
all possible precaution. If the hunter is not himself hidden, he will
have his labor for his pains. Neither the mule-deer nor the whitetail is
by any means as keen-sighted as the pronghorn antelope, and men
accustomed chiefly to antelope shooting are quite right in speaking of
the sight of deer as poor by comparison. But this is only by comparison.
A motionless object does not attract the deer’s gaze as it attracts the
telescopic eye of a prongbuck; but any motion is seen at once, and as
soon as this has occurred, the chances of the hunter are usually at an
end. On the other hand, from the nature of its haunts the mule-deer
usually offers fairly good opportunities for stalking. It is not as big
or as valuable as the elk, and therefore it is not as readily seen or as
eagerly followed, and in consequence holds its own better. But though
the sport it yields calls normally for a greater amount of hardihood and
endurance in the hunter than is the case with the sport yielded by the
prongbuck, and especially by the whitetail, yet when existing in like
numbers it is easier to kill than either of these two animals.

Sometimes in the early fall, when hunting from the ranch, I have spent
the night in some likely locality, sleeping rolled up in a blanket on
the ground so as to be ready to start at the first streak of dawn. On
one such occasion a couple of mule-deer came to where my horse was
picketed just before I got up. I heard them snort or whistle, and very
slowly unwrapped myself from the blanket, turned over, and crawled out,
rifle in hand. Overhead the stars were paling in the faint gray light,
but the ravine in which the deer were was still so black that, watch as
I would, I could not see them. I feared to move around lest I might
disturb them, but after wiggling toward a little jutting shoulder I lay
still to wait for the light. They went off, however, while it was still
too dusk to catch more than their dim and formless outlines, and though
I followed them as rapidly and cautiously as possible, I never got a
shot at them. On other occasions fortune has favored me, and before the
sun rose I have spied some buck leisurely seeking his day bed, and have
been able either to waylay him or make a running stalk on him from
behind.

[Illustration:

  THE RANCH VERANDA
]

In the old days it was the regular thing with most ranchmen to take a
trip in the fall for the purpose of laying in the winter’s supply of
venison. I frequently took such trips myself, and though occasionally we
killed wapiti, bighorn, prongbuck, and whitetail, our ordinary game was
the mule-deer. Around my ranch it was not necessary to go very far. A
day’s journey with the wagon would usually take us to where a week’s
hunting would enable us to return with a dozen deer or over. If there
was need of more, I would repeat the hunt later on. I have several times
killed three of these deer in a day, but I do not now recall ever
killing a greater number. It is perhaps unnecessary to say that every
scrap of flesh was used.

These hunts were always made late in the fall, usually after the close
of the rut. The deer were then banded, and were commonly found in
parties of from three or four to a score, although the big bucks might
be lying by themselves. The weather was apt to be cold, and the deer
evidently liked to sun themselves, so that at midday they could be found
lying sometimes in thin brush and sometimes boldly out on the face of a
cliff or hill. If they were unmolested, they would feed at intervals
throughout the day, and not until the bands had been decimated by
excessive hunting did they ever spend the hours of daylight in hiding.

On such a hunt our proceedings were simple. The nights were longer than
the days, and therefore we were away from camp at the first streak of
dawn, and might not return until long after darkness. All the time
between was spent in climbing and walking through the rugged hills,
keeping a sharp lookout for our game. Only too often we were seen before
we ourselves saw the quarry, and even when this was not the case the
stalks were sometimes failures. Still blank days were not very common.
Probably every hunter remembers with pride some particular stalk. I
recall now outwitting a big buck which I had seen and failed to get on
two successive days. He was hanging about a knot of hills with brush on
their shoulders, and was not only very watchful, but when he lay down
always made his bed at the lower end of a brush patch, whence he could
see into the valley below, while it was impossible to approach him from
above, through the brush, without giving the alarm. On the third day I
saw him early in the morning, while he was feeding. He was very
watchful, and I made no attempt to get near him, simply peeping at him
until he finally went into a patch of thin brush and lay down. As I knew
what he was I could distinctly make him out. If I had not seen him go
in, I certainly never would have imagined that he was a deer, even had
my eyes been able to pick him out at all among the gray shadows and
small dead tree-tops. Having waited until he was well settled down, I
made a very long turn and came up behind him, only to find that the
direction of the wind and the slope of the hill rendered it an absolute
impossibility to approach him unperceived. After careful study of the
ground I abandoned the effort, and returned to my former position,
having spent several hours of considerable labor in vain. It was now
about noon, and I thought I would lie still to see what he would do when
he got up, and accordingly I ate my lunch stretched at full length in
the long grass which sheltered me from the wind. From time to time I
peered cautiously between two stones toward where the buck lay. It was
nearly mid-afternoon before he moved. Sometimes mule-deer rise with a
single motion, all four legs unbending like springs, so that the four
hoofs touch the ground at once. This old buck, however, got up very
slowly, looked about for certainly five minutes, and then came directly
down the hill and toward me. When he had nearly reached the bottom of
the valley between us he turned to the right and sauntered rapidly down
it. I slipped back and trotted as fast as I could without losing my
breath along the hither side of the spur which lay between me and the
buck. While I was out of sight he had for some reason made up his mind
to hurry, and when I was still fifty yards from the end of the spur he
came in sight just beyond it, passing at a swinging trot. I dropped on
one knee so quickly that for a moment he evidently could not tell what I
was—my buckskin shirt and gray slouch-hat fading into the color of the
background—and halted, looking sharply around. Before he could break
into flight my bullet went through his shoulders.

Twice I have killed two of these deer at a shot; once two bucks, and
once a doe and a buck.

It has proved difficult to keep the mule-deer in captivity, even in
large private parks or roomy zoological gardens. I think this is because
hitherto the experiment has been tried east of the Mississippi in an
alien habitat. The wapiti and whitetail are species that are at home
over most of the United States, East and West, in rank, wet prairies,
dense woodland, and dry mountain regions alike; but the mule-deer has a
far more sharply localized distribution. In the Bronx Zoological
Gardens, in New York, Mr. Hornaday informs me that he has comparatively
little difficulty in keeping up the stock alike of wapiti and whitetail
by breeding—as indeed any visitor can see for himself. The same is true
in the game preserves in the wilder regions of New York and New England;
but hitherto the mule-deer has offered an even more difficult problem in
captivity than the pronghorn antelope. Doubtless the difficulty would be
minimized if the effort at domestication were made in the neighborhood
of the Rocky Mountains.

The true way to preserve the mule-deer, however, as well as our other
game, is to establish on the nation’s property great nurseries and
wintering grounds, such as the Yellowstone Park, and then to secure fair
play for the deer outside these grounds by a wisely planned and
faithfully executed series of game laws. This is the really democratic
method of solving the problem. Occasionally even yet some one will
assert that the game “belongs to the people, and should be given over to
them”—meaning, thereby, that there should be no game laws, and that
every man should be at liberty indiscriminately to kill every kind of
wild animal, harmless, useless, or noxious, until the day when our woods
become wholly bereft of all the forms of higher animal life. Such an
argument can only be made from the standpoint of those big game dealers
in the cities who care nothing for the future, and desire to make money
at the present day by a slaughter which in the last analysis only
benefits the wealthy people who are able to pay for the game; for once
the game has been destroyed, the livelihood of the professional gunner
will be taken away. Most emphatically wild game not on private property
_does_ belong to the people, and the only way in which the people can
secure their ownership is by protecting it in the interest of all
against the vandal few. As we grow older I think most of us become less
keen about that part of the hunt which consists in the killing. I know
that as far as I am concerned I have long gone past the stage when the
chief end of a hunting trip was the bag. One or two bucks, or enough
grouse and trout to keep the camp supplied, will furnish all the sport
necessary to give zest and point to a trip in the wilderness. When
hunters proceed on such a plan they do practically no damage to the
game. Those who are not willing to act along these lines of their own
free will, should be made to by the State. The people of Montana,
Wyoming, and Colorado, and of the States near by, can do a real service,
primarily to themselves, but secondarily to others also, by framing and
executing laws which will keep these noble deer as permanent denizens of
their lofty mountains and beautiful valleys. There are other things much
more important than game laws; but it will be a great mistake to
imagine, because until recently in Europe game laws have been
administered in the selfish interest of one class and against the
interest of the people as a whole, that here in this country, and under
our institutions, they would not be beneficial to all of our people. So
far from game laws being in the interest of the few, they are
emphatically in the interest of the many. The very rich man can stock a
private game preserve, or journey afar off to where game is still
plentiful; but it is only where the game is carefully preserved by the
State that the man of small means has any chance to enjoy the keen
delight of the chase.

There are many sides to the charm of big game hunting; nor should it be
regarded as being without its solid advantages from the standpoint of
national character. Always in our modern life, the life of a highly
complex industrialism, there is a tendency to softening of fibre. This
is true of our enjoyments; and it is no less true of very many of our
business occupations. It is not true of such work as railroading, a
purely modern development, nor yet of work like that of those who man
the fishing fleets; but it is preeminently true of all occupations which
cause men to lead sedentary lives in great cities. For these men it is
especially necessary to provide hard and rough play. Of course, if such
play is made a serious business, the result is very bad; but this does
not in the least affect the fact that within proper limits the play
itself is good. Vigorous athletic sports carried on in a sane spirit are
healthy. The hardy out-of-door sports of the wilderness are even
healthier. It is a mere truism to say that the qualities developed by
the hunter are the qualities needed by the soldier; and a curious
feature of the changed conditions of modern warfare is that they call,
to a much greater extent than during the two or three centuries
immediately past, for the very qualities of individual initiative,
ability to live and work in the open, and personal skill in the
management of horse and weapons, which are fostered by a hunter’s life.
No training in the barracks or on the parade-ground is as good as the
training given by a hard hunting trip in which a man really does the
work for himself, learns to face emergencies, to study country, to
perform feats of hardihood, to face exposure and undergo severe labor.
It is an excellent thing for any man to be a good horseman and a good
marksman, to be bold and hardy, and wonted to feats of strength and
endurance, to be able to live in the open, and to feel a self-reliant
readiness in any crisis. Big game hunting tends to produce or develop
exactly these physical and moral traits. To say that it may be pursued
in a manner or to an extent which is demoralizing, is but to say what
can likewise be said of all other pastimes and of almost all kinds of
serious business. That it can be abused either in the way in which it is
done, or the extent to which it is carried, does not alter the fact that
it is in itself a sane and healthy recreation.




                              CHAPTER VIII
                    THE WAPITI, OR ROUND-HORNED ELK


The wapiti is the largest and stateliest deer in the world. A full-grown
bull is as big as a steer. The antlers are the most magnificent trophies
yielded by any game animal of America, save the giant Alaskan moose.
When full-grown they are normally of twelve tines; frequently the tines
are more numerous, but the increase in their number has no necessary
accompaniment in increase in the size of the antlers. The length,
massiveness, roughness, spread, and symmetry of the antlers must all be
taken into account in rating the value of a head. Antlers over fifty
inches in length are large; if over sixty, they are gigantic. Good heads
are getting steadily rarer under the persecution which has thinned out
the herds.

Next to the bison the wapiti is of all the big game animals of North
America the one whose range has most decreased. Originally it was found
from the Pacific coast east across the Alleghanies, through New York to
the Adirondacks, through Pennsylvania into western New Jersey, and far
down into the mid-country of Virginia and the Carolinas. It extended
northward into Canada, from the Great Lakes to Vancouver; and southward
into Mexico, along the Rockies. Its range thus corresponded roughly with
that of the bison, except that it went farther west and not so far
north. In the early colonial days so little heed was paid by writers to
the teeming myriads of game that it is difficult to trace the wapiti’s
distribution in the Atlantic coast region. It was certainly killed out
of the Adirondacks long before the period when the backwoodsmen were
settling the valleys of the Alleghany Mountains; there they found the
elk abundant, and the stately creatures roamed in great bands over
Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana when the first settlers made
their way into what are now these States, at the outbreak of the
Revolution. These first settlers were all hunters, and they followed the
wapiti (or, as they always called it, the elk) with peculiar eagerness.
In consequence its numbers were soon greatly thinned, and about the
beginning of the present century it disappeared from that portion of its
former range lying south of the Great Lakes and between the Alleghanies
and the Mississippi. In the northern Alleghanies it held its own much
longer, the last individual of which I have been able to get record
having been killed in Pennsylvania in 1869. In the forests of northern
Wisconsin, northern Michigan, and Minnesota wapiti existed still longer,
and a very few individuals may still be found. A few are left in
Manitoba. When Lewis and Clark and Pike became the pioneers among the
explorers, army officers, hunters, and trappers who won for our people
the great West, they found countless herds of wapiti throughout the high
plains country from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains.
Throughout this region it was exterminated almost as rapidly as the
bison, and by the early eighties there only remained a few scattered
individuals, in bits of rough country such as the Black Hills, the
sand-hills of Nebraska, and certain patches of Bad Lands along the
Little Missouri. Doubtless stragglers exist even yet in one or two of
these localities. But by the time the great buffalo herds of the plains
were completely exterminated, in 1883, the wapiti had likewise ceased to
be a plains animal; the peculiar Californian form had also been
well-nigh exterminated.

The nature of its favorite haunts was the chief factor in causing it to
suffer more than any other game in America, save the bison, from the
persecution of hunters and settlers. The boundaries of its range have
shrunk in far greater proportion than in the case of any of our other
game animals, save only the great wild ox, with which it was once so
commonly associated. The moose, a beast of the forest, and the caribou,
which, save in the far North, is also a beast of the forest, have in
most places greatly diminished in numbers, and have here and there been
exterminated altogether from outlying portions of their range; but the
wapiti, which, when free to choose, preferred to frequent the plains and
open woods, has completely vanished from nine-tenths of the territory
over which it roamed a century and a quarter ago. Although it was never
found in any one place in such enormous numbers as the bison and the
caribou, it nevertheless went in herds far larger than the herds of any
other American game save the two mentioned, and was formerly very much
more abundant within the area of its distribution than was the moose
within the area of its distribution.

This splendid deer affords a good instance of the difficulty of deciding
what name to use in treating of our American game. On the one hand, it
is entirely undesirable to be pedantic; and on the other hand, it seems
a pity, at a time when speech is written almost as much as spoken, to
use terms which perpetually require explanation in order to avoid
confusion. The wapiti is not properly an elk at all; the term wapiti is
unexceptionable, and it is greatly to be desired that it should be
generally adopted. But unfortunately it has not been generally adopted.
From the time when our backwoodsmen first began to hunt the animal among
the foothills of the Appalachian chains to the present day, it has been
universally known as elk wherever it has been found. In ordinary speech
it is never known as anything else, and only an occasional settler or
hunter would understand what the word wapiti referred to. The book name
is a great deal better than the common name; but after all, it is only a
book name. The case is almost exactly parallel to that of the buffalo,
which was really a bison, but which lived as the buffalo, died as the
buffalo, and left its name imprinted on our landscape as the buffalo.
There is little use in trying to upset a name which is imprinted in our
geography in hundreds of such titles as Elk Ridge, Elk Mountain, Elkhorn
River. Yet in the books it is often necessary to call it the wapiti in
order to distinguish it both from its differently named close kinsfolk
of the Old World, and from its more distant relatives with which it
shares the name of elk.

Disregarding the Pacific coast form of Vancouver and the Olympian
Mountains, the wapiti is now a beast of the Rocky Mountain region
proper, especially in western Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. Throughout
these mountains its extermination, though less rapid than on the plains,
has nevertheless gone on with melancholy steadiness. In the early
nineties it was still as abundant as ever in large regions in western
Wyoming and Montana and northwestern Colorado. In northwestern Colorado
the herds are now represented by only a few hundred individuals. In
western Montana they are scattered over a wider region and are protected
by the denser timber, but are nowhere plentiful. They have nearly
vanished from the Big Horn Mountains. They are still abundant in and
around their great nursery and breeding-ground, the Yellowstone National
Park. If this park could be extended so as to take in part of the winter
range to the south, it would help to preserve them, to the delight of
all lovers of nature, and to the great pecuniary benefit of the people
of Wyoming and Montana. But at present the winter range south of the
park is filling up with settlers, and unless the conditions change,
those among the Yellowstone wapiti which would normally go south will
more and more be compelled to winter among the mountains, which will
mean such immense losses from starvation and deep snow that the southern
herds will be woefully thinned.[5] Surely all men who care for nature,
no less than all men who care for big game hunting, should combine to
try to see that not merely the States but the Federal authorities make
every effort, and are given every power, to prevent the extermination of
this stately and beautiful animal, the lordliest of the deer kind in the
entire world.

Footnote 5:

  Steps in the direction indicated are now being taken by the Federal
  authorities.

The wapiti, like the bison, and even more than the whitetail deer, can
thrive in widely varying surroundings. It is at home among the high
mountains, in the deep forests, and on the treeless, level plains. It is
rather omnivorous in its tastes, browsing and grazing on all kinds of
trees, shrubs and grasses. These traits, and its hardihood, make it
comparatively easy to perpetuate in big parks and forest preserves in a
semi-wild condition; and it has thriven in such preserves and parks in
many of the Eastern States. As it does not, by preference, dwell in such
tangled forests as are the delight of the moose and the whitetail deer,
it vanishes much quicker than either when settlers appear in the land.
In the mountains and foothills its habitat is much the same as that of
the mule-deer, the two animals being often found in the immediate
neighborhood of each other. In such places the superior size and value
of the wapiti put it at a disadvantage in the keen struggle for life,
and when the rifle-bearing hunter appears upon the scene, it is killed
out long before its smaller kinsman.

Moreover, the wapiti is undoubtedly subject to queer freaks of panic
stupidity, or what seems like a mixture of tameness and of puzzled
terror. At these times a herd will remain almost motionless, the
individuals walking undecidedly to and fro, and neither flinching nor
giving any other sign even when hit with a bullet. In the old days it
was not uncommon for a professional hunter to destroy an entire herd of
wapiti when one of these fits of confusion was on them. Even nowadays
they sometimes behave in this way. In 1897, Mr. Ansley Wilcox, of
Buffalo, was hunting in the Teton basin. He came across a small herd of
wapiti, the first he had ever seen, and opened fire when a hundred and
fifty yards distant. They paid no heed to the shots, and after taking
three or four at one bull, with seemingly no effect, he ran in closer
and emptied his magazine at another, also seemingly without effect,
before the herd slowly disappeared. After a few rods, both bulls fell;
and on examination it was found that all nine bullets had hit them.

To my mind, the venison of the wapiti is, on the whole, better than that
of any other wild game, though its fat, when cooled, at once hardens,
like mutton tallow.

In its life habits the wapiti differs somewhat from its smaller
relatives. It is far more gregarious, and is highly polygamous. During
the spring, while the bulls are growing their great antlers, and while
the cows have very young calves, both bulls and cows live alone, each
individual for itself. At such time each seeks the most secluded
situation, often going very high up on the mountains. Occasionally a
couple of bulls lie together, moving around as little as possible. The
cow at this time realizes that her calf’s chance of life depends upon
her absolute seclusion, and avoids all observation.

As the horns begin to harden the bulls thrash the velvet off against
quaking asp, or ash, or even young spruce, splintering and battering the
bushes and small trees. The cows and calves begin to assemble; the bulls
seek them. But the bulls do not run the cows as among the smaller deer
the bucks run the does. The time of the beginning of the rut varies in
different places, but it usually takes place in September, about a month
earlier than that of the deer in the same locality. The necks of the
bulls swell and they challenge incessantly, for, unlike the smaller
deer, they are very noisy. Their love and war calls, when heard at a
little distance amid the mountains, have a most musical sound.
Frontiersmen usually speak of their call as “whistling,” which is not an
appropriate term. The call may be given in a treble or in a bass, but
usually consists of two or three bars, first rising and then falling,
followed by a succession of grunts. The grunts can only be heard when
close up. There can be no grander or more attractive chorus than the
challenging of a number of wapiti bulls when two great herds happen to
approach one another under the moonlight or in the early dawn. The
pealing notes echo through the dark valleys as if from silver bugles,
and the air is filled with the wild music. Where little molested the
wapiti challenge all day long.

They can be easiest hunted during the rut, the hunter placing them, and
working up to them, by the sound alone. The bulls are excessively
truculent and pugnacious. Each big one gathers a herd of cows about him
and drives all possible rivals away from his immediate neighborhood,
although sometimes spike bulls are allowed to remain with the herd.
Where wapiti are very abundant, however, many of these herds may join
together and become partially welded into a mass that may contain
thousands of animals. In the old days such huge herds were far from
uncommon, especially during the migrations; but nowadays there only
remain one or two localities in which wapiti are sufficiently plentiful
ever to come together in bands of any size. The bulls are incessantly
challenging and fighting one another, and driving around the cows and
calves. Each keeps the most jealous watch over his own harem, treating
its members with great brutality, and is selfishly indifferent to their
fate the instant he thinks his own life in jeopardy. During the rut the
erotic manifestations of the bull are extraordinary.

[Illustration:

  THE PACK-TRAIN
]

One or two fawns are born about May. In the mountains the cow usually
goes high up to bring forth her fawn. Personally I have only had a
chance to observe the wapiti in spring in the neighborhood of my ranch
in the Bad Lands of the Little Missouri. Here the cow invariably
selected some wild, lonely bit of very broken country in which there
were dense thickets and some water. There was one such patch some
fifteen miles from my ranch, in which for many years wapiti regularly
bred. The breeding cow lay by herself, although sometimes the young of
the preceding year would lurk in the neighborhood. For the first few
days the calf hardly left the bed, and would not move even when handled.
Then it began to follow the mother. In this particular region the grass
was coarse and rank, save for a few patches in the immediate
neighborhood of little alkali springs. Accordingly, it was not much
visited by the cattle or by the cowboys. Doubtless in the happier days
of the past, when man was merely an infrequent interloper, the wapiti
cows had made their nurseries in pleasanter and more fruitful valleys.
But in my time the hunted creatures had learned that their only chance
was to escape observation. I have known not only cows with young calves,
but cows when the calves were out of the spotted coat, and even
yearlings, to try to escape by hiding—the great beasts lying like
rabbits in some patch of thick brush, while I rode close by. The best
hunting horse I ever had, old Manitou, in addition to his other useful
qualities, would serve as a guard on such occasions. I would leave him
on a little hillock to one side of such a patch of brush, and as he
walked slowly about, grazing and rattling his bridle chains, he would
prevent the wapiti breaking cover on that side, and give me an
additional chance of slipping around toward them—although if the animal
was a cow, I never molested it unless in dire need of meat.

Most of my elk-hunting was done among the stupendous mountain masses of
the Rockies, which I usually reached after a long journey, with wagon or
pack-train, over the desolate plains. Ordinarily I planned to get to the
hunting-ground by the end of August, so as to have ample time. By that
date the calves were out of the spotted coat, the cows and the young of
the preceding year had banded, and the big bulls had come down to join
them from the remote recesses in which they had been lying, solitary or
in couples, while their antlers were growing. Many bulls were found
alone, or, if young, in small parties; but the normal arrangement was
for each big bull to have his own harem, around the outskirts of which
there were to be found lurking occasional spike bulls or two-year-olds
who were always venturing too near and being chased off by the master
bull. Frequently several such herds joined together into a great band.
Before the season was fairly on, when the bulls had not been worked into
actual frenzy, there was not much fighting in these bands. Later they
were the scenes of desperate combats. Each master bull strove to keep
his harem under his own eyes, and was always threatening and fighting
the other master bulls, as well as those bulls whose prowess had proved
insufficient hitherto to gain them a band, or who, after having gained
one, had been so exhausted and weakened as to succumb to some new
aspirant for the leadership. The bulls were calling and challenging all
the time, and there was ceaseless turmoil, owing to their fights and
their driving the cows around. The cows were more wary than the bulls,
and there were so many keen noses and fairly good eyes that it was
difficult to approach a herd; whereas the single bulls were so noisy,
careless, and excited that it was comparatively easy to stalk them. A
rutting wapiti bull is as wicked-looking a creature as can be imagined,
swaggering among the cows and threatening the young bulls, his jaws
mouthing and working in a kind of ugly leer.

The bulls fight desperately with one another. The two combatants come
together with a resounding clash of antlers, and then push and strain
with their mouths open. The skin on their necks and shoulders is so
thick and tough that the great prongs cannot get through or do more than
inflict bruises. The only danger comes when the beaten party turns to
flee. The victor pursues at full speed. Usually the beaten one gets off;
but if by accident he is caught where he cannot escape, he is very apt
to be gored in the flank and killed. Mr. Baillie-Grohman has given a
very interesting description of one such fatal duel of which he was an
eye-witness on a moonlight night in the mountains. I have never known of
the bull trying to protect the cow from any enemy. He battles for her
against rivals with intense ferocity; but his attitude toward her, once
she is gained, is either that of brutality or of indifference. She will
fight for her calf against any enemy which she thinks she has a chance
of conquering, although of course not against man. But the bull leaves
his family to their fate the minute he thinks there is any real danger.
During the rut he is greatly excited, and does not fear a dog or a
single wolf, and may join with the rest of the herd of both sexes in
trying to chase off one or the other, should he become aware of its
approach. But if there is serious danger, his only thought is for
himself, and he has no compunctions about sacrificing any of his family.
When on the move a cow almost always goes first, while the bull brings
up the rear.

In domestication the bulls are very dangerous to human beings, and will
kill a man at once if they can get him at a disadvantage; but in a state
of nature they rarely indeed overcome their abject terror of humanity,
even when wounded and cornered. Of course, if the man comes straight up
to him where he cannot get away, a wapiti will fight as, under like
circumstances, a blacktail or whitetail will fight, and equally, of
course, he is then far more dangerous than his smaller kinsfolk; but he
is not nearly so apt to charge as a bull moose. I have never known but
two authentic instances of their thus charging. One happened to a hunter
named Bennett, on the Little Missouri; the other to a gentleman I met, a
doctor, in Meeker, Colorado. The doctor had wounded his wapiti, and as
it was in the late fall, followed him easily in the snow. Finally he
came upon the wapiti standing where the snow was very deep at the bottom
of a small valley, and on his approach the wapiti deliberately started
to break his way through the snow toward him, and had almost reached him
when he was killed. But for every one such instance of a wapiti’s
charging there are a hundred in which a bull moose has charged. Senator
Redfield Proctor was charged most resolutely by a mortally hurt bull
moose which fell in the death throes just before reaching him; and I
could cite case after case of the kind.

The wapiti’s natural gaits are a walk and a trot. It walks very fast
indeed, especially if travelling to reach some given point. More than
once I have sought to overtake a travelling bull, and have found myself
absolutely unable to do so, although it never broke its walk. Of course,
if I had not been obliged to pay any heed to cover or wind, I could have
run up on it; but the necessity for paying heed to both handicapped me
so that I was actually unable to come up to the quarry as it swung
steadily on through woodland and open, over rough ground and smooth.
Wapiti have a slashing trot, which they can keep up for an indefinite
time and over any kind of country. Only a good pony can overtake them
when they have had any start and have settled into this trot. If much
startled they break into a gallop—the young being always much more
willing to gallop than the old. Their gallop is very fast, especially
downhill. But they speedily tire under it. A yearling or a two-year-old
can keep it up for a couple of miles. A heavy old bull will be done out
after a few hundred yards. I once saw a band of wapiti frightened into a
gallop down a steep incline where there were also a couple of mule-deer.
I had not supposed that wapiti ran as fast as mule-deer, but this
particular band actually passed the deer, though the latter were
evidently doing their best; the wapiti were well ahead, when, after
thundering down the steep, broken incline, they all disappeared into a
belt of woodland. In spite of their size, wapiti climb well and go
sure-footedly over difficult and dangerous ground. They have a habit of
coming out to the edges of cliffs, or on mountain spurs, and looking
over the landscape beneath, almost as though they enjoyed the scenery.
What their real object is on such occasions I do not know.

The nose of the wapiti is very keen. Its sight is much inferior to that
of the antelope, but about as good as a deer’s. Its hearing is also much
like that of a deer. When in country where it is little molested, it
feeds and moves about freely by day, lying down to rest at intervals,
like cattle. Wapiti offer especial attractions to the hunter, and next
to the bison are more quickly exterminated than any other kind of game.
Only the fact that they possessed a far wider range of habitat than
either the mule-deer, the prongbuck, or the moose, has enabled them
still to exist. Their gregariousness is also against them. Even after
the rut the herds continue together until in midspring the bulls shed
their antlers—for they keep their antlers at least two months longer
than deer. During the fall, winter, and early spring wapiti are roving,
restless creatures. Their habit of migration varies with locality, as
among mule-deer. Along the little Missouri, as in the plains country
generally, there was no well-defined migration. Up to the early
eighties, when wapiti were still plentiful, the bands wandered far and
wide, but fitfully and irregularly, wholly without regard to the season,
save that they were stationary from May to August. After 1883 there were
but a few individuals left, although as late as 1886 I once came across
a herd of nine. These surviving individuals had learned caution. The
bulls only called by night, and not very frequently then, and they spent
the entire year in the roughest and most out-of-the-way places, having
the same range both winter and summer. They selected tracts where the
ground was very broken and there was much shrubbery and patches of small
trees. This tree and bush growth gave them both shelter and food; for
they are particularly fond of browsing on the leaves and tender twig
ends, though they also eat weeds and grass.

Wherever wapiti dwell among the mountains they make regular seasonal
migrations. In northwestern Wyoming they spend the summer in the
Yellowstone National Park, but in winter some go south to Jackson’s
Hole, while others winter in the park to the northeast. In northwestern
Colorado their migrations followed much the same line as those of the
mule-deer. In different localities the length of the migration, and even
the time, differed. There were some places where the shift was simply
from the high mountains down to their foothills. In other places great
herds travelled a couple of hundred miles, so that localities absolutely
barren one month would be swarming with wapiti the next. In some places
the shift took place as early as the month of August; in others not
until after the rut, in October or even November; and in some places the
rut took place during the migration.

No chase is more fascinating than that of the wapiti. In the old days,
when the mighty antlered beasts were found upon the open plains, they
could be followed upon horseback, with or without hounds. Nowadays, when
they dwell in the mountains, they are to be killed only by the
rifle-bearing still-hunter. Needless butchery of any kind of animal is
repulsive, but in the case of the wapiti it is little short of criminal.
He is the grandest of the deer kind throughout the world, and he has
already vanished from most of the places where he once dwelt in his
pride. Every true sportsman should feel it incumbent upon him to do all
in his power to preserve so noble a beast of the chase from extinction.
No harm whatever comes to the species from killing a certain number of
bulls; but an excessive number should never be killed, and no cow or
calf should under any circumstances be touched. Formerly, when wapiti
were plentiful, it would have been folly for hunters and settlers in the
unexplored wilderness not to kill wild game for their meat, and
occasionally a cow or a calf had to be thus slain; but there is no
excuse nowadays for a hunting party killing anything but a full-grown
bull.

In a civilized and cultivated country wild animals only continue to
exist at all when preserved by sportsmen. The excellent people who
protest against all hunting, and consider sportsmen as enemies of wild
life, are ignorant of the fact that in reality the genuine sportsman is
by all odds the most important factor in keeping the larger and more
valuable wild creatures from total extermination. Of course, if wild
animals were allowed to breed unchecked, they would, in an incredibly
short space of time, render any country uninhabitable by man—a fact
which ought to be a matter of elementary knowledge in any community
where the average intelligence is above that of certain portions of
Hindoostan. Equally, of course, in a purely utilitarian community all
wild animals are exterminated out of hand. In order to preserve the wild
life of the wilderness at all, some middle ground must be found between
brutal and senseless slaughter and the unhealthy sentimentalism which
would just as surely defeat its own end by bringing about the eventual
total extinction of the game. It is impossible to preserve the larger
wild animals in regions thoroughly fit for agriculture; and it is
perhaps too much to hope that the larger carnivores can be preserved for
merely æsthetic reasons. But throughout our country there are large
regions entirely unsuited for agriculture, where, if the people only
have foresight, they can, through the power of the State, keep the game
in perpetuity. There is no hope of preserving the bison permanently,
save in large private parks; but all other game, including not merely
deer, but the pronghorn, the splendid bighorn, and the stately and
beautiful wapiti, can be kept on the public lands, if only the proper
laws are passed, and if only these laws are properly enforced.

Most of us, as we grow older, grow to care relatively less for sport
than for the splendid freedom and abounding health of outdoor life in
the woods, on the plains, and among the great mountains; and to the true
nature lover it is melancholy to see the wilderness stripped of the wild
creatures which gave it no small part of its peculiar charm. It is
inevitable, and probably necessary, that the wolf and the cougar should
go; but the bighorn and white goat among the rocks, the blacktail and
wapiti grouped on the mountain-side, the whitetail and moose feeding in
the sedgy ponds—these add beyond measure to the wilderness landscape,
and if they are taken away they leave a lack which nothing else can
quite make good. So it is of those true birds of the wilderness, the
eagle and the raven, and, indeed, of all the wild things, furred,
feathered, and finned.

A peculiar charm in the chase of the wapiti comes from the wild beauty
of the country in which it dwells. The moose lives in marshy forests; if
one would seek the white goat or caribou of the northern Rockies, he
must travel on foot, pack on back; while the successful chase of the
bighorn, perhaps on the whole the manliest of all our sports, means
heart-breaking fatigue for any but the strongest and hardiest. The
prongbuck, again, must be followed on the desolate, sun-scorched plains.
But the wapiti now dwells amid lofty, pine-clad mountains, in a region
of lakes and streams. A man can travel in comfort while hunting it,
because he can almost always take a pack-train with him, and the country
is usually sufficiently open to enable the hunter to enjoy all the charm
of distant landscapes. Where the wapiti lives the spotted trout swarm in
the brooks, and the woodgrouse fly upward to perch among the tree-tops
as the hunter passes them. When hunting him there is always sweet cold
water to be drunk at night, and beds of aromatic fir boughs on which to
sleep, with the blankets drawn over one to keep out the touch of the
frost. He must be followed on foot, and the man who follows him must be
sound in limb and wind. But his pursuit does not normally mean such
wearing exhaustion as is entailed by climbing cliffs all day long after
the white goat. Whoever has hunted the wapiti, as he looks at his
trophies will always think of the great mountains with the snow lying in
the rifts in their sides; of the splashing murmur of rock-choked
torrents; of the odorous breath of the pine branches; of tents pitched
in open glades; of long walks through cool, open forests; and of great
camp-fires, where the pitchy stumps flame like giant torches in the
darkness.

In the old days, of course, much of the hunting was done on the open
plains or among low, rugged hills. The wapiti that I shot when living at
my Little Missouri ranch were killed under exactly the same conditions
as mule-deer. When I built my ranch-house, wapiti were still not
uncommon, and their shed antlers were very numerous both on the bottoms
and in places among the hills. There was one such place a couple of
miles from my ranch in a stretch of comparatively barren but very broken
hill-country in which there were many score of these shed antlers.
Evidently a few years before this had been a great gathering-place for
wapiti toward the end of winter. My ranch itself derived its name, “The
Elkhorn,” from the fact that on the ground where we built it were found
the skulls and interlocked antlers of two wapiti bulls who had perished
from getting their antlers fastened in a battle. I never, however,
killed a wapiti while on a day’s hunt from the ranch itself. Those that
I killed were obtained on regular expeditions, when I took the wagon and
drove off to spend a night or two on ground too far for me to hunt it
through in a single day from the ranch. Moreover, the wapiti on the
Little Missouri had been so hunted that they had entirely abandoned the
diurnal habits of their kind, and it was a great advantage to get on the
ground early. This hunting was not carried on amid the glorious mountain
scenery which marks the home of the wapiti in the Rockies; but the
surroundings had a charm of their own. All really wild scenery is
attractive. The true hunter, the true lover of the wilderness, loves all
parts of the wilderness, just as the true lover of nature loves all
seasons. There is no season of the year when the country is not more
attractive than the city; and there is no portion of the wilderness,
where game is found, in which it is not a keen pleasure to hunt. Perhaps
no other kind of country quite equals that where snow lies on the lofty
mountain peaks, where there are many open glades in the pine forests,
and clear mountain lakes and rushing trout-filled torrents. But the
fantastic desolation of the Bad Lands, and the endless sweep of the
brown prairies, alike have their fascination for the true lover of
nature and lover of the wilderness who goes through them on foot or on
horseback. As for the broken hill-country in which I followed the wapiti
and the mule-deer along the Little Missouri, it would be strange indeed
if any one found it otherwise than attractive in the bright, sharp fall
weather. Long, grassy valleys wound among the boldly shaped hills. The
basins were filled with wind-beaten trees and brush, which generally
also ran alongside of the dry watercourses down the middle of each
valley. Cedars clustered in the sheer ravines, and here and there groups
of elm and ash grew to a considerable height in the more sheltered
places. At the first touch of the frost the foliage turned russet or
yellow—the Virginia creepers crimson. Under the cloudless blue sky the
air was fresh and cool, and as we lay by the camp-fire at night the
stars shone with extraordinary brilliancy. Under such conditions the
actual chase of the wapiti was much like that of the mule-deer. They had
been so hunted that they showed none of the foolish traits which they
are prone to exhibit when bands are found in regions where they have
been little persecuted; and they were easier to kill than mule-deer
simply because they were more readily tracked and more readily seen, and
offered a larger, and on the whole a steadier, mark at which to shoot.
When a small band had visited a pool their tracks could be identified at
once, because in the soft ground the flexible feet spread and yielded so
as to leave the marks of the false hoofs. On ordinary ground it was
difficult to tell their footprints from those of the yearling and
two-year-old ranch cattle.

[Illustration:

  TROPHIES OF A SUCCESSFUL HUNT
]

But the mountains are the true ground for the wapiti. Here he must be
hunted on foot, and nowadays, since he has grown wiser, skill and
patience, and the capacity to endure fatigue and exposure, must be shown
by the successful hunter. My own wapiti-hunting has been done in
September and early October during the height of the rut, and therefore
at a time when the conditions were most favorable for the hunter. I have
hunted them in many places throughout the Rockies, from the Big Horn in
western Wyoming to the Big Hole Basin in western Montana, close to the
Idaho line. Where I hunted, the wapiti were always very noisy both by
day and by night, and at least half of the bulls that I killed attracted
my attention by their calling before I saw either them or their tracks.
At night they frequently passed close to camp, or came nearly up to the
picketed horses, challenging all the time. More than once I slipped out,
hoping to kill one by moonlight, but I never succeeded. Occasionally,
when they were plentiful, and were restless and always roving about, I
simply sat still on a log, until one gave me a chance. Sometimes I came
across them while hunting through likely localities, going up or across
wind, keeping the sharpest lookout, and moving with great care and
caution, until I happened to strike the animals I was after. More than
once I took the trail of a band, when out with some first-class
woodsman, and after much running, dodging, and slipping through the
timber, overtook the animals—though usually when thus merely following
the trail I failed to come up with them. On two different occasions I
followed and came up to bands, attracted by their scent. Wapiti have a
strong, and, on the whole, pleasing scent, like that of Alderney cattle,
although in old bulls it becomes offensively strong. This scent is very
penetrating. I once smelt a herd which was lying quite still taking its
noonday siesta, certainly half a mile to the windward of me; and
creeping up I shot a good bull as he lay. On another occasion, while
working through the tangled trees and underbrush at the bottom of a
little winding valley, I suddenly smelt wapiti ahead, and without paying
any further attention to the search for tracks, I hunted cautiously up
the valley, and when it forked was able to decide by the smell alone
which way the wapiti had gone. He was going up wind ahead of me, and his
ground-covering walk kept me at a trot in order to overtake him. Finally
I saw him, before he saw me, and then, by making a run to one side, got
a shot at him when he broke cover, and dropped him.

It is exciting to creep up to a calling wapiti. If it is a solitary
bull, he is apt to be travelling, seeking the cows, or on the lookout
for some rival of weaker thews. Under such circumstances only hard
running will enable the hunter to overtake him, unless there is a chance
to cut him off. If, however, he hears another bull, or has a herd under
him, the chances are that he is nearly stationary, or at least is moving
slowly, and the hunter has every opportunity to approach. In a herd the
bull himself is usually so absorbed both with his cows and with his
rivals that he is not at all apt to discover the approaching hunter. The
cows, however, are thoroughly awake, and it is their eyes and keen noses
for which the hunter must look out. A solitary bull which is answering
the challenge of another is the easiest of all to approach. Of course,
if there has been much hunting, even such a bull is wary and is on the
lookout for harm. But in remote localities he becomes so absorbed in
finding out the whereabouts of his rival, and is so busy answering the
latter’s challenges and going through motions of defiance, that with
proper care it is comparatively easy to approach him. Once, when within
seventy yards of such a bull, he partly made me out and started toward
me. Evidently he could not tell exactly what I was—my buckskin shirt
probably helping to puzzle him—and in his anger and eagerness he did not
think of danger until it was too late. On another occasion I got up to
two bulls that were fighting, and killed both. In the fights, weight of
body seems to count for more than size of antlers.

Once I spent the better part of a day in following a wapiti bull before
I finally got him. Generally when hunting wapiti I have been with either
one of my men from the ranch or a hunter like Tazewell Woody, or John
Willis. On this particular occasion, however, I happened to be alone;
and though I have rarely been as successful alone as when in the company
of some thoroughly trained and experienced plainsman or mountainman, yet
when success does come under such circumstances it is always a matter of
peculiar pride.

At the time, I was camped in a beautiful valley high among the mountains
which divide southwestern Montana from Idaho. The weather was cold, and
there were a couple of inches of snow on the ground, so that the
conditions were favorable for tracking and stalking. The country was
well wooded, but the forest was not dense, and there were many open
glades. Early one morning, just about dawn, the cook, who had been up
for a few minutes, waked me, to say that a bull wapiti was calling not
far off. I rolled out of my bed and was dressed in short order. The bull
had by this time passed the camp, and was travelling toward a range of
mountains on the other side of the stream which ran down the valley
bottom. He was evidently not alarmed, for he was still challenging. I
gulped down a cup of hot coffee, munched a piece of hardtack, and thrust
four or five other pieces and a cold elk tongue into my hunting-shirt,
and then, as it had grown light enough to travel, started after the
wapiti. I supposed that in a few minutes I should either have overtaken
him or abandoned the pursuit, and I took the food with me simply because
in the wilderness it never pays to be unprepared for emergencies. The
wisdom of such a course was shown in this instance by the fact that I
did not see camp again until long after dark.

I at first tried to cut off the wapiti by trotting through the woods
toward the pass for which I supposed he was headed. The morning was
cold, and, as always happens at the outset when one starts to take
violent exercise under such circumstances, the running caused me to
break into a perspiration; so that the first time I stopped to listen
for the wapiti a regular fog rose over my glasses and then froze on
them. I could not see a thing, and after wiping them found I had to keep
gently moving in order to prevent them from clouding over again. It is
on such cold mornings, or else in very rainy weather, that the man who
has not been gifted with good eyes is most sensible of his limitations.
I once lost a caribou which I had been following at speed over the snow
because when I came into sight and halted the moisture instantly formed
and froze on my glasses so that I could not see anything, and before I
got them clear the game had vanished. Whatever happened, I was bound
that I should not lose this wapiti from a similar accident.

However, when I next heard him he had evidently changed his course and
was going straight away from me. The sun had now risen, and following
after him I soon found his tracks. He was walking forward with the
regular wapiti stride, and I made up my mind I had a long chase ahead of
me. We were going up hill, and though I walked hard, I did not trot
until we topped the crest. Then I jogged along at a good gait, and as I
had on moccasins, and the woods were open, I did not have to exercise
much caution. Accordingly I gained, and felt I was about to come up with
him, when the wind brought down from very far off another challenge. My
bull heard it before I did, and instantly started toward the spot at a
trot. There was not the slightest use of my attempting to keep up with
this, and I settled down into a walk. Half an hour afterward I came over
a slight crest, and immediately saw a herd of wapiti ahead of me, across
the valley and on an open hillside. The herd was in commotion, the
master bull whistling vigorously and rounding up his cows, evidently
much excited at the new bull’s approach. There were two or three
yearlings and two-year-old bulls on the outskirts of the herd, and the
master bull, whose temper had evidently not been improved by the coming
of the stranger, occasionally charged these and sent them rattling off
through the bushes. The ground was so open between me and them that I
dared not venture across it, and I was forced to lie still and await
developments. The bull I had been following and the herd bull kept
challenging vigorously, but the former probably recognized in the latter
a heavier animal, and could not rouse his courage to the point of
actually approaching and doing battle. It by no means follows that the
animal with the heaviest body has the best antlers, but the hesitation
thus shown by the bull I was following made me feel that the other would
probably yield the more valuable trophies, and after a couple of hours I
made up my mind to try to get near the herd, abandoning the animal I had
been after.

The herd showed but little symptoms of moving, the cows when let alone
scattering out to graze, and some of them even lying down. Accordingly I
did not hurry myself, and spent considerably over an hour in slipping
off to the right and approaching through a belt of small firs.
Unfortunately, however, the wind had slightly shifted, and while I was
out of sight of the herd they had also come down toward the spot from
whence I had been watching them. Accordingly, just as I was beginning to
creep forward with the utmost caution, expecting to see them at any
moment, I heard a thumping and cracking of branches that showed they
were on the run. With wapiti there is always a chance of overtaking them
after they have first started, because they tack and veer and halt to
look around. Therefore I ran forward as fast as I could through the
woods; but when I came to the edge of the fir belt I saw that the herd
were several hundred yards off. They were clustered together and looking
back, and saw me at once.

Off they started again. The old bull, however, had neither seen me nor
smelt me, and when I heard his whistle of rage I knew he had
misinterpreted the reason for the departure of his cows, and in another
moment he came in sight, evidently bent on rounding them up. On his way
he attacked and drove off one of the yearlings, and then took after the
cows, while the yearling ran toward the outlying bull. The latter
evidently failed to understand what had happened; at least he showed no
signs of alarm. Neither, however, did he attempt to follow the fleeing
herd, but started off again on his own line.

I was sure the herd would not stop for some miles, and accordingly I
resumed my chase of the single bull. He walked for certainly three miles
before he again halted, and I was then half a mile behind him. On this
occasion he struck a small belt of woodland and began to travel to and
fro through it, probably with an idea of lying down. I was able to get
up fairly close by crawling on all-fours through the snow for part of
the distance; but just as I was about to fire he moved slightly, and
though my shot hit him, it went a little too far back. He plunged over
the hill-crest and was off at a gallop, and after running forward and
failing to overtake him in the first rush, I sat down to consider
matters. The snow had begun to melt under the sun, and my knees and the
lower parts of my sleeves were wet from my crawl, and I was tired and
hungry and very angry at having failed to kill the wapiti. It was,
however, early in the afternoon, and I thought that if I let the wapiti
alone for an hour, he would lie down, and then grow stiff and reluctant
to get up; while in the snow I was sure I could easily follow his
tracks. Therefore I ate my lunch, and then swallowed some mouthfuls of
snow in lieu of drinking.

[Illustration:

  TROPHIES IN THE WHITE HOUSE DINING-ROOM
]

An hour afterward I took the trail. It was evident the bull was hard
hit, but even after he had changed his plunging gallop for a trot he
showed no signs of stopping; fortunately his trail did not cross any
other. The blood signs grew infrequent, and two or three times he went
up places which made it difficult for me to believe he was much hurt. At
last, however, I came to where he had lain down; but he had risen again
and gone forward. For a moment I feared that my approach had alarmed
him, but this was evidently not the case, for he was now walking. I left
the trail, and turning to one side below the wind I took a long circle
and again struck back to the bottom of the valley down which the wapiti
had been travelling. The timber here was quite thick, and I moved very
cautiously, continually halting and listening for five or ten minutes.
Not a sound did I hear, and I crossed the valley bottom and began to
ascend the other side without finding the trail. Unless he had turned
off up the mountains I knew that this meant he must have lain down; so I
retraced my steps and with extreme caution began to make my way up the
valley. Finally I came to a little opening, and after peering about for
five minutes I stepped forward, and instantly heard a struggling and
crashing in a clump of young spruce on the other side. It was the wapiti
trying to get on his feet. I ran forward at my best pace, and as he was
stiff and slow in his movements I was within seventy yards before he got
fairly under way. Dropping on one knee, I fired and hit him in the
flank. At the moment I could not tell whether or not I had missed him,
for he gave no sign; but, running forward very fast, I speedily saw him
standing with his head down. He heard me and again started, but at the
third bullet down he went in his tracks, the antlers clattering loudly
on the branches of a dead tree.

The snow was melting fast, and for fear it might go off entirely, so
that I could not follow my back track, I went up the hillside upon which
the wapiti lay, and taking a dead tree dragged it down to the bottom,
leaving a long furrow. I then repeated the operation on the opposite
hillside, thus making a trace which it was impossible for any one coming
up or down the valley to overlook; and having conned certain landmarks
by which the valley itself could be identified, I struck toward camp at
a round trot; for I knew that if I did not get into the valley where the
tent lay before dark, I should have to pass the night out. However, the
last uncertain light of dusk just enabled me to get over a spur from
which I could catch a glimpse of the camp-fire, and as I stumbled toward
it through the forest I heard a couple of shots, which showed that the
cook and packer were getting anxious as to my whereabouts.




                               CHAPTER IX
               WILDERNESS RESERVES; THE YELLOWSTONE PARK


The most striking and melancholy feature in connection with American big
game is the rapidity with which it has vanished. When, just before the
outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the rifle-bearing hunters of the
backwoods first penetrated the great forests west of the Alleghanies,
deer, elk, black bear, and even buffalo, swarmed in what are now the
States of Kentucky and Tennessee, and the country north of the Ohio was
a great and almost virgin hunting-ground. From that day to this the
shrinkage has gone on, only partially checked here and there, and never
arrested as a whole. As a matter of historical accuracy, however, it is
well to bear in mind that many writers, in lamenting this extinction of
the game, have from time to time anticipated or overstated the facts.
Thus as good an author as Colonel Richard Irving Dodge spoke of the
buffalo as practically extinct, while the great Northern herd still
existed in countless thousands. As early as 1880 sporting authorities
spoke not only of the buffalo, but of the elk, deer, and antelope as no
longer to be found in plenty; and recently one of the greatest of living
hunters has stated that it is no longer possible to find any American
wapiti bearing heads comparable with the red deer of Hungary. As a
matter of fact, in the early eighties there were still large regions
where every species of game that had ever been known within historic
times on our continent was still to be found as plentifully as ever. In
the early nineties there were still big tracts of wilderness in which
this was true of all game except the buffalo; for instance, it was true
of the elk in portions of northwestern Wyoming, of the blacktail in
northwestern Colorado, of the whitetail here and there in the Indian
Territory, and of the antelope in parts of New Mexico. Even at the
present day there are smaller, but still considerable, regions where
these four animals are yet found in abundance; and I have seen antlers
of wapiti shot since 1900 far surpassing any of which there is record
from Hungary. In New England and New York, as well as New Brunswick and
Nova Scotia, the whitetail deer is more plentiful than it was thirty
years ago, and in Maine (and to an even greater extent in New Brunswick)
the moose, and here and there the caribou, have, on the whole, increased
during the same period. There is yet ample opportunity for the big game
hunter in the United States, Canada and Alaska.

While it is necessary to give this word of warning to those who, in
praising time past, always forget the opportunities of the present, it
is a thousandfold more necessary to remember that these opportunities
are, nevertheless, vanishing; and if we are a sensible people, we will
make it our business to see that the process of extinction is arrested.
At the present moment the great herds of caribou are being butchered, as
in the past the great herds of bison and wapiti have been butchered.
Every believer in manliness, and therefore in manly sport, and every
lover of nature, every man who appreciates the majesty and beauty of the
wilderness and of wild life, should strike hands with the far-sighted
men who wish to preserve our material resources, in the effort to keep
our forests and our game beasts, game birds, and game fish—indeed, all
the living creatures of prairie, and woodland, and seashore—from wanton
destruction.

Above all, we should realize that the effort toward this end is
essentially a democratic movement. It is entirely in our power as a
nation to preserve large tracts of wilderness, which are valueless for
agricultural purposes and unfit for settlement, as playgrounds for rich
and poor alike, and to preserve the game so that it shall continue to
exist for the benefit of all lovers of nature, and to give reasonable
opportunities for the exercise of the skill of the hunter, whether he is
or is not a man of means. But this end can only be achieved by wise laws
and by a resolute enforcement of the laws. Lack of such legislation and
administration will result in harm to all of us, but most of all in harm
to the nature lover who does not possess vast wealth. Already there have
sprung up here and there through the country, as in New Hampshire and
the Adirondacks, large private preserves. These preserves often serve a
useful purpose, and should be encouraged within reasonable limits; but
it would be a misfortune if they increased beyond a certain extent or if
they took the place of great tracts of wild land, which continue as such
either because of their very nature, or because of the protection of the
State exerted in the form of making them State or national parks or
reserves. It is foolish to regard proper game laws as undemocratic,
unrepublican. On the contrary, they are essentially in the interests of
the people as a whole, because it is only through their enactment and
enforcement that the people as a whole can preserve the game and can
prevent its becoming purely the property of the rich, who are able to
create and maintain extensive private preserves. The wealthy man can get
hunting anyhow, but the man of small means is dependent solely upon wise
and well-executed game laws for his enjoyment of the sturdy pleasure of
the chase. In Maine, in Vermont, in the Adirondacks, even in parts of
Massachusetts and on Long Island, people have waked up to this fact,
particularly so far as the common whitetail deer is concerned, and in
Maine also as regards the moose and caribou. The effect is shown in the
increase in these animals. Such game protection results, in the first
place, in securing to the people who live in the neighborhood permanent
opportunities for hunting; and in the next place, it provides no small
source of wealth to the locality because of the visitors which it
attracts. A deer wild in the woods is worth to the people of the
neighborhood many times the value of its carcass, because of the way it
attracts sportsmen, who give employment and leave money behind them.

True sportsmen, worthy of the name, men who shoot only in season and in
moderation, do no harm whatever to game. The most objectionable of all
game destroyers is, of course, the kind of game-butcher who simply kills
for the sake of the record of slaughter, who leaves deer and ducks and
prairie-chickens to rot after he has slain them. Such a man is wholly
obnoxious; and, indeed, so is any man who shoots for the purpose of
establishing a record of the amount of game killed. To my mind this is
one very unfortunate feature of what is otherwise the admirably
sportsmanlike English spirit in these matters. The custom of shooting
great bags of deer, grouse, partridges, and pheasants, the keen rivalry
in making such bags, and their publication in sporting journals, are
symptoms of a spirit which is most unhealthy from every standpoint. It
is to be earnestly hoped that every American hunting or fishing club
will strive to inculcate among its own members, and in the minds of the
general public, that anything like an excessive bag, any destruction for
the sake of making a record, is to be severely reprobated.

But after all, this kind of perverted sportsman, unworthy though he be,
is not the chief actor in the destruction of our game. The professional
skin or market hunter is the real offender. Yet he is of all others the
man who would ultimately be most benefited by the preservation of the
game. The frontier settler, in a thoroughly wild country, is certain to
kill game for his own use. As long as he does no more than this, it is
hard to blame him; although if he is awake to his own interests he will
soon realize that to him, too, the live deer is worth far more than the
dead deer, because of the way in which it brings money into the
wilderness. The professional market hunter who kills game for the hide,
or for the feathers, or for the meat, or to sell antlers and other
trophies; the market men who put game in cold storage; and the rich
people, who are content to buy what they have not the skill to get by
their own exertions—these are the men who are the real enemies of game.
Where there is no law which checks the market hunters, the inevitable
result of their butchery is that the game is completely destroyed, and
with it their own means of livelihood. If, on the other hand, they were
willing to preserve it, they could make much more money by acting as
guides. In northwestern Colorado, at the present moment, there are still
blacktail deer in abundance, and some elk are left. Colorado has fairly
good game laws, but they are indifferently enforced. The country in
which the game is found can probably never support any but a very sparse
population, and a large portion of the summer range is practically
useless for settlement. If the people of Colorado generally, and above
all the people of the counties in which the game is located, would
resolutely cooperate with those of their own number who are already
alive to the importance of preserving the game, it could, without
difficulty, be kept always as abundant as it now is, and this beautiful
region would be a permanent health resort and playground for the people
of a large part of the Union. Such action would be a benefit to every
one, but it would be a benefit most of all to the people of the
immediate locality.

The practical common sense of the American people has been in no way
made more evident during the last few years than by the creation and use
of a series of large land reserves—situated for the most part on the
great plains and among the mountains of the West—intended to keep the
forests from destruction, and therefore to conserve the water supply.
These reserves are, and should be, created primarily for economic
purposes. The semi-arid regions can only support a reasonable population
under conditions of the strictest economy and wisdom in the use of the
water supply, and in addition to their other economic uses the forests
are indispensably necessary for the preservation of the water supply and
for rendering possible its useful distribution throughout the proper
seasons. In addition, however, to this economic use of the wilderness,
selected portions of it have been kept here and there in a state of
nature, not merely for the sake of preserving the forests and the water,
but for the sake of preserving all its beauties and wonders unspoiled by
greedy and short-sighted vandalism. What has been actually accomplished
in the Yellowstone Park affords the best possible object-lesson as to
the desirability and practicability of establishing such wilderness
reserves. This reserve is a natural breeding-ground and nursery for
those stately and beautiful haunters of the wilds which have now
vanished from so many of the great forests, the vast lonely plains, and
the high mountain ranges, where they once abounded.

On April 8, 1903, John Burroughs and I reached the Yellowstone Park, and
were met by Major John Pitcher of the Regular Army, the Superintendent
of the Park. The Major and I forthwith took horses; he telling me that
he could show me a good deal of game while riding up to his house at the
Mammoth Hot Springs. Hardly had we left the little town of Gardiner and
gotten within the limits of the Park before we saw prongbuck. There was
a band of at least a hundred feeding some distance from the road. We
rode leisurely toward them. They were tame compared to their kindred in
unprotected places; that is, it was easy to ride within fair rifle range
of them; and though they were not familiar in the sense that we
afterwards found the bighorn and the deer to be familiar, it was
extraordinary to find them showing such familiarity almost literally in
the streets of a frontier town. It spoke volumes for the good sense and
law-abiding spirit of the people of the town. During the two hours
following my entry into the Park we rode around the plains and lower
slopes of the foothills in the neighborhood of the mouth of the Gardiner
and we saw several hundred—probably a thousand all told—of these
antelopes. Major Pitcher informed me that all the pronghorns in the Park
wintered in this neighborhood. Toward the end of April or the first of
May they migrate back to their summering homes in the open valleys along
the Yellowstone and in the plains south of the Golden Gate. While
migrating they go over the mountains and through forests if occasion
demands. Although there are plenty of coyotes in the Park, there are no
big wolves, and save for very infrequent poachers the only enemy of the
antelope, as indeed the only enemy of all the game, is the cougar.

[Illustration:

  ANTELOPE IN THE STREETS OF GARDINER
]

Cougars, known in the Park, as elsewhere through the West,as “mountain
lions,” are plentiful, having increased in numbers of recent years.
Except in the neighborhood of the Gardiner River, that is within a few
miles of Mammoth Hot Springs, I found them feeding on elk, which in the
Park far outnumber all other game put together, being so numerous that
the ravages of the cougars are of no real damage to the herds. But in
the neighborhood of the Mammoth Hot Springs the cougars are noxious
because of the antelope, mountain sheep, and deer which they kill; and
the Superintendent has imported some hounds with which to hunt them.
These hounds are managed by Buffalo Jones, a famous old plainsman, who
is now in the Park taking care of the buffalo. On this first day of my
visit to the Park I came across the carcasses of a deer and of an
antelope which the cougars had killed. On the great plains cougars
rarely get antelope, but here the country is broken so that the big cats
can make their stalks under favorable circumstances. To deer and
mountain sheep the cougar is a most dangerous enemy—much more so than
the wolf.

The antelope we saw were usually in bands of from twenty to one hundred
and fifty, and they travelled strung out almost in single file, though
those in the rear would sometimes bunch up. I did not try to stalk them,
but got as near them as I could on horseback. The closest approach I was
able to make was to within about eighty yards of two which were by
themselves—I think a doe and a last year’s fawn. As I was riding up to
them, although they looked suspiciously at me, one actually lay down.
When I was passing them at about eighty yards’ distance the big one
became nervous, gave a sudden jump, and away the two went at full speed.

Why the prongbucks were so comparatively shy I do not know, for right on
the ground with them we came upon deer, and, in the immediate
neighborhood, mountain sheep, which were absurdly tame. The mountain
sheep were nineteen in number, for the most part does and yearlings with
a couple of three-year-old rams, but not a single big fellow—for the big
fellows at this season are off by themselves, singly or in little
bunches, high up in the mountains. The band I saw was tame to a degree
matched by but few domestic animals.

They were feeding on the brink of a steep washout at the upper edge of
one of the benches on the mountain-side just below where the abrupt
slope began. They were alongside a little gully with sheer walls. I rode
my horse to within forty yards of them, one of them occasionally looking
up and at once continuing to feed. Then they moved slowly off and
leisurely crossed the gully to the other side. I dismounted, walked
around the head of the gully, and moving cautiously, but in plain sight,
came closer and closer until I was within twenty yards, when I sat down
on a stone and spent certainly twenty minutes looking at them. They paid
hardly any attention to my presence—certainly no more than well-treated
domestic creatures would pay. One of the rams rose on his hind legs,
leaning his fore-hoofs against a little pine tree, and browsed the ends
of the budding branches. The others grazed on the short grass and
herbage or lay down and rested—two of the yearlings several times
playfully butting at one another. Now and then one would glance in my
direction without the slightest sign of fear—barely even of curiosity. I
have no question whatever but that with a little patience this
particular band could be made to feed out of a man’s hand. Major Pitcher
intends during the coming winter to feed them alfalfa—for game animals
of several kinds have become so plentiful in the neighborhood of the Hot
Springs, and the Major has grown so interested in them, that he wishes
to do something toward feeding them during the severe weather. After I
had looked at the sheep to my heart’s content, I walked back to my
horse, my departure arousing as little interest as my advent.

Soon after leaving them we began to come across blacktail deer, singly,
in twos and threes, and in small bunches of a dozen or so. They were
almost as tame as the mountain sheep, but not quite. That is, they
always looked alertly at me, and though if I stayed still they would
graze, they kept a watch over my movements and usually moved slowly off
when I got within less than forty yards of them. Up to that distance,
whether on foot or on horseback, they paid but little heed to me, and on
several occasions they allowed me to come much closer. Like the bighorn,
the blacktails at this time were grazing, not browsing; but I
occasionally saw them nibble some willow buds. During the winter they
had been browsing. As we got close to the Hot Springs we came across
several whitetail in an open, marshy meadow. They were not quite as tame
as the blacktail, although without any difficulty I walked up to within
fifty yards of them. Handsome though the blacktail is, the whitetail is
the most beautiful of all deer when in motion, because of the springy,
bounding grace of its trot and canter, and the way it carries its head
and white flag aloft.

Before reaching the Mammoth Hot Springs we also saw a number of ducks in
the little pools and on the Gardiner. Some of them were rather shy.
Others—probably those which, as Major Pitcher informed me, had spent the
winter there—were as tame as barn-yard fowls.

Just before reaching the post the Major took me into the big field where
Buffalo Jones had some Texas and Flathead Lake buffalo—bulls and
cows—which he was tending with solicitous care. The original stock of
buffalo in the Park have now been reduced to fifteen or twenty
individuals, and their blood is being recruited by the addition of
buffalo purchased out of the Flathead Lake and Texas Panhandle herds.
The buffalo were at first put within a wire fence, which, when it was
built, was found to have included both blacktail and whitetail deer. A
bull elk was also put in with them at one time, he having met with some
accident which made the Major and Buffalo Jones bring him in to doctor
him. When he recovered his health he became very cross. Not only would
he attack men, but also buffalo, even the old and surly master bull,
thumping them savagely with his antlers if they did anything to which he
objected. The buffalo are now breeding well.

[Illustration:

  BLACKTAIL DEER ON PARADE-GROUND
]

When I reached the post and dismounted at the Major’s house, I supposed
my experiences with wild beasts were ended for the day; but this was an
error. The quarters of the officers and men and the various hotel
buildings, stables, residences of the civilian officials, etc., almost
completely surround the big parade-ground at the post, near the middle
of which stands the flag-pole, while the gun used for morning and
evening salutes is well off to one side. There are large gaps between
some of the buildings, and Major Pitcher informed me that throughout the
winter he had been leaving alfalfa on the parade-grounds, and that
numbers of blacktail deer had been in the habit of visiting it every
day, sometimes as many as seventy being on the parade-ground at once. As
spring-time came on the numbers diminished. However, in mid-afternoon,
while I was writing in my room in Major Pitcher’s house, on looking out
of the window I saw five deer on the parade-ground. They were as tame as
so many Alderney cows, and when I walked out I got within twenty yards
of them without any difficulty. It was most amusing to see them as the
time approached for the sunset gun to be fired. The notes of the
trumpeter attracted their attention at once. They all looked at him
eagerly. One of them resumed feeding, and paid no attention whatever
either to the bugle, the gun or the flag. The other four, however,
watched the preparations for firing the gun with an intent gaze, and at
the sound of the report gave two or three jumps; then instantly
wheeling, looked up at the flag as it came down. This they seemed to
regard as something rather more suspicious than the gun, and they
remained very much on the alert until the ceremony was over. Once it was
finished, they resumed feeding as if nothing had happened. Before it was
dark they trotted away from the parade-ground back to the mountains.

The next day we rode off to the Yellowstone River, camping some miles
below Cottonwood Creek. It was a very pleasant camp. Major Pitcher, an
old friend, had a first-class pack-train, so that we were as comfortable
as possible, and on such a trip there could be no pleasanter or more
interesting companion than John Burroughs—“Oom John,” as we soon grew to
call him. Where our tents were pitched the bottom of the valley was
narrow, the mountains rising steep and cliff-broken on either side.
There were quite a number of blacktail in the valley, which were tame
and unsuspicious, although not nearly as much so as those in the
immediate neighborhood of the Mammoth Hot Springs. One mid-afternoon
three of them swam across the river a hundred yards above our camp. But
the characteristic animals of the region were the elk—the wapiti. They
were certainly more numerous than when I was last through the Park
twelve years before.

In the summer the elk spread all over the interior of the Park. As
winter approaches they divide, some going north and others south. The
southern bands, which, at a guess, may possibly include ten thousand
individuals, winter out of the Park, for the most part in Jackson’s
Hole—though of course here and there within the limits of the Park a few
elk may spend both winter and summer in an unusually favorable location.
It was the members of the northern band that I met. During the winter
time they are nearly stationary, each band staying within a very few
miles of the same place, and from their size and the open nature of
their habitat it is almost as easy to count them as if they were cattle.
From a spur of Bison Peak one day, Major Pitcher, the guide Elwood
Hofer, John Burroughs and I spent about four hours with the glasses
counting and estimating the different herds within sight. After most
careful work and cautious reduction of estimates in each case to the
minimum the truth would permit, we reckoned three thousand head of elk,
all lying or feeding and all in sight at the same time. An estimate of
some fifteen thousand for the number of elk in these Northern bands
cannot be far wrong. These bands do not go out of the Park at all, but
winter just within its northern boundary. At the time when we saw them,
the snow had vanished from the bottoms of the valleys and the lower
slopes of the mountains, but remained as continuous sheets farther up
their sides. The elk were for the most part found up on the snow slopes,
occasionally singly or in small gangs—more often in bands of from fifty
to a couple of hundred. The larger bulls were highest up the mountains
and generally in small troops by themselves, although occasionally one
or two would be found associating with a big herd of cows, yearlings,
and two-year-olds. Many of the bulls had shed their antlers; many had
not. During the winter the elk had evidently done much browsing, but at
this time they were grazing almost exclusively, and seemed by preference
to seek out the patches of old grass which were last left bare by the
retreating snow. The bands moved about very little, and if one were seen
one day it was generally possible to find it within a few hundred yards
of the same spot the next day, and certainly not more than a mile or two
off. There were severe frosts at night, and occasionally light flurries
of snow; but the hardy beasts evidently cared nothing for any but heavy
storms, and seemed to prefer to lie in the snow rather than upon the
open ground. They fed at irregular hours throughout the day, just like
cattle; one band might be lying down while another was feeding. While
travelling they usually went almost in single file. Evidently the winter
had weakened them, and they were not in condition for running; for on
the one or two occasions when I wanted to see them close up I ran right
into them on horseback, both on level plains and going up hill along the
sides of rather steep mountains. One band in particular I practically
rounded up for John Burroughs, finally getting them to stand in a huddle
while he and I sat on our horses less than fifty yards off. After they
had run a little distance they opened their mouths wide and showed
evident signs of distress.

We came across a good many carcasses. Two, a bull and a cow, had died
from scab. Over half the remainder had evidently perished from cold or
starvation. The others, including a bull, three cows and a score of
yearlings, had been killed by cougars. In the Park the cougar is at
present their only animal foe. The cougars were preying on nothing but
elk in the Yellowstone Valley, and kept hanging about the neighborhood
of the big bands. Evidently they usually selected some outlying
yearling, stalked it as it lay or as it fed, and seized it by the head
and throat. The bull which they killed was in a little open valley by
himself, many miles from any other elk. The cougar which killed it,
judging from its tracks, was a big male. As the elk were evidently
rather too numerous for the feed, I do not think the cougars were doing
any damage.

Coyotes are plentiful, but the elk evidently have no dread of them. One
day I crawled up to within fifty yards of a band of elk lying down. A
coyote was walking about among them, and beyond an occasional look they
paid no heed to him. He did not venture to go within fifteen or twenty
paces of any one of them. In fact, except the cougar, I saw but one
living thing attempt to molest the elk. This was a golden eagle. We saw
several of these great birds. On one occasion we had ridden out to the
foot of a sloping mountain-side, dotted over with bands and strings of
elk amounting in the aggregate probably to a thousand head. Most of the
bands were above the snow-line—some appearing away back toward the ridge
crests, and looking as small as mice. There was one band well below the
snow-line, and toward this we rode. While the elk were not shy or wary,
in the sense that a hunter would use the words, they were by no means as
familiar as the deer; and this particular band of elk, some twenty or
thirty in all, watched us with interest as we approached. When we were
still half a mile off they suddenly started to run toward us, evidently
frightened by something. They ran quartering, and when about four
hundred yards away we saw that an eagle was after them. Soon it swooped,
and a yearling in the rear, weakly, and probably frightened by the
swoop, turned a complete somersault, and when it recovered its feet
stood still. The great bird followed the rest of the band across a
little ridge, beyond which they disappeared. Then it returned, soaring
high in the heavens, and after two or three wide circles, swooped down
at the solitary yearling, its legs hanging down. We halted at two
hundred yards to see the end. But the eagle could not quite make up its
mind to attack. Twice it hovered within a foot or two of the yearling’s
head, again flew off and again returned. Finally the yearling trotted
off after the rest of the band, and the eagle returned to the upper air.
Later we found the carcass of a yearling, with two eagles, not to
mention ravens and magpies, feeding on it; but I could not tell whether
they had themselves killed the yearling or not.

Here and there in the region where the elk were abundant we came upon
horses, which for some reason had been left out through the winter. They
were much wilder than the elk. Evidently the Yellowstone Park is a
natural nursery and breeding-ground of the elk, which here, as said
above, far outnumber all the other game put together. In the winter, if
they cannot get to open water, they eat snow; but in several places
where there had been springs which kept open all winter, we could see by
the tracks that they had been regularly used by bands of elk. The men
working at the new road along the face of the cliffs beside the
Yellowstone River near Tower Falls informed me that in October enormous
droves of elk coming from the interior of the Park and travelling
northward to the lower lands had crossed the Yellowstone just above
Tower Falls. Judging by their description, the elk had crossed by
thousands in an uninterrupted stream, the passage taking many hours. In
fact nowadays these Yellowstone elk are, with the exception of the
Arctic caribou, the only American game which at times travel in immense
droves like the buffalo of the old days.

[Illustration:

  ELK IN SNOW
]

A couple of days after leaving Cottonwood Creek—where we had spent
several days—we camped at the Yellowstone Canyon below Tower Falls. Here
we saw a second band of mountain sheep, numbering only eight—none of
them old rams. We were camped on the west side of the canyon; the sheep
had their abode on the opposite side, where they had spent the winter.
It has recently been customary among some authorities, especially the
English hunters and naturalists who have written of the Asiatic sheep,
to speak as if sheep were naturally creatures of the plains rather than
mountain climbers. I know nothing of the Old World sheep, but the Rocky
Mountain bighorn is to the full as characteristic a mountain animal, in
every sense of the word, as the chamois, and, I think, as the ibex.
These sheep were well known to the road builders, who had spent the
winter in the locality. They told me they never went back on the plains,
but throughout the winter had spent their days and nights on the top of
the cliff and along its face. This cliff was an alternation of sheer
precipices and very steep inclines. When coated with ice it would be
difficult to imagine an uglier bit of climbing; but throughout the
winter, and even in the wildest storms, the sheep had habitually gone
down it to drink at the water below. When we first saw them they were
lying sunning themselves on the edge of the canyon, where the rolling
grassy country behind it broke off into the sheer descent. It was
mid-afternoon and they were under some pines. After a while they got up
and began to graze, and soon hopped unconcernedly down the side of the
cliff until they were half-way to the bottom. They then grazed along the
sides, and spent some time licking at a place where there was evidently
a mineral deposit. Before dark they all lay down again on a steeply
inclined jutting spur midway between the top and bottom of the canyon.

Next morning I thought I would like to see them close up, so I walked
down three or four miles below where the canyon ended, crossed the
stream, and came up the other side until I got on what was literally the
stamping-ground of the sheep. Their tracks showed that they had spent
their time for many weeks, and probably for all the winter, within a
very narrow radius. For perhaps a mile and a half, or two miles at the
very outside, they had wandered to and fro on the summit of the canyon,
making what was almost a well-beaten path; always very near and usually
on the edge of the cliff, and hardly ever going more than a few yards
back into the grassy plain-and-hill country. Their tracks and dung
covered the ground. They had also evidently descended into the depths of
the canyon wherever there was the slightest break or even lowering in
the upper line of the basalt cliffs. Although mountain sheep often
browse in winter, I saw but few traces of browsing here; probably on the
sheer cliff side they always get some grazing.

When I spied the band they were lying not far from the spot in which
they had lain the day before, and in the same position on the brink of
the canyon. They saw me and watched me with interest when I was two
hundred yards off, but they let me get up within forty yards and sit
down on a large stone to look at them, without running off. Most of them
were lying down, but a couple were feeding steadily throughout the time
I watched them. Suddenly one took the alarm and dashed straight over the
cliff, the others all following at once. I ran after them to the edge in
time to see the last yearling drop off the edge of the basalt cliff and
stop short on the sheer slope below, while the stones dislodged by his
hoofs rattled down the canyon. They all looked up at me with great
interest, and then strolled off to the edge of a jutting spur and lay
down almost directly underneath me and some fifty yards off. That
evening on my return to camp we watched the band make its way right down
to the river bed, going over places where it did not seem possible a
four-footed creature could pass. They halted to graze here and there,
and down the worst places they went very fast with great bounds. It was
a marvellous exhibition of climbing.

After we had finished this horseback trip we went on sleds and skis to
the upper Geyser Basin and the Falls of the Yellowstone. Although it was
the third week in April, the snow was still several feet deep, and only
thoroughly trained snow horses could have taken the sleighs along, while
around the Yellowstone Falls it was possible to move only on snowshoes.
There was little life in those woods. In the upper basin I caught a
meadow mouse on the snow; I afterwards sent it to Hart Merriam, who told
me it was of a species he had described from Idaho, _Microtus nanus_; it
had not been previously found in the Yellowstone region. We saw an
occasional pine squirrel, snowshoe rabbit or marten; and in the open
meadows around the hot waters there were Canada geese and ducks of
several species, and now and then a coyote. Around camp Clark’s crows
and Stellar’s jays, and occasionally magpies, came to pick at the
refuse; and of course they were accompanied by the whiskey jacks, which
behaved with their usual astounding familiarity. At Norris Geyser Basin
there was a perfect chorus of bird music from robins, western purple
finches, juncos and mountain bluebirds. In the woods there were mountain
chickadees and pygmy nuthatches, together with an occasional woodpecker.
In the northern country we had come across a very few blue grouse and
ruffed grouse, both as tame as possible. We had seen a pygmy owl no
larger than a robin sitting on the top of a pine in broad daylight, and
uttering at short intervals a queer un-owl-like cry.

[Illustration:

  OOM JOHN
]

The birds that interested us most were the solitaires, and especially
the dippers or water-ousels. We were fortunate enough to hear the
solitaires sing not only when perched on trees, but on the wing, soaring
over a great canyon. They are striking birds in every way, and their
habit of singing while soaring, and their song, are alike noteworthy.
Once I heard a solitaire singing at the top of a canyon, and an ousel
also singing but a thousand feet below him; and in this case I thought
the ousel sang better than his unconscious rival. The ousels are to my
mind well-nigh the most attractive of all our birds, because of their
song, their extraordinary habits, their whole personality. They stay
through the winter in the Yellowstone because the waters are in many
places open. We heard them singing cheerfully, their ringing melody
having a certain suggestion of the winter wren’s. Usually they sang
while perched on some rock on the edge or in the middle of the stream;
but sometimes on the wing; and often just before dipping under the
torrent, or just after slipping out from it onto some ledge of rock or
ice. In the open places the Western meadow lark was uttering its
beautiful song; a real song as compared to the plaintive notes of its
Eastern brother, and though short, yet with continuity and tune as well
as melody. I love to hear the Eastern meadow lark in the early spring;
but I love still more the song of the Western meadow lark. No bird
escaped John Burroughs’ eye; no bird note escaped his ear.

I cannot understand why the Old World ousel should have received such
comparatively scant attention in the books, whether from nature writers
or poets; whereas our ousel has greatly impressed all who know him. John
Muir’s description comes nearest doing him justice. To me he seems a
more striking bird than for instance the skylark; though of course I not
only admire but am very fond of the skylark. There are various pipits
and larks in our own country which sing in highest air, as does the
skylark, and their songs, though not as loud, are almost as sustained;
and though they lack the finer kind of melody, so does his. The ousel,
on the contrary, is a really brilliant singer, and in his habits he is
even farther removed from the commonplace and the uninteresting than the
lark himself. Some birds, such as the ousel, the mocking-bird, the
solitaire, show marked originality, marked distinction; others do not;
the chipping sparrow, for instance, while in no way objectionable (like
the imported house sparrow), is yet a hopelessly commonplace little bird
alike in looks, habits and voice.

[Illustration:

  BEARS AND TOURISTS
]

On the last day of my stay it was arranged that I should ride down from
Mammoth Hot Springs to the town of Gardiner, just outside the Park
limits, and there make an address at the laying of the corner-stone of
the arch by which the main road is to enter the Park. Some three
thousand people had gathered to attend the ceremonies. A little over a
mile from Gardiner we came down out of the hills to the flat plain; from
the hills we could see the crowd gathered around the arch waiting for me
to come. We put spurs to our horses and cantered rapidly toward the
appointed place, and on the way we passed within forty yards of a score
of blacktails, which merely moved to one side and looked at us, and
within almost as short a distance of half a dozen antelope. To any lover
of nature it could not help being a delightful thing to see the wild and
timid creatures of the wilderness rendered so tame; and their tameness
in the immediate neighborhood of Gardiner, on the very edge of the Park,
spoke volumes for the patriotic good sense of the citizens of Montana.
At times the antelope actually cross the Park line to Gardiner, which is
just outside, and feed unmolested in the very streets of the town; a
fact which shows how very far advanced the citizens of Gardiner are in
right feeling on this subject; for of course the Federal laws cease to
protect the antelope as soon as they are out of the Park. Major Pitcher
informed me that both the Montana and Wyoming people were cooperating
with him in zealous fashion to preserve the game and put a stop to
poaching. For their attitude in this regard they deserve the cordial
thanks of all Americans interested in these great popular playgrounds,
where bits of the old wilderness scenery and the old wilderness life are
to be kept unspoiled for the benefit of our children’s children. Eastern
people, and especially Eastern sportsmen, need to keep steadily in mind
the fact that the westerners who live in the neighborhood of the forest
preserves are the men who in the last resort will determine whether or
not these preserves are to be permanent. They cannot in the long run be
kept as forest and game reservations unless the settlers roundabout
believe in them and heartily support them; and the rights of these
settlers must be carefully safeguarded, and they must be shown that the
movement is really in their interest. The Eastern sportsman who fails to
recognize these facts can do little but harm by advocacy of forest
reserves.

It was in the interior of the Park, at the hotels beside the lake, the
falls, and the various geyser basins, that we would have seen the bears
had the season been late enough; but unfortunately the bears were still
for the most part hibernating. We saw two or three tracks, but the
animals themselves had not yet begun to come about the hotels. Nor were
the hotels open. No visitors had previously entered the Park in the
winter or early spring, the scouts and other employees being the only
ones who occasionally traverse it. I was sorry not to see the bears, for
the effect of protection upon bear life in the Yellowstone has been one
of the phenomena of natural history. Not only have they grown to realize
that they are safe, but, being natural scavengers and foul feeders, they
have come to recognize the garbage heaps of the hotels as their special
sources of food supply. Throughout the summer months they come to all
the hotels in numbers, usually appearing in the late afternoon or
evening, and they have become as indifferent to the presence of men as
the deer themselves—some of them very much more indifferent. They have
now taken their place among the recognized sights of the Park, and the
tourists are nearly as much interested in them as in the geysers. In
mussing over the garbage heaps they sometimes get tin cans stuck on
their paws, and the result is painful. Buffalo Jones and some of the
other scouts in extreme cases rope the bear, tie him up, cut the tin can
off his paw, and let him go again. It is not an easy feat, but the
astonishing thing is that it should be performed at all.

It was amusing to read the proclamations addressed to the tourists by
the Park management, in which they were solemnly warned that the bears
were really wild animals, and that they must on no account be either fed
or teased. It is curious to think that the descendants of the great
grizzlies which were the dread of the early explorers and hunters should
now be semi-domesticated creatures, boldly hanging around crowded hotels
for the sake of what they can pick up, and quite harmless so long as any
reasonable precaution is exercised. They are much safer, for instance,
than any ordinary bull or stallion, or even ram, and, in fact, there is
no danger from them at all unless they are encouraged to grow too
familiar or are in some way molested. Of course among the thousands of
tourists there is a percentage of fools; and when fools go out in the
afternoon to look at the bears feeding they occasionally bring
themselves into jeopardy by some senseless act. The black bears and the
cubs of the bigger bears can readily be driven up trees, and some of the
tourists occasionally do this. Most of the animals never think of
resenting it; but now and then one is run across which has its feelings
ruffled by the performance. In the summer of 1902 the result proved
disastrous to a too inquisitive tourist. He was travelling with his
wife, and at one of the hotels they went out toward the garbage pile to
see the bears feeding. The only bear in sight was a large she, which, as
it turned out, was in a bad temper because another party of tourists a
few minutes before had been chasing her cubs up a tree. The man left his
wife and walked toward the bear to see how close he could get. When he
was some distance off she charged him, whereupon he bolted back toward
his wife. The bear overtook him, knocked him down and bit him severely.
But the man’s wife, without hesitation, attacked the bear with that
thoroughly feminine weapon, an umbrella, and frightened her off. The man
spent several weeks in the Park hospital before he recovered. Perhaps
the following telegram sent by the manager of the Lake Hotel to Major
Pitcher illustrates with sufficient clearness the mutual relations of
the bears, the tourists, and the guardians of the public weal in the
Park. The original was sent me by Major Pitcher. It runs:

“Lake. 7–27–’03. Major Pitcher, Yellowstone: As many as seventeen bears
in an evening appear on my garbage dump. To-night eight or ten. Campers
and people not of my hotel throw things at them to make them run away. I
cannot, unless there personally, control this. Do you think you could
detail a trooper to be there every evening from say six o’clock until
dark and make people remain behind danger line laid out by Warden Jones?
Otherwise I fear some accident. The arrest of one or two of these
campers might help. My own guests do pretty well as they are told. James
Barton Key. 9 A. M.”

Major Pitcher issued the order as requested.

At times the bears get so bold that they take to making inroads on the
kitchen. One completely terrorized a Chinese cook. It would drive him
off and then feast upon whatever was left behind. When a bear begins to
act in this way or to show surliness it is sometimes necessary to shoot
it. Other bears are tamed until they will feed out of the hand, and will
come at once if called. Not only have some of the soldiers and scouts
tamed bears in this fashion, but occasionally a chambermaid or waiter
girl at one of the hotels has thus developed a bear as a pet.

[Illustration:

  GRIZZLY BEAR AND COOK
]

The accompanying photographs not only show bears very close up, with men
standing by within a few yards of them, but they also show one bear
being fed from the piazza by a cook, and another standing beside a
particular friend, a chambermaid in one of the hotels. In these
photographs it will be seen that some are grizzlies and some black
bears.

This whole episode of bear life in the Yellowstone is so extraordinary
that it will be well worth while for any man who has the right powers
and enough time, to make a complete study of the life and history of the
Yellowstone bears. Indeed, nothing better could be done by some of our
outdoor faunal naturalists than to spend at least a year in the
Yellowstone, and to study the life habits of all the wild creatures
therein. A man able to do this, and to write down accurately and
interestingly what he had seen, would make a contribution of permanent
value to our nature literature.

In May, after leaving the Yellowstone, I visited the Grand Canyon of the
Colorado, and then went through the Yosemite Park with John Muir—the
companion above all others for such a trip. It is hard to make
comparisons among different kinds of scenery, all of them very grand and
very beautiful; but nothing that I have ever seen has impressed me quite
as much as the desolate and awful sublimity of the Grand Canyon of the
Colorado. I earnestly wish that Congress would make it a national park,
and I am sure that such course would meet the approbation of the people
of Arizona. The people of California with wise and generous forethought
have given the Yosemite Valley to the National Government to be kept as
a national park, just as the surrounding country, including some of the
groves of giant trees, has been kept. The flower-clad slopes of the
Sierras—golden with the blazing poppy, brilliant with lilies and tulips
and red-stemmed Manzinita bush—are unlike anything else in this country.
As for the giant trees, no words can describe their majesty and beauty.

John Muir and I, with two packers and three pack mules, spent a
delightful three days in the Yosemite. The first night was clear, and we
lay in the open, on beds of soft fir boughs, among the huge,
cinnamon-colored trunks of the sequoias. It was like lying in a great
solemn cathedral, far vaster and more beautiful than any built by hand
of man. Just at nightfall I heard, among other birds, thrushes which I
think were Rocky Mountain hermits—the appropriate choir for such a place
of worship. Next day we went by trail through the woods, seeing some
deer—which were not wild—as well as mountain quail and blue grouse.
Among the birds which we saw was a white-headed woodpecker; the
interesting carpenter woodpeckers were less numerous than lower down. In
the afternoon we struck snow, and had considerable difficulty in
breaking our trails. A snow-storm came on toward evening, but we kept
warm and comfortable in a grove of splendid silver firs—rightly named
“magnificent”—near the brink of the wonderful Yosemite Valley. Next day
we clambered down into it and at nightfall camped in its bottom, facing
the giant cliffs over which the waterfalls thundered.

[Illustration:

  THE BEAR AND THE CHAMBERMAID
]

Surely our people do not understand even yet the rich heritage that is
theirs. There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the
Yosemite, the groves of giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the
Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons; and our
people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and
their children’s children forever, with their majestic beauty all
unmarred.




                               CHAPTER X
                           BOOKS ON BIG GAME


The nineteenth century was, beyond all others, the century of big game
hunters, and of books about big game. From the days of Nimrod to our own
there have been mighty hunters before the Lord, and most warlike and
masterful races have taken kindly to the chase, as chief among those
rough pastimes which appeal naturally to men with plenty of red blood in
their veins. But until the nineteenth century the difficulties of travel
were so great that men of our race with a taste for sport could rarely
gratify this taste except in their own neighborhood. The earlier among
the great conquering kings of Egypt and Assyria, when they made their
forays into Syria and the region of the Upper Euphrates, hunted the
elephant and the wild bull, as well as the lions with which the country
swarmed; and Tiglath-Pileser the First, as overlord of Phœnicia,
embarked on the Mediterranean, and there killed a “sea-monster,”
presumably a whale—a feat which has been paralleled by no sport-loving
sovereign of modern times, save by that stout hunter, the German Kaiser;
though I believe the present English King, like several members of his
family, has slain both elephants and tigers before he came to the
throne. But the elephant disappeared from Eastern Asia a thousand years
before our era; and the lion had become rare or unknown in lands where
the dwellers were of European stock, long before the days of written
records.

There was good hunting in Macedonia in the days of Alexander the Great;
there was good hunting in the Hercynian Forest when Frank and Bergund
were turning Gaul into France; there was good hunting in Lithuania and
Poland as late as the days of Sobiéski; but the most famous kings and
nobles of Europe, within historic times, though they might kill the
aurochs and the bison, the bear and the boar, had no chance to test
their prowess against the mightier and more terrible beasts of the
tropics.

No modern man could be more devoted to the chase than were the
territorial lords of the Middle Ages. Two of the most famous books of
the chase ever written were the _Livre de Chasse_ of Count Gaston de
Foix—Gaston Phœbus, well known to all readers of Froissart—and the
translation or adaptation and continuation of the same, the “Master of
Game,” by that Duke of York who “died victorious” at Agincourt. Mr.
Baillie-Grohman, himself a hunter and mountaineer of wide experience, a
trained writer and observer, and a close student of the hunting lore of
the past, has edited and reproduced the “Master of Game,” in form which
makes it a delight to every true lover of books no less than to every
true lover of sport. A very interesting little book is Clamorgan’s
_Chasse du Loup_, dedicated to Charles the Ninth of France; my copy is
of the edition of 1566. The text and the illustrations are almost
equally attractive.

As the centuries passed it became more and more difficult to obtain
sport in the thickly settled parts of Europe save in the vast game
preserves of the Kings and great lords. These magnates of Continental
Europe, down to the beginning of the last century, followed the chase
with all the ardor of Gaston Phœbus; indeed, they erred generally on the
side of fantastic extravagance and exaggeration in their favorite
pursuit, turning it into a solemn and rather ridiculous business instead
of a healthy and vigorous pastime; but they could hunt only the beasts
of their own forests. The men who went on long voyages usually had quite
enough to do simply as travellers; the occupation of getting into
unknown lands, and of keeping alive when once in them, was in itself
sufficiently absorbing and hazardous to exclude any chance of combining
with it the role of sportsman.

With the last century all this had changed. Even in the eighteenth
century it began to change. The Dutch settlers at the Cape of Good Hope,
and the English settlers on the Atlantic coast of North America, found
themselves thrown back into a stage of life where hunting was one of the
main means of livelihood, as well as the most exciting and adventurous
of pastimes. These men knew the chase as men of their race had not known
it since the days before history dawned; and until the closing decades
of the last century the Americans and the Afrikanders of the frontier
largely led the lives of professional hunters. Oom Paul and Buffalo Bill
led very different careers after they reached middle age; but in their
youth warfare against wild beasts and wild men was the most serious part
of the life-work of both. They and their fellows did the rough pioneer
work of civilization, under conditions which have now vanished for ever,
and their type will perish with the passing of the forces that called it
into being. But the big game hunter, whose campaigns against big game
are not simply incidents in his career as a pioneer settler, will remain
with us for some time longer; and it is of him and his writings that we
wish to treat.

Toward the end of the eighteenth century this big game hunter had
already appeared, although, like all early types, he was not yet
thoroughly specialized. Le Vaillant hunted in South Africa, and his
volumes are excellent reading now. A still better book is that of Bruce,
the Abyssinian explorer, who was a kind of Burton of his days, with a
marvellous faculty for getting into quarrels, but an even more
marvellous faculty for doing work which no other man could do. He really
opened a new world to European men of letters and science; who thereupon
promptly united in disbelieving all he said, though they were credulous
enough toward people who really should have been distrusted. But his
tales have been proved true by many an explorer since then, and his book
will always possess interest for big game hunters, because of his
experiences in the chase. Sometimes he shot merely in self-defense or
for food, but he also made regular hunting trips in company with the
wild lords of the shifting frontier between dusky Christian and dusky
infidel. He feasted in their cane palaces, where the walls were hung
with the trophies of giant game, and in their company, with horse and
spear, he attacked and overcame the buffalo and the rhinoceros.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century the hunting book proper
became differentiated, as it were, from the book of the explorer. One of
the earliest was Williamson’s “Oriental Field Sports.” This is to the
present day a most satisfactory book, especially to sporting parents
with large families of small children. The pictures are all in colors,
and the foliage is so very green, and the tigers are so very red, and
the boars so very black, and the tragedies so uncommonly vivid and
startling, that for the youthful mind the book really has no formidable
rival outside of the charmed circle where Slovenly Peter stands first.

Since then multitudes of books have been written about big game hunting.
Most of them are bad, of course, just as most novels and most poems are
bad; but some of them are very good indeed, while a few are entitled to
rank high in literature—though it cannot be said that as yet big game
hunters as a whole have produced such writers as those who dwell on the
homelier and less grandiose side of nature. They have not produced a
White or Burroughs, for instance. What could not Burroughs have done if
only he had cared for adventure and for the rifle, and had roamed across
the Great Plains and the Rockies, and through the dim forests, as he has
wandered along the banks of the Hudson and the Potomac! Thoreau, it is
true, did go to the Maine Woods; but then Thoreau was a
transcendentalist and slightly anæmic. A man must feel the beat of hardy
life in his veins before he can be a good big game hunter. Fortunately,
Richard Jeffries has written an altogether charming little volume on the
Red Deer, so that there is at least one game animal which has been fully
described by a man of letters, who was also both a naturalist and a
sportsman; but it is irritating to think that no one has done as much
for the lordlier game of the wilderness. Not only should the hunter be
able to describe vividly the chase, and the life habits of the quarry,
but he should also draw the wilderness itself, and the life of those who
dwell or sojourn therein. We wish to see before us the cautious stalk
and the headlong gallop; the great beasts as they feed or rest or run or
make love or fight; the wild hunting camps; the endless plains
shimmering in the sunlight; the vast, solemn forests; the desert and the
marsh and the mountain chain; and all that lies hidden in the lonely
lands through which the wilderness wanderer roams and hunts game.

But there remain a goodly number of books which are not merely filled
with truthful information of importance, but which are also absorbingly
interesting; and if a book is both truthful and interesting it is surely
entitled to a place somewhere in general literature. Unfortunately, the
first requisite bars out a great many hunting-books. There are not a few
mighty hunters who have left long records of their achievements, and who
undoubtedly did achieve a great deal, but who contrive to leave in the
mind of the reader the uncomfortable suspicion, that besides their
prowess with the rifle they were skilled in the use of that more archaic
weapon, the long bow. “The Old Shekarry,” who wrote of Indian and
African sport, was one of these. Gerard was a great lion-killer, but
some of his accounts of the lives, deaths, and especially the
courtships, of lions, bear much less relation to actual facts than do
the novels of Dumas. Not a few of the productions of hunters of this
type should be grouped under the head-lines used by the newspapers of
our native land in describing something which they are perfectly sure
hasn’t happened—“Important, if True.” The exactly opposite type is
presented in another Frenchman, M. Foa, a really great hunter who also
knows how to observe and to put down what he has observed. His two books
on big game hunting in Africa have permanent value.

If we were limited to the choice of one big game writer, who was merely
such, and not in addition a scientific observer, we should have to
choose Sir Samuel Baker, for his experiences are very wide, and we can
accept without question all that he says in his books. He hunted in
India, in Africa, and in North America; he killed all the chief kinds of
heavy and dangerous game; and he followed them on foot and on horseback,
with the rifle and the knife, and with hounds. For the same reason, if
we could choose but one work, it would have to be the volumes of “Big
Game Shooting,” in the Badminton Library, edited by Mr. Phillipps
Wolley—himself a man who has written well of big game hunting in
out-of-the-way places, from the Caucasus to the Cascades. These volumes
contain pieces by many different authors; but they differ from most
volumes of the kind in that all the writers are trustworthy and
interesting; though the palm must be given to Oswell’s delightful
account of his South African hunting. The book on the game beasts of
Africa edited by Mr. Bryden is admirable in every way.

[Illustration:

  THE NORTH ROOM AT SAGAMORE HILL
]

In all these books the one point to be insisted on is that a big game
hunter has nothing in common with so many of the men who delight to call
themselves sportsmen. Sir Samuel Baker has left a very amusing record of
the horror he felt for the Ceylon sportsmen who, by the term “sport,”
meant horse-racing instead of elephant shooting. Half a century ago,
Gordon-Cumming wrote of “the life of the wild hunter, so far preferable
to that of the mere sportsman”; and his justification for this somewhat
sneering reference to the man who takes his sport in too artificial a
manner, may be found in the pages of a then noted authority on such
sports as horse-racing and fox-hunting; for in Apperly’s “Nimrod
Abroad,” in the course of an article on the game of the American
wilderness, there occurs this delicious sentence: “A damper, however, is
thrown over all systems of deer-stalking in Canada by the necessity,
which is said to be unavoidable, of bivouacking in the woods instead of
in well-aired sheets!” Verily, there was a great gulf between the two
men.

In the present century the world has known three great hunting-grounds:
Africa, from the equator to the southernmost point; India, both farther
and hither; and North America west of the Mississippi, from the Rio
Grande to the Arctic Circle. The latter never approached either of the
former in the wealth and variety of the species, or in the size and
terror of the chief beasts of the chase; but it surpassed India in the
countless numbers of the individual animals, and in the wild and unknown
nature of the hunting-grounds, while the climate and surroundings made
the conditions under which the hunter worked pleasanter and healthier
than those in any other land.

South Africa was the true hunter’s paradise. If the happy
hunting-grounds were to be found anywhere in this world, they lay
between the Orange and the Zambesi, and extended northward here and
there to the Nile countries and Somaliland. Nowhere else were there such
multitudes of game, representing so many and such widely different kinds
of animals, of such size, such beauty, such infinite variety. We should
have to go back to the fauna of the Pleistocene to find its equal. Never
before did men enjoy such hunting as fell to the lot of those roving
adventurers, who first penetrated its hidden fastnesses, camped by its
shrunken rivers, and galloped over its sun-scorched wastes; and, alas
that it should be written, no man will ever see the like again.
Fortunately, its memory will forever be kept alive in some of the books
that the great hunters have written about it, such as Cornwallis Harris’
“Wild Sports of South Africa,” Gordon-Cumming’s “Hunter’s Life in South
Africa,” Baldwin’s “African Hunting,” Drummond’s “Large Game and Natural
History of South Africa,” and, best of all, Selous’ two books, “A
Hunter’s Wanderings in South Africa” and “Travel and Adventure in
Southeast Africa.” Selous was the last of the great hunters of South
Africa, and no other has left books of such value as his. In central
Africa the game has lasted to our own time; the hunting described by
Alfred Neumann and Vaughn Kirby in the closing years of the nineteenth
century was almost as good as any enjoyed by their brothers who fifty
years before steered their ox-drawn wagons across the “high veldt” of
the south land.

Moreover, the pencil has done its part as well as the pen. Harris, who
was the pioneer of all the hunters, published an admirable illustrated
folio entitled “The Game and Wild Animals of South Africa.” It is
perhaps of more value than any other single work of the kind. J. G.
Millais, in “A Breath from the Veldt,” has rendered a unique service,
not only by his charming descriptions, but by his really extraordinary
sketches of the South African antelopes, both at rest, and in every
imaginable form of motion. Nearly at the other end of the continent
there is an admirable book on lion-hunting in Somaliland, by Captain C.
J. Melliss. Much information about big game can be taken from the books
of various missionaries and explorers; Livingstone and Du Chaillu doing
for Africa in this respect what Catlin did for North America.

As we have said before, one great merit of these books is that they are
interesting. Quite a number of men who are good sportsmen, as well as
men of means, have written books about their experiences in Africa; but
the trouble with too many of these short and simple annals of the rich
is, that they are very dull. They are not literature, any more than
treatises on farriery and cooking are literature. To read a mere
itinerary is like reading a guide-book. No great enthusiasm in the
reader can be roused by such a statement as “this day walked
twenty-three miles, shot one giraffe and two zebras; porter deserted
with the load containing the spare boots”; and the most exciting events,
if chronicled simply as “shot three rhinos and two buffalo; the first
rhino and both buffalo charged,” become about as thrilling as a
paragraph in Baedeker. There is no need of additional literature of the
guide-book and cookery-book kind. “Fine writing” is, of course,
abhorrent in a way that is not possible for mere baldness of statement,
and would-be “funny” writing is even worse, as it almost invariably
denotes an underbred quality of mind; but there is need of a certain
amount of detail, and of vivid and graphic, though simple, description.
In other words, the writer on big game should avoid equally Carlyle’s
theory and Carlyle’s practice in the matter of verbosity. Really good
game books are sure to contain descriptions which linger in the mind
just like one’s pet passages in any other good book. One example is
Selous’ account of his night watch close to the wagon, when in the
pitchy darkness he killed three of the five lions which had attacked his
oxen; or his extraordinary experience while hunting elephants on a
stallion which turned sulky, and declined to gallop out of danger. The
same is true of Drummond’s descriptions of the camps of native hunting
parties, of tracking wounded buffalo through the reeds, and of waiting
for rhinos by a desert pool under the brilliancy of the South African
moon; descriptions, by the way, which show that the power of writing
interestingly is not dependent upon even approximate correctness in
style, for some of Mr. Drummond’s sentences, in point of length and
involution, would compare not unfavorably with those of a Populist
Senator discussing bimetallism. Drummond is not as trustworthy an
observer as Selous.

The experiences of a hunter in Africa, with its teeming wealth of
strange and uncouth beasts, must have been, and in places must still be,
about what one’s experience would be if one could suddenly go back a few
hundred thousand years for a hunting trip in the Pliocene or
Pleistocene. In Mr. Astor Chanler’s book, “Through Jungle and Desert,”
the record of his trip through the melancholy reed beds of the Guaso
Nyiro, and of his return journey, carrying his wounded companion,
through regions where the caravan was perpetually charged by rhinoceros,
reads like a bit out of the unreckoned ages of the past, before the huge
and fierce monsters of old had vanished from the earth, or acknowledged
man as their master. An excellent book of mixed hunting and scientific
exploration is Mr. Donaldson Smith’s “Through Unknown African
Countries.” If anything, the hunting part is unduly sacrificed to some
of the minor scientific work. Full knowledge of a new breed of
rhinoceros, or a full description of the life history and chase of
almost any kind of big game, is worth more than any quantity of matter
about new spiders and scorpions. Small birds and insects remain in the
land, and can always be described by the shoal of scientific
investigators who follow the first adventurous explorers; but it is only
the pioneer hunter who can tell us all about the far more interesting
and important beasts of the chase, the different kinds of big game, and
especially dangerous big game; and it is a mistake in any way to
subordinate the greater work to the lesser.

Books on big game hunting in India are as plentiful, and as good, as
those about Africa. Forsyth’s “Highlands of Central India,” Sanderson’s
“Thirteen Years Among the Wild Beasts of India,” Shakespeare’s “Wild
Sports of India,” and Kinloch’s “Large Game Shooting,” are perhaps the
best; but there are many other writers, like Markham, Baldwin, Rice,
Macintyre, and Stone, who are also very good. Indeed, to give even a
mere list of the titles of the good books on Indian shooting would read
too much like the Homeric catalogue of ships, or the biblical
generations of the Jewish patriarchs. The four books singled out for
special reference are interesting reading for anyone; particularly the
accounts of the deaths of man-eating tigers at the hands of Forsyth,
Shakespeare, and Sanderson, and some of Kinloch’s Himalayan stalks. It
is indeed royal sport which the hunter has among the stupendous mountain
masses of the Himalayas, and in the rank jungles and steamy tropical
forests of India.

Hunting should go hand in hand with the love of natural history, as well
as with descriptive and narrative power. Hornaday’s “Two Years in the
Jungle” is especially interesting to the naturalist; but he adds not a
little to our knowledge of big game. It is earnestly to be wished that
some hunter will do for the gorilla what Hornaday has done for the great
East Indian ape, the mias or orang.

There are many good books on American big game, but, rather curiously,
they are for the most part modern. Until within the present generation
Americans only hunted big game if they were frontier settlers,
professional trappers, Southern planters, army officers, or explorers.
The people of the cities of the old States were bred in the pleasing
faith that anything unconcerned with business was both a waste of time
and presumably immoral. Those who travelled went to Europe instead of to
the Rocky Mountains.

Throughout the pioneer stages of American history, big game hunting was
not merely a pleasure, but a business, and often a very important and in
fact vital business. At different times many of the men who rose to
great distinction in our after history took part in it as such: men like
Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston, for instance. Moreover, aside from these
pioneers who afterward won distinction purely as statesmen or soldiers,
there were other members of the class of professional hunters—men who
never became eminent in the complex life of the old civilized regions,
who always remained hunters, and gloried in the title—who, nevertheless,
through and because of their life in the wilderness, rose to national
fame and left their mark on our history. The three most famous men of
this class were Daniel Boone, David Crockett, and Kit Carson, who were
renowned in every quarter of the Union for their skill as game-killers,
Indian-fighters, and wilderness explorers, and whose deeds are still
stock themes in the floating legendary lore of the border. They stand
for all time as types of the pioneer settlers who won our land; the
bridge-builders, the road-makers the forest-fellers, the explorers, the
land-tillers, the mighty men of their hands, who laid the foundations of
this great commonwealth.

There are good descriptions of big game hunting in the books of writers
like Catlin, but they come in incidentally. Elliott’s “South Carolina
Field Sports” is a very interesting and entirely trustworthy record of
the sporting side of existence on the old Southern plantations, and not
only commemorates how the planters hunted bear, deer, fox, and wildcat
on the uplands and in the canebrakes, but also gives a unique
description of harpooning the great devil-fish in the warm Southern
waters. John Palliser, an Englishman, in his “Solitary Hunter,” has
given us the best descriptions of hunting in the far West, when it was
still an untrodden wilderness. Another Englishman, Ruxton, in two
volumes, has left us a most vivid picture of the old hunters and
trappers themselves. Unfortunately, these old hunters and trappers, the
men who had most experience in the life of the wilderness, were utterly
unable to write about it; they could not tell what they had seen or
done. Occasional attempts have been made to get noted hunters to write
books, either personally or by proxy, but these attempts have not as a
rule been successful. Perhaps the best of the books thus produced is
Hittell’s “Adventures of James Capen Adams, Mountaineer and Grizzly Bear
Hunter.”

The first effort to get men of means and cultivation in the Northern and
Eastern States of the Union to look at field sports in the right light
was made by an Englishman who wrote over the signature of Frank
Forrester. He did much for the shotgun men; but, unfortunately, he was a
true cockney, who cared little for really wild sports, and he was
afflicted with that dreadful pedantry which pays more heed to ceremonial
and terminology than to the thing itself. He was sincerely distressed
because the male of the ordinary American deer was called a buck instead
of a stag; and it seemed to him to be a matter of moment whether one
spoke of a “gang” or a “herd” of elk.

There are plenty of excellent books nowadays, however. The best book
upon the old plains country was Colonel Richard Irving Dodge’s
“Hunting-Grounds of the Great West,” which dealt with the chase of most
kinds of plains game proper. Judge Caton, in his “Antelope and Deer of
America,” gave a full account of not only the habits and appearance, but
the methods of chase and life histories of the prongbuck, and of all the
different kinds of deer found in the United States. Dr. Allen, in his
memoir on the bisons of America, and Hornaday, in his book upon their
extermination, have rendered similar service for the vast herds of
shaggy-maned wild cattle which have vanished with such melancholy
rapidity during the lifetime of the present generation. Mr. Van Dyke’s
“Still-Hunter” is a noteworthy book, which, for the first time,
approaches the still-hunter and his favorite game, the deer, from what
may be called the standpoint of the scientific sportsman. It is one of
the few hunting-books which should really be studied by the beginner
because of what he can learn therefrom in reference to the hunter’s
craft. The Century Co.’s volume “Sport With Gun and Rod” contains
accounts of the chase of most of the kinds of American big game,
although there are two or three notable omissions, such as the elk, the
grizzly bear, and the white goat. Warburton Pike, Caspar Whitney, and
Frederick Schwatka have given fairly full and very interesting accounts
of boreal sport; and Pendarves Vivian and Baillie-Grohman of hunting
trips in the Rockies. A new and most important departure, that of
photographing wild animals in their homes, was marked by Mr. Wallihan’s
“Camera Shots at Big Game.” This is a noteworthy volume. Mr. Wallihan
was the pioneer in a work which is of the utmost importance to the
naturalist, the man of science; and what he accomplished was far more
creditable to himself, and of far more importance to others, than any
amount of game-killing. Finally, in Parkman’s “Oregon Trail” and
Irving’s “Trip on the Prairie,” two great writers have left us a lasting
record of the free life of the rifle-bearing wanderers who first hunted
in the wild Western lands.

Though not hunting-books, John Burroughs’ writings and John Muir’s
volumes on the Sierras should be in the hands of every lover of outdoor
life, and therefore in the hands of every hunter who is a nature lover,
and not a mere game-butcher.

Of course, there are plenty of books on European game. Scrope’s “Art of
Deerstalking,” Bromley Davenport’s “Sport,” and all the books of Charles
St. John, are classic. The chase of the wolf and boar is excellently
described by an unnamed writer in “Wolf-Hunting and Wild Sports of
Brittany.” Baillie-Grohman’s “Sport in the Alps” is devoted to the
mountain game of Central Europe, and is, moreover, a mine of curious
hunting lore, most of which is entirely new to men unacquainted with the
history of the chase in Continental Europe during the last few
centuries. An entirely novel type of adventure was set forth in Lamont’s
“Seasons with the Sea Horses,” wherein he described his hunting in
arctic waters with rifle and harpoon. Lloyd’s “Scandinavian Adventures”
and “Northern Field Sports,” and Whishaw’s “Out of Doors in Tsar Land,”
tell of the life and game of the snowy northern forests. Chapman has
done excellent work for both Norway and Spain. It would be impossible
even to allude to the German and French books on the chase, such as the
admirable but rather technical treatises of Le Couteulx de Canteleu.
Moreover, these books for the most part belong rather in the category
which includes English fox-hunting literature, not in that which deals
with big game and the life of the wilderness. This is merely to state a
difference—not to draw a comparison; for the artificial sports of highly
civilized countries are strongly to be commended for their effect on
national character in making good the loss of certain of the rougher
virtues which tend to disappear with the rougher conditions.

In Mr. Edward North Buxton’s two volumes of “Short Stalks” we find the
books of a man who is a hardy lover of nature, a skilled hunter, but not
a game-butcher; a man who has too much serious work on hand ever to let
himself become a mere globe-trotting rifleman. His volumes teach us just
what a big game hunter, a true sportsman, should be. But the best recent
book on the wilderness is Herr C. G. Schilling’s “Mit Blitzlicht und
Büchse,” giving the writer’s hunting adventures, and above all his acute
scientific observations and his extraordinary photographic work among
the teeming wild creatures of German East Africa. Mr. Schilling is a
great field naturalist, a trained scientific observer, as well as a
mighty hunter; and no mere hunter can ever do work even remotely
approaching in value that which he has done. His book should be
translated into English at once. Every effort should be made to turn the
modern big game hunter into the Schilling type of adventure-loving field
naturalist and observer.

I am not disposed to undervalue manly outdoor sports, or to fail to
appreciate the advantage to a nation, as well as to an individual, of
such pastimes; but they must be pastimes, and not business, and they
must not be carried to excess. There is much to be said for the life of
a professional hunter in lonely lands; but the man able to be something
more, should be that something more—an explorer, a naturalist, or else a
man who makes his hunting trips merely delightful interludes in his life
work. As for excessive game-butchery, it amounts to a repulsive debauch.
The man whose chief title to glory is that, during an industrious career
of destruction, he has slaughtered 200,000 head of deer and partridges,
stands unpleasantly near those continental kings and nobles who, during
the centuries before the French Revolution, deified the chase of the
stag, and made it into a highly artificial cult, which they followed to
the exclusion of State-craft and war-craft and everything else. James,
the founder of the ignoble English branch of the Stuart kings, as
unkingly a man as ever sat on a throne, was fanatical in his devotion to
the artificial kind of chase which then absorbed the souls of the
magnates of continental Europe.

There is no need to exercise much patience with men who protest against
field sports, unless, indeed, they are logical vegetarians of the
flabbiest Hindoo type. If no deer or rabbits were killed, no crops could
be cultivated. If it is morally right to kill an animal to eat its body,
then it is morally right to kill it to preserve its head. A good
sportsman will not hesitate as to the relative value he puts upon the
two, and to get the one he will go a long time without eating the other.
No nation facing the unhealthy softening and relaxation of fibre which
tend to accompany civilization can afford to neglect anything that will
develop hardihood, resolution, and the scorn of discomfort and danger.
But if sport is made an end instead of a means, it is better to avoid it
altogether. The greatest stag-hunter of the seventeenth century was the
Elector of Saxony. During the Thirty Years’ War he killed some 80,000
deer and boar. Now, if there ever was a time when a ruler needed to
apply himself to serious matters, it was during the Thirty Years’ War in
Germany, and if the Elector in question had eschewed hunting he might
have compared more favorably with Gustavus Adolphus in his own
generation, or the Great Elector of Brandenburg in the next generation.
The kings of the House of Savoy have shown that the love of hardy field
sports in no way interferes with the exercise of the highest kind of
governmental ability.

Wellington was fond of fox-hunting, but he did very little of it during
the period of the Peninsular War. Grant cared much for fine horses, but
he devoted his attention to other matters when facing Lee before
Richmond. Perhaps as good an illustration as could be wished of the
effects of the opposite course is furnished by poor Louis XVI. He took
his sport more seriously than he did his position as ruler of his
people. On the day when the revolutionary mob came to Versailles, he
merely recorded in his diary that he had “gone out shooting, and had
killed eighty-one head when he was interrupted by events.” The
particular event to which this “interruption” led up was the guillotine.
Not many sportsmen have to face such a possibility; but they do run the
risk of becoming a curse to themselves and to everyone else, if they
once get into the frame of mind which can look on the business of life
as merely an interruption to sport.




                               CHAPTER XI
                                AT HOME


Only a few men, comparatively speaking, lead their lives in the
wilderness; only a few others, again speaking comparatively, are able to
take their holidays in the shape of hunting trips in the wilderness. But
all who live in the country, or who even spend a month now and then in
the country, can enjoy outdoor life themselves, and can see that their
children enjoy it in the hardy fashion which will do them good. Camping
out, and therefore the cultivation of the capacity to live in the open,
and the education of the faculties which teach observation,
resourcefulness, self-reliance, are within the reach of all who really
care for the life of the woods, the fields, and the waters. Marksmanship
with the rifle can be cultivated with small cost or trouble; and if any
one passes much time in the country he can, if only he chooses, learn
much about horsemanship.

But aside from any such benefit, it is an incalculable added pleasure to
any one’s sum of happiness if he or she grows to know, even slightly and
imperfectly, how to read and enjoy the wonder-book of nature. All
hunters should be nature lovers. It is to be hoped that the days of mere
wasteful, boastful slaughter, are past, and that from now on the hunter
will stand foremost in working for the preservation and perpetuation of
the wild life, whether big or little.

[Illustration:

  RENOWN

  From a photograph by Arthur Hewitt
]

The Audubon Society and kindred organizations have done much for the
proper protection of birds and of wild creatures generally; they have
taken the lead in putting a stop to wanton or short-sighted destruction,
and in giving effective utterance to the desires of those who wish to
cultivate a spirit as far removed as possible from that which brings
about such destruction. Sometimes, however, in endeavoring to impress
upon a not easily aroused public the need for action, they in their zeal
overstate this need. This is a very venial error compared to the good
they have done; but in the interest of scientific accuracy it is to be
desired that their cause should not be buttressed in such manner. Many
of our birds have diminished lamentably in numbers, and there is every
reason for taking steps to preserve them. There are water birds, shore
birds, game birds, and an occasional conspicuous bird of some other
kind, which can only be preserved by such agitation. It is also most
desirable to prevent the slaughter of small birds in the neighborhood of
towns. But I question very much whether there has been any diminution of
small-bird life throughout the country at large. Certainly no such
diminution has taken place during the past thirty years in any region of
considerable size with which I am personally acquainted. Take Long
Island, for instance. During this period there has been a lamentable
decrease in the waders—the shore-birds—which used to flock along its
southern shore. But in northern Long Island, in the neighborhood of my
own home, birds, taken as a whole, are quite as plentiful as they were
when I was a boy. There are one or two species which have decreased in
numbers, notably the woodcock; while the passenger pigeon, which was
then a rarely seen straggler, does not now appear at all. Bobwhites are
less plentiful. On the other hand, some birds have certainly increased
in numbers. This is true, for instance, of the conspicuously beautiful
and showy scarlet tanager. I think meadow larks are rather more
plentiful than they were, and wrens less so. Bluebirds have never been
common with us, but are now rather more common than formerly. It seems
to me as if the chickadees were more numerous than formerly. Purple
grackles are more plentiful than when I was a boy, and the far more
attractive redwing blackbirds less so. But these may all be, and
doubtless some must be, purely local changes, which apply only to our
immediate neighborhood. As regards most of the birds, it would be hard
to say that there has been any change. Of course, obvious local causes
will now and then account for a partial change. Thus, while the little
green herons are quite as plentiful as formerly in our immediate
neighborhood, the white-crowned night herons are not as plentiful,
because they abandoned their big heronry on Lloyd’s Neck upon the
erection of a sand-mill close by. The only ducks which are now, or at
any time during the last thirty years have been, abundant in our
neighborhood are the surf-ducks or scoters, and the old-squaws,
sometimes known as long-tailed or sou’-sou’-southerly ducks. From late
fall until early spring the continuous musical clangor of the great
flocks of sou’-sou’-southerlies, sounding across the steel-gray, wintry
waves, is well known to all who sail the waters of the Sound.

Neither the birds nor the flowers are as numerous on Long Island, or at
any rate in my neighborhood, as they are, for instance, along the Hudson
and near Washington. It is hard to say exactly why flowers and birds are
at times so local in their distribution. For instance, the bobolinks
hardly ever come around us at Sagamore Hill. Within a radius of three or
four miles of the house I do not remember to have ever seen more than
two or three couples breeding. Sharp-tailed finches are common in the
marsh which lies back of our beach; but the closely allied seaside
finches and the interesting and attractive little marsh wrens, both of
which are common in various parts of Long Island, are not found near our
home. Similarly, I know of but one place near our house where the
bloodroot grows; the may-flowers are plentiful, but among hillsides to
all appearance equally favored, are found on some, and not on others.
For wealth of bloom, aside from the orchards, we must rely chiefly upon
the great masses of laurel and the many groves of locusts. The bloom of
the locust is as evanescent as it is fragrant. During the short time
that the trees are in flower the whole air is heavy with the sweet
scent. In the fall, in the days of the aster and the golden-rod, there
is no such brilliant coloring on Long Island as farther north, for we
miss from among the forest hues the flaming crimsons and scarlets of the
northern maples.

[Illustration:

  HIS FIRST BUCK
]

Among Long Island singers the wood thrushes are the sweetest; they nest
right around our house, and also in the more open woods of oak, hickory,
and chestnut, where their serene, leisurely songs ring through the leafy
arches all day long, but especially at daybreak and in the afternoons.
Baltimore orioles, beautiful of voice and plumage, hang their nests in a
young elm near a corner of the porch; robins, catbirds, valiant
kingbirds, song-sparrows, chippies, bright colored thistle-finches, nest
within a stone’s throw of the house, in the shrubbery or among the
birches and maples; grasshopper sparrows, humble little creatures with
insect-like voices, nest almost as close, in the open field, just beyond
the line where the grass is kept cut; humming-birds visit the
honeysuckles and trumpet-flowers; chimney swallows build in the
chimneys; barn swallows nest in the stable and old barn, wrens in the
bushes near by. Downy woodpeckers and many other birds make their homes
in the old orchard; during the migrations it is alive with warblers.
Towhees, thrashers, and Maryland yellow-throats build and sing in the
hedges by the garden; bush sparrows and dainty little prairie warblers
in the cedar-grown field beyond. Red-wing blackbirds haunt the wet
places. Chickadees wander everywhere; the wood-pewees, red-eyed vireos,
and black-and-white creepers keep to the tall timber, where the wary,
thievish jays chatter, and the great-crested fly-catchers flit and
scream. In the early spring, when the woods are still bare, when the
hen-hawks cry as they soar high in the upper air, and the flickers call
and drum on the dead trees, the strong, plaintive note of the meadow
lark is one of the most noticeable and most attractive sounds. On the
other hand, the cooing of the mourning doves is most noticeable in the
still, hot summer days. In the thick tangles chats creep and flutter and
jerk, and chuckle and whoop as they sing; I have heard them sing by
night. The cedar birds offer the most absolute contrast to the chats, in
voice, manner, and habits. They never hide, they are never fussy or
noisy; they always behave as if they were so well-bred that it is
impossible to resent the inroads the soft, quiet, pretty creatures make
among the cherries. One flicker became possessed of a mania to dig its
hole in one corner of the house, just under the roof. It hammered
lustily at boards and shingles, and returned whenever driven away; until
at last we were reluctantly forced to decree its death. Oven-birds are
very plentiful, and it seems to me that their flight song is more
frequently given after dusk than in daylight. It is sometimes given when
the whippoorwills are calling. In late June evenings, especially by
moonlight, but occasionally even when the night is dark, we hear this
song from the foot of the hill where the woods begin. There seems to be
one particular corner where year after year one or more oven-birds dwell
which possess an especial fondness for this night-singing in the air. It
is a pity the little eared owl is called screech-owl. Its tremulous,
quavering cry is not a screech at all, and has an attraction of its own.
These little owls come up to the house after dark, and are fond of
sitting on the elk antlers over the gable. When the moon is up, by
choosing one’s position, the little owl appears in sharp outline against
the bright disk, seated on his many-tined perch.

[Illustration:

  ALGONQUIN AND SKIP
]

The neighborhood of Washington abounds in birds no less than in flowers.
There have been one or two rather curious changes among its birds since
John Burroughs wrote of them forty years ago. He speaks of the
red-headed woodpecker as being then one of the most abundant of all
birds—even more so than the robin. It is not uncommon now, and a pair
have for three years nested in the White House grounds; but it is at
present by no means an abundant bird. On the other hand, John Burroughs
never saw any mocking-birds, whereas during the last few years these
have been increasing in numbers, and there are now several places within
easy walking or riding distance where we are almost sure to find them.
The mocking-bird is as conspicuous as it is attractive, and when at its
best it is the sweetest singer of all birds; though its talent for
mimicry, and a certain odd perversity in its nature, often combine to
mar its performances. The way it flutters and dances in the air when
settling in a tree-top, its alert intelligence, its good looks, and the
comparative ease with which it can be made friendly and familiar, all
add to its charm. I am sorry to say that it does not nest in the White
House grounds. Neither does the wood thrush, which is so abundant in
Rock Creek Park, within the city limits. Numbers of robins,
song-sparrows, sputtering, creaking purple grackles—crow blackbirds—and
catbirds nest in the grounds. So, I regret to say, do crows, the sworn
foes of all small birds, and as such entitled to no mercy. The hearty,
wholesome, vigorous songs of the robins, and the sweet, homelike strains
of the song-sparrows are the first to be regularly heard in the grounds,
and they lead the chorus. The catbirds chime in later; they are queer,
familiar, strongly individual birds, and are really good singers; but
they persist in interrupting their songs with catlike squalling. Two or
three pairs of flickers nest with us, as well as the red-headed
woodpeckers above mentioned; and a pair of furtive cuckoos. A pair of
orchard orioles nested with us one spring, but not again; the redstarts,
warbling vireos, and summer warblers have been more faithful. Baltimore
orioles frequently visit us, as do the scarlet tanagers and tufted
titmice, but for some reason they have not nested here. This spring a
cardinal bird took up his abode in the neighborhood of the White House,
and now and then waked us in the morning by his vigorous whistling in a
magnolia tree just outside our windows. A Carolina wren also spent the
winter with us, and sang freely. In both spring and fall the
white-throated sparrows sing while stopping over in the course of their
migrations. Their delicate, plaintive, musical notes are among the most
attractive of bird sounds. In the early spring we sometimes hear the
fox-sparrows and tree-sparrows, and of course the twittering snow-birds.
Later warblers of many kinds throng the trees around the house. Rabbits
breed in the grounds, and every now and then possums wander into them.
Gray squirrels are numerous, and some of them so tame that they will eat
out of our hands. In spring they cut the flowers from the stately tulip
trees. In the hot June days the indigo birds are especially in evidence
among the singers around Washington; they do not mind the heat at all,
but perch in the tops of little trees in the full glare of the sun, and
chant their not very musical, but to my ears rather pleasing, song
throughout the long afternoons. This June two new guests came to the
White House in the shape of two little saw-whet owls; little bits of
fellows, with round heads, and no head tufts, or “ears.” I think they
were the young of the year; they never uttered the saw-whet sound, but
made soft snoring noises. They always appeared after nightfall, when we
were sitting on the south porch, in the warm, starlit darkness. They
were fearless and unsuspicious. Sometimes they flew noiselessly to and
fro, and seemingly caught big insects on the wing. At other times they
would perch on the iron awning-bars, directly overhead. Once one of them
perched over one of the windows, and sat motionless, looking exactly
like an owl of Pallas Athene.

[Illustration:

  PETER RABBIT

  From a photograph, copyright, 1904, by E. S. Curtis
]

At Sagamore Hill we like to have the wood-folk and field-folk familiar;
but there are necessary bounds to such familiarity where chickens are
kept for use and where the dogs are valued family friends. The rabbits
and gray squirrels are as plenty as ever. The flying squirrels and
chipmunks still hold their own; so do the muskrats in the marshes. The
woodchucks, which we used to watch as we sat in rocking-chairs on the
broad veranda, have disappeared; but recently one has made himself a
home under the old barn, where we are doing our best to protect him. A
mink which lived by the edge of the bay under a great pile of lumber had
to be killed; its lair showed the remains not only of chickens and
ducks, but of two muskrats, and, what was rather curious, of two skates
or flatfish. A fox which lived in the big wood lot evidently disliked
our companionship and abandoned his home. Of recent years I have
actually seen but one fox near Sagamore Hill. This was early one
morning, when I had spent the night camping on the wooded shores near
the mouth of Huntington Harbor. The younger children were with me, this
being one of the camping-out trips, in rowboats, on the Sound, taken
especially for their benefit. We had camped the previous evening in a
glade by the edge of a low sea-bluff, far away from any house; and while
the children were intently watching me as I fried strips of beefsteak
and thin slices of potatoes in bacon fat, we heard a fox barking in the
woods. This gave them a delightfully wild feeling, and with refreshing
confidence they discussed the likelihood of seeing it next morning; and
to my astonishment see it we did, on the shore, soon after we started to
row home.

[Illustration:

  THE GUINEA PIGS
]

One pleasant fall morning in 1892 I was writing in the gun-room, on the
top floor of the house, from the windows of which one can see far over
the Sound. Suddenly my small boy of five bustled up in great excitement
to tell me that the hired-man had come back from the wood-pile pond—a
muddy pool in a beech and hickory grove a few hundred yards from the
house—to say that he had seen a coon and that I should come down at once
with my rifle; for Davis, the colored gardener, had been complaining
much about the loss of his chickens and did not know whether the
malefactor was a coon or a mink. Accordingly, I picked up a rifle and
trotted down to the pond holding it in one hand, while the little boy
trotted after me, affectionately clasping the butt. Sure enough, in a
big blasted chestnut close to the pond was the coon, asleep in a shallow
hollow of the trunk, some forty feet from the ground. It was a very
exposed place for a coon to lie during the day-time, but this was a bold
fellow and seemed entirely undisturbed by our voices. He was altogether
too near the house, or rather the chicken-coops, to be permitted to stay
where he was—especially as but a short time before I had, with mistaken
soft-heartedness, spared a possum I found on the place—and accordingly I
raised my rifle; then I remembered for the first time that the rear
sight was off, as I had taken it out for some reason; and in consequence
I underwent the humiliation of firing two or three shots in vain before
I got the coon. As he fell out of the tree the little boy pounced
gleefully on him; fortunately he was dead, and we walked back to the
house in triumph, each holding a hind leg of the quarry.

The possum spoken of above was found in a dogwood tree not more than
eighty yards from the house, one afternoon when we were returning from a
walk in the woods. As something had been killing the hens, I felt that
it was at least under suspicion and that I ought to kill it, but a
possum is such an absurd creature that I could not resist playing with
it for some time; after that I felt that to kill it in cold-blood would
be too much like murder, and let it go. This tender-heartedness was
regarded as much misplaced both by farmer and gardener; hence the coon
suffered.

A couple of years later, on a clear, cold Thanksgiving Day, we had
walked off some five miles to chop out a bridle-path which had become
choked with down-timber; the two elder of our little boys were with us.
The sun had set long ere our return; we were walking home on a road
through our own woods and were near the house. We had with us a stanch
friend, a large yellow dog, which one of the children, with fine
disregard for considerations of sex, had named Susan. Suddenly Susan
gave tongue off in the woods to one side and we found he had treed a
possum. This time I was hardhearted and the possum fell a victim; the
five-year-old boy explaining to the seven-year-old that “it was the
first time he had ever seen a fellow killed.”

Susan was one of many dogs whose lives were a joy and whose deaths were
a real grief to the family; among them and their successors are or have
been Sailor Boy, the Chesapeake Bay dog, who not only loves guns, but
also fireworks and rockets, and who exercises a close and delighted
supervision over every detail of each Fourth of July celebration; Alan
and Jessie, the Scotch terriers; and Jack, the most loved of all, a
black smooth-haired Manchester terrier. Jack lived in the house; the
others outside, ever on the lookout to join the family in rambles
through the woods. Jack was human in his intelligence and affection; he
learned all kinds of tricks, was a high-bred gentleman, never brawled,
and was a dauntless fighter. Besides the family, his especial friend,
playfellow, and teacher was colored Charles, the footman at Washington.
Skip, the little black-and-tan terrier that I brought back from the
Colorado bear hunt, changed at once into a real little-boy’s dog. He
never lets his small master out of his sight, and rides on every horse
that will let him—by preference on Algonquin the sheltie, whose nerves
are of iron.

[Illustration:

  FAMILY FRIENDS
]

The first night possum hunt in which I ever took part was at Quantico,
on the Virginia side of the Potomac, some twenty miles below Washington.
It was a number of years ago, and several of us were guests of a loved
friend, Hallett Phillips, since dead. Although no hunter, Phillips was
devoted to outdoor life. I think it was at this time that Rudyard
Kipling had sent him the manuscript of “The Feet of the Young Men,”
which he read aloud to us.

Quantico is an island, a quaint, delightful place, with a club-house. We
started immediately after dark, going across to the mainland,
accompanied by a dozen hounds, with three or four negroes to manage them
and serve as axemen. Each member of the party carried a torch, as
without one it was impossible to go at any speed through the woods. The
dogs, of course, have to be specially trained not to follow either fox
or rabbit. It was dawn before we got back, wet, muddy, and weary,
carrying eleven possums. All night long we rambled through the woods and
across the fields, the dogs working about us as we followed in single
file. After a while some dog would strike a trail. It might take some
time to puzzle it out; then the whole pack would be away, and all the
men ran helter-skelter after them, plunging over logs and through
swamps, and now and then taking headers in the darkness. We were never
fortunate enough to strike a coon, which would have given a good run and
a fight at the end of it. When the unfortunate possum was overtaken on
the ground he was killed before we got up. Otherwise he was popped alive
into one of the big bags carried by the axemen. Two or three times he
got into a hollow log or hole and we dug or chopped him out. Generally,
however, he went up a tree. It was a picturesque sight, in the
flickering glare of the torches, to see the dogs leaping up around the
trunk of a tree and finally to make out the possum clinging to the trunk
or perched on some slender branch, his eyes shining brightly through the
darkness; or to watch the muscular grace with which the darky axemen,
ragged and sinewy, chopped into any tree if it had too large and smooth
a trunk to climb. A possum is a queer, sluggish creature, whose brain
seems to work more like that of some reptile than like a mammal’s. When
one is found in a tree there is no difficulty whatever in picking it off
with the naked hand. Two or three times during the night I climbed the
tree myself, either going from branch to branch or swarming up some
tangle of grape-vines. The possum opened his mouth as I approached and
looked as menacing as he knew how; but if I pulled him by the tail he
forgot everything except trying to grab with all four feet, and then I
could take him by the back of the neck and lift him off—either carrying
him down, held gingerly at arm’s length, or dropping him into the open
mouth of a bag if I felt sufficiently sure of my aim.

In the spring of 1903, while in western Kansas, a little girl gave me a
baby badger, captured by her brother, and named after him, Josiah. I
took Josiah home to Sagamore Hill, where the children received him
literally with open arms, while even the dogs finally came to tolerate
him. He grew apace, and was a quaint and on the whole a friendly—though
occasionally short-tempered—pet. He played tag with us with
inexhaustible energy, looking much like a small mattress with a leg at
each corner; he dug holes with marvellous rapidity; and when he grew
snappish we lifted him up by the back of the neck, which rendered him
harmless. He ate bread and milk, dead mice and birds, and eggs; he would
take a hen’s egg in his mouth, break it, and avoid spilling any of the
contents. When angered, he hissed, and at other times he made low
guttural sounds. The nine-year-old boy became his especial friend. Now
and then he nipped the little boy’s legs, but this never seemed to
interrupt the amicable relations between the two; as the little boy
normally wore neither shoes nor stockings, and his blue overalls were
thin, Josiah probably found the temptation at times irresistible. If on
such occasions the boy was in Josiah’s wire-fenced enclosure, he sat on
a box with his legs tucked under him; if the play was taking place
outside, he usually climbed into the hammock, while Josiah pranced and
capered clumsily beneath, tail up and head thrown back. But Josiah never
bit when picked up; although he hissed like a teakettle as the little
boy carried him about, usually tightly clasped round where his waist
would have been if he had had one.

At different times I have been given a fairly appalling number of
animals, from known and unknown friends; in one year the list
included—besides a lion, a hyena, and a zebra from the Emperor of
Ethiopia—five bears, a wildcat, a coyote, two macaws, an eagle, a barn
owl, and several snakes and lizards. Most of these went to the Zoo, but
a few were kept by the children. Those thus kept numbered at one end of
the scale gentle, trustful, pretty things, like kangaroo rats and flying
squirrels; and at the other end a queer-tempered young black bear, which
the children named Jonathan Edwards, partly because of certain
well-marked Calvinistic tendencies in his disposition, partly out of
compliment to their mother, whose ancestors included that Puritan
divine. The kangaroo rats and flying squirrels slept in their pockets
and blouses, went to school with them, and sometimes unexpectedly
appeared at breakfast or dinner. The bear added zest to life in more
ways than one. When we took him to walk, it was always with a chain and
club; and when at last he went to the Zoo, the entire household breathed
a sigh of relief, although I think the dogs missed him, as he had
occasionally yielded them the pleasure of the chase in its strongest
form.

[Illustration:

  JOSIAH
]

As a steady thing, the children found rabbits and guinea pigs the most
satisfactory pets. The guinea pigs usually rejoiced in the names of the
local or national celebrities of the moment; at one time there were
five, which were named after naval heroes and friendly ecclesiastical
dignitaries—an Episcopalian Bishop, a Catholic Priest, and my own Dutch
Reformed Pastor—Bishop Doane, Father O’Grady, Dr. Johnson, Fighting Bob
Evans, and Admiral Dewey. Father O’Grady, by the way, proved to be of
the softer sex; a fact definitely established when two of his joint
owners, rushing breathless into the room, announced to a mixed company,
“Oh, oh, Father O’Grady has had some children!”

Of course there are no pets like horses; and horsemanship is a test of
prowess. The best among vigorous out-of-door sports should be more than
pastimes. Play is good for play’s sake, within moderate limits,
especially if it is athletic play; and, again within moderate limits, it
is good because a healthy body helps toward healthiness of mind. But if
play serves only either of these ends, it does not deserve the serious
consideration which rightly attaches to play which in itself fits a man
to do things worth doing; and there exists no creature much more
contemptible than a man past his first youth who leads a life devoted to
mere sport, without thought of the serious work of life. In a free
Government the average citizen should be able to do his duty in war as
well as in peace; otherwise he falls short. Cavalrymen and infantrymen,
who do not need special technical knowledge, are easily developed out of
men who are already soldiers in the rough, that is, who, in addition to
the essential qualities of manliness and character, the qualities of
resolution, daring and intelligence, which go to make up the “fighting
edge,” also possess physical hardihood; who can live in the open, walk
long distances, ride, shoot, and endure fatigue, hardship, and exposure.
But if all these traits must be painfully acquired, then it takes a long
time indeed before the man can be turned into a good soldier. Now, there
is little tendency to develop these traits in our highly complex, rather
over-civilized, modern industrial life, and therefore the sports which
produce them serve a useful purpose. Hence, when able to afford a horse,
or to practise on a rifle range, one can feel that the enjoyment is
warranted by what may be called considerations of national ethics.

As with everything else, so with riding; some take to it naturally,
others never can become even fairly good horsemen. All the children
ride, with varying skill. While young, a Shetland pony serves; the
present pony, Algonquin, a calico or pinto, being as knowing and
friendly as possible. His first small owner simply adored him, treating
him as a twin brother, and having implicit faith in his mental powers.
On one occasion, when a naval officer of whom the children were fond
came to call, in full dress, Algonquin’s master, who was much impressed
by the sight, led up Algonquin to enjoy it too, and was shocked by the
entire indifference with which the greedy pony persisted in eating
grass. One favorite polo pony, old Diamond, long after he became a
pensioner served for whichever child had just graduated from the
sheltie. Next in order was a little mare named Yagenka, after the
heroine of one of Sienkewicz’s blood-curdling romances of mediæval
Poland. When every rideable animal is impressed, all the children
sometimes go out with their mother and me; looking much like the
Cumberbatch family in Caldecott’s pictures.

[Illustration:

  BLEISTEIN JUMPING

  From a photograph, copyright, 1902, by Clinedinst, Washington, D. C.
]

Of recent years I have not been able to ride to hounds; but when
opportunity has offered I have kept as saddle horses one or two hunters,
so that instead of riding the road I could strike off across country;
the hunter scrambling handily through rough places, and jumping an
occasional fence if necessary. While in Washington this is often, except
for an occasional long walk down Rock Creek or along the Virginia side
of the Potomac, the only exercise I can get. Among the various horses I
have owned in recent years Bleistein was the one I liked best, because
of his good nature and courage. He was a fair, although in no way a
remarkable, jumper. One day, May 3, 1902, I took him out to Chevy Chase
and had him photographed while jumping various fences and brush hurdles;
the accompanying picture is from one of these photos. Another hunter,
Renown, was a much higher, but an uncertain, jumper. He was a beautiful
horse, and very good-tempered, but excessively timid.

We have been able to fix a rifle range at Sagamore, though only up to
200 yards. Some of the children take to shooting naturally, others can
only with difficulty be made to learn the rudiments of what they regard
as a tiresome business. Many friends have shot on this range. We use
only sporting rifles; my own is one of the new model Government
Springfields, stocked and sighted to suit myself. For American game the
modern small calibre, high power, smokeless-powder rifle, of any one
among several makes, is superseding the others; although for some
purposes an old 45–70 or 45–90, even with black powder, is as good as
any modern weapon, and for very heavy game the calibre should be larger
than that of the typical modern arm, with a heavier ball and more
powder. But after all, any good modern rifle is good enough; when a
certain pitch of excellence in the weapon has been attained, then the
determining factor in achieving success is the quality of the man behind
the gun.

My eldest boy killed his first buck just before he was fourteen, and his
first moose—a big bull with horns which spread 56 inches—just before he
was seventeen. Both were killed in the wilderness, in the great north
woods, on trips sufficiently hard to afford some test of endurance and
skill. Such a hunting trip is even more than a delightful holiday,
provided the work is hard as well as enjoyable; and therefore it must be
taken in the wilderness. Big private preserves may serve a useful
purpose if managed with such judgment and kindliness that the good will
of the neighborhood is secured; but the sport in them somehow seems to
have lost its savor, even though they may be large enough to give the
chance of testing a man’s woodcraft no less than his marksmanship. I
have but once hunted in one of them. That was in the fall of 1902, when
Senator Proctor took me into the Corbin Park game preserve in New
Hampshire. The Senator is not merely a good shot; he is a good hunter,
with the eye, the knowledge of the game, and the ability to take
advantage of cover and walk silently, which are even more important than
straight powder. He took me out alone for the afternoon, and, besides
the tame buffalo, he showed me one elk and over twenty deer. We were
only after the wild boar, which have flourished wonderfully. Just at
dusk we saw a three-year-old boar making his way toward an old deserted
orchard; and creeping up, I shot him as he munched apples under one of
the trees.




                              CHAPTER XII
                      IN THE LOUISIANA CANEBRAKES


In October, 1907, I spent a fortnight in the canebrakes of northern
Louisiana, my hosts being Messrs. John M. Parker and John A. McIlhenny.
Surgeon-General Rixey, of the United States Navy, and Dr. Alexander
Lambert were with me. I was especially anxious to kill a bear in these
canebrakes after the fashion of the old Southern planters, who for a
century past have followed the bear with horse, hound and horn in
Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas.

Our first camp was on Tensas Bayou. This is in the heart of the great
alluvial bottom-land created during the countless ages through which the
mighty Mississippi has poured out of the heart of the continent. It is
in the black belt of the South, in which the negroes outnumber the
whites four or five to one, the disproportion in the region in which I
was actually hunting being far greater. There is no richer soil in all
the earth; and when, as will soon be the case, the chances of disaster
from flood are over, I believe the whole land will be cultivated and
densely peopled. At present the possibility of such flood is a terrible
deterrent to settlement, for when the Father of Waters breaks his
boundaries he turns the country for a breadth of eighty miles into one
broad river, the plantations throughout all this vast extent being from
five to twenty feet under water. Cotton is the staple industry, corn
also being grown, while there are a few rice fields and occasional small
patches of sugar cane. The plantations are for the most part of large
size and tilled by negro tenants for the white owners. Conditions are
still in some respects like those of the pioneer days. The magnificent
forest growth which covers the land is of little value because of the
difficulty in getting the trees to market, and the land is actually
worth more after the timber has been removed than before. In
consequence, the larger trees are often killed by girdling, where the
work of felling them would entail disproportionate cost and labor. At
dusk, with the sunset glimmering in the west, or in the brilliant
moonlight when the moon is full, the cotton fields have a strange
spectral look, with the dead trees raising aloft their naked branches.
The cotton fields themselves, when the bolls burst open, seem almost as
if whitened by snow; and the red and white flowers, interspersed among
the burst-open pods, make the whole field beautiful. The rambling
one-story houses, surrounded by outbuildings, have a picturesqueness all
their own; their very looks betoken the lavish, whole-hearted, generous
hospitality of the planters who dwell therein.

Beyond the end of cultivation towers the great forest. Wherever the
water stands in pools, and by the edges of the lakes and bayous, the
giant cypress looms aloft, rivalled in size by some of the red gums and
white oaks. In stature, in towering majesty, they are unsurpassed by any
trees of our eastern forests; lordlier kings of the green-leaved world
are not to be found until we reach the sequoias and redwoods of the
Sierras. Among them grow many other trees—hackberry, thorn, honey
locust, tupelo, pecan and ash. In the cypress sloughs the singular knees
of the trees stand two or three feet above the black ooze. Palmettos
grow thickly in places. The canebrakes stretch along the slight rises of
ground, often extending for miles, forming one of the most striking and
interesting features of the country. They choke out other growth, the
feathery, graceful canes standing tall, slender, serried, each but a few
inches from his brother, and springing to a height of fifteen or twenty
feet. They look like bamboos; they are well-nigh impenetrable for a man
on horseback; even on foot they make difficult walking unless free use
is made of the heavy bushknife. It is impossible to see through them for
more than fifteen or twenty paces, and often for not half that distance.
Bears make their lairs in them, and they are the refuge for hunted
things. Outside of them, in the swamp, bushes of many kinds grow thick
among the tall trees, and vines and creepers climb the trunks and hang
in trailing festoons from the branches. Here likewise the bushknife is
in constant play, as the skilled horsemen thread their way, often at a
gallop, in and out among the great tree trunks, and through the dense,
tangled, thorny undergrowth.

In the lakes and larger bayous we saw alligators and garfish; and
monstrous snapping turtles, fearsome brutes of the slime, as heavy as a
man, and with huge horny beaks that with a single snap could take off a
man’s hand or foot. One of the planters with us had lost part of his
hand by the bite of an alligator; and had seen a companion seized by the
foot by a huge garfish from which he was rescued with the utmost
difficulty by his fellow-swimmers. There were black bass in the waters
too, and they gave us many a good meal. Thick-bodied water moccasins,
foul and dangerous, kept near the water; and farther back in the swamp
we found and killed rattlesnakes and copperheads.

Coon and possum were very plentiful, and in the streams there were minks
and a few otters. Black squirrels barked in the tops of the tall trees
or descended to the ground to gather nuts or gnaw the shed deer
antlers—the latter a habit they shared with the wood rats. To me the
most interesting of the smaller mammals, however, were the swamp
rabbits, which are thoroughly amphibious in their habits, not only
swimming but diving, and taking to the water almost as freely as if they
were muskrats. They lived in the depths of the woods and beside the
lonely bayous.

Birds were plentiful. Mocking-birds abounded in the clearings, where,
among many sparrows of more common kind, I saw the painted finch, the
gaudily colored brother of our little indigo bunting, though at this
season his plumage was faded and dim. In the thick woods where we hunted
there were many cardinal birds and Carolina wrens, both in full song.
Thrashers were even more common; but so cautious that it was rather
difficult to see them, in spite of their incessant clucking and calling
and their occasional bursts of song. There were crowds of warblers and
vireos of many different kinds, evidently migrants from the north, and
generally silent. The most characteristic birds, however, were the
woodpeckers, of which there were seven or eight species, the commonest
around our camp being the handsome red-bellied, the brother of the
red-head which we saw in the clearings. The most notable birds and those
which most interested me were the great ivory-billed woodpeckers. Of
these I saw three, all of them in groves of giant cypress; their
brilliant white bills contrasted finely with the black of their general
plumage. They were noisy but wary, and they seemed to me to set off the
wildness of the swamp as much as any of the beasts of the chase. Among
the birds of prey the commonest were the barred owls, which I have never
elsewhere seen so plentiful. Their hooting and yelling were heard all
around us throughout the night, and once one of them hooted at intervals
for several minutes at midday. One of these owls had caught and was
devouring a snake in the late afternoon, while it was still daylight. In
the dark nights and still mornings and evenings their cries seemed
strange and unearthly, the long hoots varied by screeches, and by all
kinds of uncanny noises.

At our first camp our tents were pitched by the bayou. For four days the
weather was hot, with steaming rains; after that it grew cool and clear.
Huge biting flies, bigger than bees, attacked our horses; but the insect
plagues, so veritable a scourge in this country during the months of
warm weather, had well-nigh vanished in the first few weeks of the fall.

The morning after we reached camp we were joined by Ben Lilley, the
hunter, a spare, full-bearded man, with wild, gentle, blue eyes and a
frame of steel and whipcord. I never met any other man so indifferent to
fatigue and hardship. He equalled Cooper’s Deerslayer in woodcraft, in
hardihood, in simplicity—and also in loquacity. The morning he joined us
in camp, he had come on foot through the thick woods, followed by his
two dogs, and had neither eaten nor drunk for twenty-four hours; for he
did not like to drink the swamp water. It had rained hard throughout the
night and he had no shelter, no rubber coat, nothing but the clothes he
was wearing, and the ground was too wet for him to lie on; so he perched
in a crooked tree in the beating rain, much as if he had been a wild
turkey. But he was not in the least tired when he struck camp; and,
though he slept an hour after breakfast, it was chiefly because he had
nothing else to do, inasmuch as it was Sunday, on which day he never
hunted nor labored. He could run through the woods like a buck, was far
more enduring, and quite as indifferent to weather, though he was over
fifty years old. He had trapped and hunted throughout almost all the
half century of his life, and on trail of game he was as sure as his own
hounds. His observations on wild creatures were singularly close and
accurate. He was particularly fond of the chase of the bear, which he
followed by himself, with one or two dogs; often he would be on the
trail of his quarry for days at a time, lying down to sleep wherever
night overtook him, and he had killed over a hundred and twenty bears.

Late in the evening of the same day we were joined by two gentlemen to
whom we owed the success of our hunt: Messrs. Clive and Harley Metcalf,
planters from Mississippi, men in the prime of life, thorough woodsmen
and hunters, skilled marksmen, and utterly fearless horsemen. For a
quarter of a century they had hunted bear and deer with horse and hound,
and were masters of the art. They brought with them their pack of bear
hounds, only one, however, being a thoroughly staunch and seasoned
veteran. The pack was under the immediate control of a negro hunter,
Holt Collier, in his own way as remarkable a character as Ben Lilley. He
was a man of sixty and could neither read nor write, but he had all the
dignity of an African chief, and for half a century he had been a bear
hunter, having killed or assisted in killing over three thousand bears.
He had been born a slave on the Hinds plantation, his father, an old man
when he was born, having been the body servant and cook of “old General
Hinds,” as he called him, when the latter fought under Jackson at New
Orleans. When ten years old Holt had been taken on the horse behind his
young master, the Hinds of that day, on a bear hunt, when he killed his
first bear. In the Civil War he had not only followed his master to
battle as his body servant, but had acted under him as sharpshooter
against the Union soldiers. After the war he continued to stay with his
master until the latter died, and had then been adopted by the Metcalfs;
and he felt that he had brought them up, and treated them with that
mixture of affection and grumbling respect which an old nurse shows
toward the lad who has ceased being a child. The two Metcalfs and Holt
understood one another thoroughly, and understood their hounds and the
game their hounds followed almost as thoroughly.

[Illustration:

  THE BEAR HUNTERS

  From a photograph, copyright, 1907, by Alexander Lambert, M.D.
]

They had killed many deer and wildcat, and now and then a panther; but
their favorite game was the black bear, which, until within a very few
years, was extraordinarily plentiful in the swamps and canebrakes on
both sides of the lower Mississippi, and which is still found here and
there, although in greatly diminished numbers. In Louisiana and
Mississippi the bears go into their dens toward the end of January,
usually in hollow trees, often very high up in living trees, but often
also in great logs that lie rotting on the ground. They come forth
toward the end of April, the cubs having been born in the interval. At
this time the bears are nearly as fat, so my informants said, as when
they enter their dens in January; but they lose their fat very rapidly.
On first coming out in the spring they usually eat ash buds and the
tender young cane called mutton cane, and at that season they generally
refuse to eat the acorns even when they are plentiful. According to my
informants it is at this season that they are most apt to take to
killing stock, almost always the hogs which run wild or semi-wild in the
woods. They are very individual in their habits, however; many of them
never touch stock, while others, usually old he-bears, may kill numbers
of hogs; in one case an old he-bear began this hog-killing just as soon
as he left his den. In the summer months they find but little to eat,
and it is at this season that they are most industrious in hunting for
grubs, insects, frogs and small mammals. In some neighborhoods they do
not eat fish, while in other places, perhaps not far away, they not only
greedily eat dead fish, but will themselves kill fish if they can find
them in shallow pools left by the receding waters. As soon as the mast
is on the ground they begin to feed upon it, and when the acorns and
pecans are plentiful they eat nothing else; though at first berries of
all kinds and grapes are eaten also. When in November they have begun
only to eat the acorns they put on fat as no other wild animal does, and
by the end of December a full-grown bear may weigh at least twice as
much as it does in August, the difference being as great as between a
very fat and a lean hog. Old he-bears which in August weigh three
hundred pounds and upward will, toward the end of December, weigh six
hundred pounds, and even more in exceptional cases.

Bears vary greatly in their habits in different localities, in addition
to the individual variation among those of the same neighborhood. Around
Avery Island, John McIlhenny’s plantation, the bears only appear from
June to November; there they never kill hogs, but feed at first on corn
and then on sugar cane, doing immense damage in the fields, quite as
much as hogs would do. But when we were on the Tensas we visited a
family of settlers who lived right in the midst of the forest ten miles
from any neighbors; and although bears were plentiful around them they
never molested their corn fields—in which the coons, however, did great
damage.

A big bear is cunning, and is a dangerous fighter to the dogs. It is
only in exceptional cases, however, that these black bears, even when
wounded and at bay, are dangerous to men, in spite of their formidable
strength. Each of the hunters with whom I was camped had been charged by
one or two among the scores or hundreds of bears he had slain, but no
one of them had ever been injured, although they knew other men who had
been injured. Their immunity was due to their own skill and coolness;
for when the dogs were around the bear the hunter invariably ran close
in so as to kill the bear at once and save the pack. Each of the
Metcalfs had on one occasion killed a large bear with a knife, when the
hounds had seized it and the men dared not fire for fear of shooting one
of them. They had in their younger days hunted with a General Hamberlin,
a Mississippi planter whom they well knew, who was then already an old
man. He was passionately addicted to the chase of the bear, not only
because of the sport it afforded, but also in a certain way as a matter
of vengeance; for his father, also a keen bear-hunter, had been killed
by a bear. It was an old he, which he had wounded and which had been
bayed by the dogs; it attacked him, throwing him down and biting him so
severely that he died a couple of days later. This was in 1847. Mr. W.
H. Lambeth sends the following account of the fatal encounter:

“I send you an extract from the _Brother Jonathan_, published in New
York in 1847:

  “‘Dr. Monroe Hamberlin, Robert Wilson, Joe Brazeil, and others left
  Satartia, Miss., and in going up Big Sunflower River, met Mr. Leiser
  and his party of hunters returning to Vicksburg. Mr. Leiser told Dr.
  Hamberlin that he saw the largest bear track at the big Mound on
  Lake George that he ever saw, and was afraid to tackle him. Dr.
  Hamberlin said, “I never saw one that I was afraid to tackle.” Dr.
  Hamberlin landed his skiff at the Mound and his dogs soon bayed the
  bear. Dr. Hamberlin fired and the ball glanced on the bear’s head.
  The bear caught him by the right thigh and tore all the flesh off.
  He drew his knife and the bear crushed his right arm. He cheered the
  dogs and they pulled the bear off. The bear whipped the dogs and
  attacked him the third time, biting him in the hollow back of his
  neck. Mr. Wilson came up and shot the bear dead on Dr. Hamberlin.
  The party returned to Satartia, but Dr. Hamberlin told them to put
  the bear in the skiff, that he would not leave without his
  antagonist. The bear weighed 640 pounds.’

  “Dr. Hamberlin lived three days. I knew all the parties. His son
  John and myself hunted with them in 1843 and 1844, when we were too
  small to carry a gun.”

A large bear is not afraid of dogs, and an old he, or a she with cubs,
is always on the lookout for a chance to catch and kill any dog that
comes near enough. While lean and in good running condition it is not an
easy matter to bring a bear to bay; but as they grow fat they become
steadily less able to run, and the young ones, and even occasionally a
full-grown she, will then readily tree. If a man is not near by, a big
bear that has become tired will treat the pack with whimsical
indifference. The Metcalfs recounted to me how they had once seen a
bear, which had been chased quite a time, evidently make up its mind
that it needed a rest and could afford to take it without much regard
for the hounds. The bear accordingly selected a small opening and lay
flat on its back with its nose and all its four legs extended. The dogs
surrounded it in frantic excitement, barking and baying, and gradually
coming in a ring very close up. The bear was watching, however, and
suddenly sat up with a jerk, frightening the dogs nearly into fits. Half
of them turned back somersaults in their panic, and all promptly gave
the bear ample room. The bear having looked about, lay flat on its back
again, and the pack gradually regaining courage once more closed in. At
first the bear, which was evidently reluctant to arise, kept them at a
distance by now and then thrusting an unexpected paw toward them; and
when they became too bold it sat up with a jump and once more put them
all to flight.

For several days we hunted perseveringly around this camp on the Tensas
Bayou, but without success. Deer abounded, but we could find no bears;
and of the deer we killed only what we actually needed for use in camp.
I killed one myself by a good shot, in which, however, I fear that the
element of luck played a considerable part. We had started as usual by
sunrise, to be gone all day; for we never counted upon returning to camp
before sunset. For an hour or two we threaded our way, first along an
indistinct trail, and then on an old disused road, the hardy
woods-horses keeping on a running walk without much regard to the
difficulties of the ground. The disused road lay right across a great
canebrake, and while some of the party went around the cane with the
dogs, the rest of us strung out along the road so as to get a shot at
any bear that might come across it. I was following Harley Metcalf, with
John McIlhenny and Dr. Rixey behind on the way to their posts, when we
heard in the far-off distance two of the younger hounds, evidently on
the trail of a deer. Almost immediately afterward a crash in the bushes
at our right hand and behind us made me turn around, and I saw a deer
running across the few feet of open space; and as I leaped from my horse
it disappeared in the cane. I am a rather deliberate shot, and under any
circumstances a rifle is not the best weapon for snap shooting, while
there is no kind of shooting more difficult than on running game in a
canebrake. Luck favored me in this instance, however, for there was a
spot a little ahead of where the deer entered in which the cane was
thinner, and I kept my rifle on its indistinct, shadowy outline until it
reached this spot; it then ran quartering away from me, which made my
shot much easier, although I could only catch its general outline
through the cane. But the 45–70 which I was using is a powerful gun and
shoots right through cane or bushes; and as soon as I pulled trigger the
deer, with a bleat, turned a tremendous somersault and was dead when we
reached it. I was not a little pleased that my bullet should have sped
so true when I was making my first shot in company with my hard-riding,
straight-shooting planter friends.

But no bears were to be found. We waited long hours on likely stands. We
rode around the canebrakes through the swampy jungle, or threaded our
way across them on trails cut by the heavy wood-knives of my companions;
but we found nothing. Until the trails were cut the canebrakes were
impenetrable to a horse and were difficult enough to a man on foot. On
going through them it seemed as if we must be in the tropics; the
silence, the stillness, the heat, and the obscurity, all combining to
give a certain eeriness to the task, as we chopped our winding way
slowly through the dense mass of close-growing, feather-fronded stalks.
Each of the hunters prided himself on his skill with the horn, which was
an essential adjunct of the hunt, used both to summon and control the
hounds, and for signalling among the hunters themselves. The tones of
many of the horns were full and musical; and it was pleasant to hear
them as they wailed to one another, backward and forward, across the
great stretches of lonely swamp and forest.

A few days convinced us that it was a waste of time to stay longer where
we were. Accordingly, early one morning we hunters started for a new
camp fifteen or twenty miles to the southward, on Bear Lake. We took the
hounds with us, and each man carried what he chose or could in his
saddle-pockets, while his slicker was on his horse’s back behind him.
Otherwise we took absolutely nothing in the way of supplies, and the
negroes with the tents and camp equipage were three days before they
overtook us. On our way down we were joined by Major Amacker and Dr.
Miller, with a small pack of cat hounds. These were good deer dogs, and
they ran down and killed on the ground a good-sized bobcat—a wildcat, as
it is called in the South. It was a male and weighed twenty-three and a
half pounds. It had just killed and eaten a large rabbit. The stomachs
of the deer we killed, by the way, contained acorns and leaves.

Our new camp was beautifully situated on the bold, steep bank of Bear
Lake—a tranquil stretch of water, part of an old river bed, a couple of
hundred yards broad with a winding length of several miles. Giant
cypress grew at the edge of the water; the singular cypress knees rising
in every direction round about, while at the bottoms of the trunks
themselves were often cavernous hollows opening beneath the surface of
water, some of them serving as dens for alligators. There was a waxing
moon, so that the nights were as beautiful as the days.

From our new camp we hunted as steadily as from the old. We saw bear
sign, but not much of it, and only one or two fresh tracks. One day the
hounds jumped a bear, probably a yearling from the way it ran; for at
this season a yearling or a two-year-old will run almost like a deer,
keeping to the thick cane as long as it can and then bolting across
through the bushes of the ordinary swamp land until it can reach another
canebrake. After a three hours’ run this particular animal managed to
get clear away without one of the hunters ever seeing it, and it ran
until all the dogs were tired out. A day or two afterward one of the
other members of the party shot a small yearling—that is, a bear which
would have been two years old in the following February. It was very
lean, weighing but fifty-five pounds. The finely chewed acorns in its
stomach showed that it was already beginning to find mast.

We had seen the tracks of an old she in the neighborhood, and the next
morning we started to hunt her out. I went with Clive Metcalf. We had
been joined overnight by Mr. Ichabod Osborn and his son Tom, two
Louisiana planters, with six or eight hounds—or rather bear dogs, for in
these packs most of the animals are of mixed blood, and, as with all
packs that are used in the genuine hunting of the wilderness, pedigree
counts for nothing as compared with steadiness, courage and
intelligence. There were only two of the new dogs that were really
staunch bear dogs. The father of Ichabod Osborn had taken up the
plantation upon which they were living in 1811, only a few years after
Louisiana became part of the United States, and young Osborn was now the
third in line from father to son who had steadily hunted bears in this
immediate neighborhood.

On reaching the cypress slough near which the tracks of the old she had
been seen the day before, Clive Metcalf and I separated from the others
and rode off at a lively pace between two of the canebrakes. After an
hour or two’s wait we heard, very far off, the notes of one of the
loudest-mouthed hounds, and instantly rode toward it, until we could
make out the babel of the pack. Some hard galloping brought us opposite
the point toward which they were heading,—for experienced hunters can
often tell the probable line of a bear’s flight, and the spots at which
it will break cover. But on this occasion the bear shied off from
leaving the thick cane and doubled back; and soon the hounds were once
more out of hearing, while we galloped desperately around the edge of
the cane. The tough woods-horses kept their feet like cats as they
leaped logs, plunged through bushes, and dodged in and out among the
tree trunks; and we had all we could do to prevent the vines from
lifting us out of the saddle, while the thorns tore our hands and faces.
Hither and thither we went, now at a trot, now at a run, now stopping to
listen for the pack. Occasionally we could hear the hounds, and then off
we would go racing through the forest toward the point toward which we
thought they were heading. Finally, after a couple of hours of this, we
came up on one side of a canebrake on the other side of which we could
hear, not only the pack, but the yelling and cheering of Harley Metcalf
and Tom Osborn and one or two of the negro hunters, all of whom were
trying to keep the dogs up to their work in the thick cane. Again we
rode ahead, and now in a few minutes were rewarded by hearing the
leading dogs come to bay in the thickest of the cover. Having galloped
as near to the spot as we could we threw ourselves off the horses and
plunged into the cane, trying to cause as little disturbance as
possible, but of course utterly unable to avoid making some noise.
Before we were within gunshot, however, we could tell by the sounds that
the bear had once again started, making what is called a “walking bay.”
Clive Metcalf, a finished bear-hunter, was speedily able to determine
what the bear’s probable course would be, and we stole through the cane
until we came to a spot near which he thought the quarry would pass.
Then we crouched down, I with my rifle at the ready. Nor did we have
long to wait. Peering through the thick-growing stalks I suddenly made
out the dim outline of the bear coming straight toward us; and
noiselessly I cocked and half-raised my rifle, waiting for a clearer
chance. In a few seconds it came; the bear turned almost broadside to
me, and walked forward very stiff-legged, almost as if on tiptoe, now
and then looking back at the nearest dogs. These were two in
number—Rowdy, a very deep-voiced hound, in the lead, and Queen, a
shrill-tongued brindled bitch, a little behind. Once or twice the bear
paused as she looked back at them, evidently hoping that they would come
so near that by a sudden race she could catch one of them. But they were
too wary.

[Illustration:

  LISTENING FOR THE PACK

  From a photograph, copyright, 1907, by Alexander Lambert, M.D.
]

All of this took but a few moments, and as I saw the bear quite
distinctly some twenty yards off, I fired for behind the shoulder.
Although I could see her outline, yet the cane was so thick that my
sight was on it and not on the bear itself. But I knew my bullet would
go true; and sure enough, at the crack of the rifle the bear stumbled
and fell forward, the bullet having passed through both lungs and out at
the opposite side. Immediately the dogs came running forward at full
speed, and we raced forward likewise lest the pack should receive
damage. The bear had but a minute or two to live, yet even in that time
more than one valuable hound might lose its life; when within half a
dozen steps of the black, angered beast, I fired again, breaking the
spine at the root of the neck; and down went the bear stark dead, slain
in the canebrake in true hunter fashion. One by one the hounds struggled
up and fell on their dead quarry, the noise of the worry filling the
air. Then we dragged the bear out to the edge of the cane, and my
companion wound his horn to summon the other hunters.

This was a big she-bear, very lean, and weighing two hundred and two
pounds. In her stomach were palmetto berries, beetles and a little
mutton cane, but chiefly acorns chewed up in a fine brown mass.

John McIlhenny had killed a she-bear about the size of this on his
plantation at Avery’s Island the previous June. Several bears had been
raiding his corn fields and one evening he determined to try to waylay
them. After dinner he left the ladies of his party on the gallery of his
house while he rode down in a hollow and concealed himself on the lower
side of the corn field. Before he had waited ten minutes a she-bear and
her cub came into the field. Then she rose on her hind legs, tearing
down an armful of ears of corn which she seemingly gave to the cub, and
then rose for another armful. McIlhenny shot her; tried in vain to catch
the cub; and rejoined the party on the veranda, having been absent but
one hour.

After the death of my bear I had only a couple of days left. We spent
them a long distance from camp, having to cross two bayous before we got
to the hunting grounds. I missed a shot at a deer, seeing little more
than the flicker of its white tail through the dense bushes; and the
pack caught and killed a very lean two-year-old bear weighing eighty
pounds. Near a beautiful pond called Panther Lake we found a deer-lick,
the ground not merely bare but furrowed into hollows by the tongues of
the countless generations of deer that had frequented the place. We also
passed a huge mound, the only hillock in the entire district; it was the
work of man, for it had been built in the unknown past by those unknown
people whom we call moundbuilders. On the trip, all told, we killed and
brought into camp three bears, six deer, a wildcat, a turkey, a possum,
and a dozen squirrels; and we ate everything except the wildcat.

In the evenings we sat around the blazing camp-fires, and, as always on
such occasions, each hunter told tales of his adventures and of the
strange feats and habits of the beasts of the wilderness. There had been
beaver all through this delta in the old days, and a very few are still
left in out-of-the-way places. One Sunday morning we saw two wolves, I
think young of the year, appear for a moment on the opposite side of the
bayou, but they vanished before we could shoot. All of our party had had
a good deal of experience with wolves. The Metcalfs had had many sheep
killed by them, the method of killing being invariably by a single bite
which tore open the throat while the wolf ran beside his victim. The
wolves also killed young hogs, but were very cautious about meddling
with an old sow; while one of the big half-wild boars that ranged free
through the woods had no fear of any number of wolves. Their endurance
and the extremely difficult nature of the country made it difficult to
hunt them, and the hunters all bore them a grudge, because if a hound
got lost in a region where wolves were at all plentiful they were almost
sure to find and kill him before he got home. They were fond of preying
on dogs, and at times would boldly kill the hounds right ahead of the
hunters. In one instance, while the dogs were following a bear and were
but a couple of hundred yards in front of the horsemen, a small party of
wolves got in on them and killed two. One of the Osborns, having a
valuable hound which was addicted to wandering in the woods, saved him
from the wolves by putting a bell on him. The wolves evidently suspected
a trap and would never go near the dog. On one occasion another of his
hounds got loose with a chain on, and they found him a day or two
afterward unharmed, his chain having become entangled in the branches of
a bush. One or two wolves had evidently walked around and around the
imprisoned dog, but the chain had awakened their suspicions and they had
not pounced on him. They had killed a yearling heifer a short time
before, on Osborn’s plantation, biting her in the hams. It has been my
experience that fox-hounds as a rule are afraid of attacking a wolf; but
all of my friends assured me that their dogs, if a sufficient number of
them were together, would tackle a wolf without hesitation; the packs,
however, were always composed, to the extent of at least half, of dogs
which, though part hound, were part shepherd or bull or some other
breed. Dr. Miller had hunted in Arkansas with a pack specially trained
after the wolf. There were twenty-eight of them all told, and on this
hunt they ran down and killed unassisted four full-grown wolves,
although some of the hounds were badly cut. None of my companions had
ever known of wolves actually molesting men, but Mr. Ichabod Osborn’s
son-in-law had a queer adventure with wolves while riding alone through
the woods one late afternoon. His horse acting nervously, he looked
about and saw that five wolves were coming toward him. One was a bitch,
the other four were males. They seemed to pay little heed to him, and he
shot one of the males, which crawled off. The next minute the bitch ran
straight toward him and was almost at his stirrup when he killed her.
The other three wolves, instead of running away, jumped to and fro
growling, with their hair bristling, and he killed two of them;
whereupon the survivor at last made off. He brought the scalps of the
three dead wolves home with him.

Near our first camp was the carcass of a deer, a yearling buck, which
had been killed by a cougar. When first found, the wounds on the carcass
showed that the deer had been killed by a bite in the neck at the back
of the head; but there were scratches on the rump as if the panther had
landed on its back. One of the negro hunters, Brutus Jackson, evidently
a trustworthy man, told me that he had twice seen cougars, each time
under unexpected conditions. Once he saw a bobcat race up a tree, and
riding toward it saw a panther reared up against the trunk. The panther
looked around at him quite calmly, and then retired in leisurely
fashion. Jackson went off to get some hounds, and when he returned two
hours afterward the bobcat was still up the tree, evidently so badly
scared that he did not wish to come down. The hounds were unable to
follow the cougar. On another occasion he heard a tremendous scuffle and
immediately afterward saw a big doe racing along with a small cougar
literally riding it. The cougar was biting the neck, but low down near
the shoulders; he was hanging on with his front paws, but was tearing
away with his hind claws so that the deer’s hair appeared to fill the
air. As soon as Jackson appeared the panther left the deer. He shot it,
and the doe galloped off, apparently without serious injury.

I wish those who see cougars kill game, or who come on game that they
have killed, would study and record the exact method employed in
killing. Mr. Hornaday sent me a photograph of a cougar killing a goat,
which he had seized high up on the back of the neck in his jaws, not
using his claws at all. I once found where one had killed a big buck by
seizing him by the throat; the claws also having evidently been used to
hold the buck in the struggle. Another time I found a colt which had
been killed by a bite in the neck; and yet another time a young doe
which had been killed by a bite in the head. In most cases where I came
across the carcasses of deer which had been killed by cougars they had
been partially eaten, and it was not possible to find out exactly how
they had been slain. In one instance at least the neck had been broken,
evidently in the struggle; but I could not tell whether this had been
done designedly, by the use of the forepaws. Twice hunters I have known
saw cougars seize mountain sheep, in each case by the throat. The
information furnished me inclines me to believe that most game is killed
by cougars in this fashion. Most of the carcasses of elk which had been
killed by cougars that I have examined showed fang marks round the
throat and neck; but one certainly did not, though it is possible in
this case that the elk died in some other way, and that the cougar had
merely been feeding on its dead body. But I have read of cases in which
elk and large deer were slain where the carcasses were said to have
shown wounds only on the flanks, and where the writers believed—with how
much justification I cannot say—that the wounds had been inflicted by
the claws. I should be surprised to find that such was the ordinary
method with cougars of killing game of any kind; but it is perhaps
unsafe to deny the possibility of such an occurrence without more
information than is at present available; especially in view of the
experience of Brutus Jackson, which I give above. In a letter to Mr.
Hornaday a New Mexican hunter, Mr. J. W. Carter, of Truchas, states that
cougars rip with their claws in killing game, and that, whether the
quarry is a horse, deer, or calf, the cougar begins to eat at the neck.
When at bay a cougar kills dogs by biting them, usually in the head; the
claws are used merely to scratch or rip, or to drag the dog within reach
of the jaws, and to hold it for the fatal bite.

Miss Velvin’s studies of dangerous wild beasts in captivity show that
the cougar is ordinarily more playful and less wantonly ferocious than
the big spotted cats; but that there is a wide individual variation
among cougars, a few being treacherous, bad-tempered and dangerous. Mr.
Bostock, the animal trainer, states that the cougar is as a rule rather
stupid and far less courageous or dangerous than the other big cats, the
proportion of vicious individuals being very small. He regards bears as
being very dangerous.

Mr. Charles Sheldon informs me that while on a ranch near Chihuahua he
at different times kept loose, as pets, a female cougar, three wolves,
and several coyotes, all taken when very young. All were exceedingly
tame and even affectionate, save at the moment of eating.

Mr. W. H. Wright, of Spokane, Wash., is a hunter of wide experience, and
has probably made as close a life study of the bear—particularly the
grizzly—as anyone now alive. In speaking to me, he dwells on its wide
variation in habits, not only as among individuals, but as between all
the individuals of one locality when compared with those of another.
Thus, in the Big Horn or the Teton Mountains if an animal is killed, he
has in his experience found that any grizzly within range is almost sure
to come to the carcass (and this has been my experience in the same
region). In the Bitter Roots, where the bears live largely on fish,
berries and roots, he found the chances just about even whether the
bears would or would not come; whereas in the Selkirks, he found that
the bears would very rarely pay any attention to a carcass, this being a
place where game is comparatively scarce and where there are no salmon,
so that the bears live exclusively as vegetarians, save for eating small
mammals or insects. In the Bitter Roots Mountains the bears used to live
chiefly on fish in the spring and early in the fall; in the summer they
fed to a large extent on the shooting star, which grows on all the
marshes and is one of the familiar plants of the region, but did not
touch either the dog-tooth violet or the spring beauty, both of which
have little tubers on the roots. But in the Kootenay country he found
that the bears dug up acres and acres of these very dog-tooth violets
and spring beauties for the sake of the bulbs on their roots; and that
they rarely or never touched the shooting stars. All this illustrates
the extreme care which should be taken in making observations and in
dogmatizing from insufficient data; and also the absolute necessity, if
a full and accurate natural history is to be written, of drawing upon
the experience of very many different observers—provided, of course,
that they are trustworthy observers.

For every one of our large beasts there should be at least one such work
as Lewis Morgan’s book on the beaver. The observations of many different
men, all accurate observers of wide experience, will be needed to make
any such book complete. Most hunters can now and then supply some
interesting experiences. Thus Gifford Pinchot and Harry Stimson, while
in the Montana Rockies last fall saw a she white goat beat off a war
eagle which had attacked her yearling young. The eagle swooped on the
yearling in most determined fashion; but the old she, rising on her hind
legs, caught the great bird fairly on her horns; and the eagle was too
roughly handled to repeat the onslaught. At nearly the same time, in
British Columbia, Senator Penrose and his brother were hunting bears.
The brother killed a yearling grizzly. While standing over the body, the
old she appeared and charged him. She took two bullets without
flinching, knocked him down, bit him severely, and would undoubtedly
have killed him had she not in the nick of time succumbed to her own
mortal wounds.

Recently there has appeared a capital series of observations on wolves
by a trained field naturalist, Mr. Vernon Bailey. These first-hand
studies of wolves in their natural haunts show, among other things,
that, unlike the male cougar, the male wolf remains with the female
while she is rearing her young litter and, at least sometimes, forages
for her and them. According to Mr. Bailey’s observations the female dens
remote from all other females, having a large number of pups in a
litter; but the following interesting letter shows that in exceptional
cases two females may den together or near by one another. It is written
to Mr. Phillips, the joint author, with W. T. Hornaday, of the admirable
“Camp-Fires in the Canadian Rockies,” a book as interesting and valuable
to the naturalist as to the hunter. The letter runs as follows:

                                “MEYERS FALLS, WASH., _Dec. 23, 1906_.

  “_Mr. John M. Phillips, Pittsburg, Pa._

  “FRIEND JACK: Your favor of the 18th inst. to hand, and was very
  much pleased to hear you had called on the President and to know
  that you take so much interest in the protection of Pennsylvania
  game. It is a step in the right direction. In regard to wolves I
  have hunted them a great deal when they had pups and do not think I
  would exaggerate any to say that I had found one hundred dens and
  had destroyed the young. Often would be able to kill the mother.
  What you read in the East about the dog wolf helping to raise the
  young is true. They stay together until the young is large enough to
  go with them and they all kill their food together because they can
  handle a large brute easier. I found once, in Wyoming, seventeen
  wolf pups in one den, eight black ones and nine greys. One of the
  females was also black and one grey, and both dogs were grey. One of
  the dogs was the largest I ever seen, and had the biggest foot. He
  made a track a third larger than any I ever saw. The old ones had
  evidently just butchered and was feeding the little ones when I came
  in sight about 400 yards away. I believe a wolf has got the quickest
  eye of any animal living, and just as my head came up over the hill
  the old ones all looked my way apparently at the same time. It was
  too far to shoot so I thought I would pretend I did not see them and
  just simply ride by. After riding some distance three of the old
  ones began to move away and to my surprise the big fellow came over
  to head me off. He was just on top of a bench about 100 feet high,
  and I knew it would not do to get down to shoot as one jump would
  take him out of sight so I cracked my heels and let my pony have
  them in the abdomen and ran for the top of the hill, but was running
  against the wind and when I reached the top my eyes was watering so
  I could not kill him, but give him a close call as I got a lock of
  his hair. I found another den the same spring (in 1899) and I got
  eight pups and there was five old ones. They had to go some distance
  to find horses and cattle and there was a plain trail that I could
  follow at least five miles without snow. Colts seem to be their
  favorite dish when they can get them.[6] Wolves mate in January and
  have their pups in March, but found one den once in February. Have
  known a few to have their young as late as April 1st. The pups grow
  faster than our domestic animals and usually leave the dens in May.
  I do not think the mother enters the den (after the pups get large
  enough to come out) in order to suckle them, as you can call them
  out by hiding and making a whining noise. For example, I set a No. 4
  beaver trap in a hole where there was a lot of large pups and hid a
  little way off and made a noise like the female when calling and
  apparently they all started out at the same time and I caught two at
  once in the same trap and of course each one thought the other was
  biting his leg and I saw the most vicious scrap I ever seen out of
  animals of their size. They just held on to one another like bull
  dogs and apparently did not know I was around.

Footnote 6:

    My own experience has been that wolves are more apt to kill cattle
    than horses, whereas with cougars the reverse is true. It is
    another instance of variability—doubtless both in the observed and
    the observers. Wolves may seize an animal anywhere in a scuffle,
    and a pack will literally tear a small deer to pieces; but when
    one or two wolves attack a big animal, like a bull caribou, elk or
    moose, or a horse or a steer, the killing or crippling wounds are
    inflicted in the flanks, hams or throat. Very rarely an animal is
    seized by the head. To any real naturalist or hunter, or indeed to
    any competent observer, it is unnecessary to say that no wolf, and
    no other wild beast, ever bites, or can by any possibility bite,
    one of these large animals, like a horse, moose, or caribou, in
    the heart; yet an occasional “nature fakir,” more than usually
    reckless in his untruthfulness, will assert that such incidents do
    happen; and, what is even more remarkable, uninformed people of
    more than average credulity appear to believe the assertion.

  “Wolves go a long way sometimes for their food. I have tracked them
  twenty-five miles from where they made a killing before finding
  their den. The old dog will sometimes go off alone but does not
  often kill when by himself. Would just as soon have a male track as
  a female to follow for if you will stay with it it is dead sure to
  lead to a den and it is easy to distinguish the difference between
  the two tracks if you are on to your job.

  “Wishing you a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year, I am,

                                   “Your same old friend,
                                                       “R. M. NORBOE.”

Mr. Bailey is one of a number of faunal naturalists, who, together with
certain big game hunters who care more for natural history than for mere
slaughter, are doing invaluable work in preserving the records of
wilderness life. If Mr. George Shiras will put in book form his
noteworthy collection of photographs of game, and of other wild
creatures, and his numerous field notes thereon, he will render a real
and great service to all lovers of nature.

The most exciting and interesting hunting book that has recently
appeared deals with African big game. Many thrilling adventures with
lions have been recorded since the days when the Assyrian kings engraved
on stone their exploits in the chase; but the best lion stories that
have ever been written are those in Colonel Patterson’s “Maneaters of
Tsavo.”

It is now (January, 1908) nearly five years since my last trip to the
Yellowstone Park. General Samuel Young, who is now in charge of the
park, informs me that on the whole the game and the wild creatures
generally in the park have increased during this period. The antelope he
reports as being certainly three times as numerous as they were ten
years ago, and nearly twice as numerous as when I was out there. In the
town of Gardiner they graze freely in the streets; not only the
inhabitants but even the dogs recognizing them as friends. Their chief
foes are the coyotes. Last October four full-grown antelope were killed
by coyotes on the Gardiner and Yellowstone flats, and many fawns were
destroyed by them during the season. Practically all of the antelope in
the park herd on the Gardiner flat and round about during the winter,
and during the present winter there is a good supply of hay on this
flat, which is being used to feed the antelope, mountain sheep, deer and
elk. The sheep are increasing in numbers. Probably about two hundred of
them now exist in the park. There are probably one hundred whitetail and
one thousand blacktail deer, both of which species are likewise
increasing; and the moose, although few in numbers, are also on the
increase. General Young reports that from his best information he
believes there are 25,000 wapiti in the park. Of the buffalo there are
now in fenced pastures fifty-nine. These increase very slowly, the
number of calves being small. There are probably about twenty-five of
the original wild buffalo still alive. The bears are as numerous as
ever. Last summer it became necessary to kill one black and two
grizzlies that had become dangerous; for some individuals among the
bears grow insolent under good treatment. The mountain lions, which five
years ago were so destructive to the deer and sheep, have been almost
exterminated. The tracks show that one still exists. Coyotes are
numerous and very destructive to the antelope, although ninety-nine were
destroyed during the past year. Beaver are abundant and are increasing.
Altogether the American people are to be congratulated upon the success
of the Yellowstone Park, not only as a national pleasure ground, but as
a national reserve for keeping alive the great and beautiful wild
creatures of the wilderness.




                              CHAPTER XIII
                        SMALL COUNTRY NEIGHBORS


There is ample room for more complete life histories of many small
beasts that are common enough around our country homes; and fortunately
the need is now being met by various good field naturalists. Just last
summer, in mid-July, 1907, I had an entirely novel experience with
foxes, which illustrates how bold naturally shy creatures sometimes are
after nightfall. Some of the boys and I were camping for the night on
the beach by the Sound, under a clay bluff, having gone thither in the
dory and the two light rowing skiffs; it was about a quarter of a mile
from the place where we had seen the big red fox four or five years
previously. The fire burned all night, and one or other of the party
would now and then rise and stand by it; nevertheless, two young foxes,
evidently cubs of the year, came round the fire, within plain sight,
half a dozen times. They were picking up scraps; two or three times they
came within ten yards of the fire. They were very active, scampering up
the bluffs; and when in the bushes made a good deal of noise, whereas a
full-grown fox generally moves in silence even when in dead brush.

Small mammals, with the exception of squirrels, are so much less
conspicuous than birds, and indeed usually pass their lives in such
seclusion, that the ordinary observer is hardly aware of their presence.
At Sagamore Hill, for instance, except at haying time I rarely see the
swarming meadow mice, the much less plentiful pine mice, or the little
mole-shrews, alive, unless they happen to drop into a pit or sunken area
which has been dug at one point to let light through a window into the
cellar. The much more graceful and attractive white-footed mice and
jumping mice are almost as rarely seen, though if one does come across a
jumping mouse it at once attracts attention by its extraordinary leaps.
The jumping mouse hibernates, like the woodchuck; and so does the
chipmunk, though not always. The other little animals just mentioned are
abroad all winter, the meadow mice under the snow, the white-footed
mice, and often the shrews, above the snow. The tell-tale snow, showing
all the tracks, betrays the hitherto unsuspected existence of many
little creatures; and the commonest marks upon it are those of the
rabbit and especially of the white-footed mouse. The shrew walks or
trots and makes alternate footsteps in the snow. White-foot, on the
contrary, always jumps, whether going slow or fast, and his hind feet
leave their prints side by side, often with the mark where the tail has
dragged. I think white-foot is the most plentiful of all our furred wild
creatures, taken as a whole. He climbs trees well; I have found his nest
in an old vireo’s nest; but more often under stumps or boards. The
meadow mice often live in the marshes, and are entirely at home in the
water.

The shrew-mouse which I most often find is a short-tailed, rather
thickset little creature, not wholly unlike his cousin the shrew-mole,
and just as greedy and ferocious. When a boy I captured one of these
mole-shrews and found to my astonishment that he was a bloodthirsty and
formidable little beast of prey. He speedily killed and ate a partially
grown white-footed mouse which I put in the same cage with him. (I think
a full-grown mouse of this kind would be an overmatch for a shrew.) I
then put a small snake in with him. The shrew was very active but seemed
nearly blind, and as he ran to and fro he never seemed to be aware of
the presence of anything living until he was close to it, when he would
instantly spring on it like a tiger. On this occasion he attacked the
little snake with great ferocity, and after an animated struggle in
which the snake whipped and rolled all around the cage, throwing the
shrew to and fro a dozen times, the latter killed and ate the snake in
triumph. Larger snakes frequently eat shrews, by the way.

Once last summer, while several of us were playing on the tennis ground,
a mole-shrew suddenly came out on the court. I first saw him near one of
the side lines, and ran after him; I picked him up in my naked hand,
whereupon he bit me, and I then took him in my handkerchief. After we
had all looked at him I put him down, and he scuttled off among the
grass and went down a little hole. We resumed our game, but after a few
minutes the shrew reappeared, and this time crossed the tennis court
near the net, while we gathered about him. He was an absurd little
creature and his motion in running was precisely like that of one of
those mechanical toys in the shape of mice or little bears which are
wound up and run around on wheels. When we put our rackets before him he
uttered little, shrill, long-continued squeals of irritation. We let him
go off in the grass, and this time he did not reappear for the day; but
next afternoon he repeated the feat.

My boys have at intervals displayed a liking for natural history, and
one of them during some years took to trapping small mammals,
discovering species that I had no idea existed in certain places; near
Washington, but on the other side of the Potomac, he trapped several of
those very dainty little creatures, the harvest mice.[7] One of my other
boys—the special friend of Josiah the badger—discovered a
flying-squirrel’s nest, in connection with which a rather curious
incident occurred. The little boy had climbed a tree which is hollow at
the top; and in this hollow he discovered a flying-squirrel mother with
six young ones. She seemed so tame and friendly that the little boy for
a moment hardly realized that she was a wild thing, and called down that
he had “found a guinea pig up the tree.” Finally, the mother made up her
mind to remove her family. She took each one in turn in her mouth and
flew or sailed down from the top of the tree to the foot of another tree
near by; ran up this, holding the little squirrel in her mouth; and
again sailed down to the foot of another tree some distance off. Here
she deposited her young one on the grass, and then, reversing the
process, climbed and sailed back to the tree where the nest was; then
she took out another young one and returned with it, in exactly the same
fashion as with the first. She repeated this until all six of the young
ones were laid on the bank, side by side in a row, all with their heads
the same way. Finding that she was not molested she ultimately took all
six of the little fellows back to her nest, where she reared her brood
undisturbed.

Footnote 7:

  A visit of this same small boy, when eleven years old, to John
  Burroughs, is described by the latter in “Far and Near,” in the
  chapter called “Babes in the Woods.”

Flying squirrels become very gentle and attractive little pets if taken
into the house. I cannot say as much for gray squirrels. Once when a
small boy I climbed up to a large nest of dry leaves in the fork of a
big chestnut tree, and from it picked out three very young squirrels.
One died, but the other two I succeeded in rearing on a milk diet, which
at first I was obliged to administer with a syringe. They grew up
absolutely tame and would climb all over the various members of the
household; but as they grew older they grew cross. If we children did
something they did not like they would not only scold us vigorously,
but, if they thought the provocation warranted it, would bite severely;
and we finally exiled them to the woods. Gray squirrels, I am sorry to
say, rob nests just as red squirrels do. At Sagamore Hill I have more
than once been attracted by the alarm notes of various birds, and on
investigation have found the winged woodland people in great agitation
over a gray squirrel’s assault on the eggs or young of a thrush or
vireo; and once one of these good-looking marauders came up the hill to
harry a robin’s nest near the house. Many years ago I had an
extraordinary experience with a gray squirrel. I was in the edge of some
woods, and, seeing a squirrel, I stood motionless. The squirrel came to
me and actually climbed up me; I made no movement until it began to
nibble at my elbow, biting through my flannel shirt. When I moved, it of
course jumped off, but it did not seem much frightened and lingered for
some minutes in view, about thirty yards away. I have never understood
the incident.

Among the small mammals at Sagamore Hill the chipmunks are the most
familiar and the most in evidence; for they readily become tame and
confiding. For three or four years a chipmunk—I suppose the same
chipmunk—has lived near the tennis court; and it has developed the
rather puzzling custom of sometimes scampering across the court while we
are in the middle of a game. This has happened two or three times every
year, and is rather difficult to explain, for the chipmunk could just as
well go round the court, and there seems no possible reason why he
should suddenly run out on it while the game is in full swing. If we see
him, we all stop to watch him, and then he may himself stop and look
about; but we may not see him until just as he is finishing a frantic
scurry across, in imminent danger of being stepped on.

[Illustration:

  AUDREY TAKES THE BARS

  From a photograph, copyright, 1907, by Clinedinst
]

The most attractive and sociable pet among wild creatures of its size I
have found to be a coon. One which when I was a boy I brought up from
the time it was very young, was as playful and affectionate as any
little dog, and used its little black paws just as if they were hands.
Coons, by the way, sometimes appear in political campaigns. Frequently
when I have been on the stump in places where there was still a strong
tradition of the old Whig party as it was in the days of Henry Clay and
Tippecanoe Harrison, I have reviewed processions in which log cabins and
coons were prominent features. The log cabins were usually miniature
representations, mounted on wheels, but the coons were genuine. Each was
usually carried by some enthusiast, who might lead it by a chain and
collar, but more frequently placed it upon a platform at the end of a
pole, chained up short. Most naturally the coon protested violently
against the proceedings; his only satisfaction being the certainty that
every now and then some other parader would stumble near enough to be
bitten. At one place an admirer suddenly presented me with one of these
coons and was then swept on in the crowd; leaving me gingerly holding by
the end of a chain an exceedingly active and short-tempered little
beast, which I had not the slightest idea how to dispose of. On two
other occasions, by the way, while off on campaign trips I was presented
with bears. These I firmly refused to receive. One of them was brought
to a platform by an old mountain hunter who, I am afraid, really had his
feelings hurt by the refusal. The other bear made his appearance at
Portland, Ore., and, of all places, was chained on top of a wooden
platform just aft the smokestack of an engine, the engine being
festooned with American flags. He belonged to the fireman, who had
brought him as a special gift; I being an honorary member of the
Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. His owner explained that normally he
was friendly; but the surroundings had curdled his temper.

Usually birds are very regular in their habits, so that not only the
same species but the same individuals breed in the same places year
after year. In spite of their wings they are almost as local as mammals
and the same pair will usually keep to the same immediate neighborhood,
where they can always be looked for in their season. There are wooded or
brush-grown swampy places not far from the White House where in the
spring or summer I can count with certainty upon seeing wrens, chats,
and the ground-loving Kentucky warbler, an attractive little bird,
which, by the way, itself looks much like a miniature chat. There are
other places, in the neighborhood of Rock Creek, where I can be almost
certain of finding the blue-gray gnatcatcher, which ranks just next to
the humming-bird itself in exquisite daintiness and delicacy. The few
pairs of mocking-birds around Washington have just as sharply defined
haunts.

Nevertheless it is never possible to tell when one may run across a rare
bird; and even birds that are not rare now and then show marked
individual idiosyncrasy in turning up, or even breeding, in unexpected
places. At Sagamore Hill, for instance, I never knew a purple finch to
breed until the summer of 1906. Then two pairs nested with us, one right
by the house and the other near the stable. My attention was drawn to
them by the bold, cheerful singing of the males, who were spurred to
rivalry by one another’s voices. In September of the same year, while
sitting in a rocking-chair on the broad veranda looking out over the
Sound, I heard the unmistakable “ank-ank” of nuthatches from a young elm
at one corner of the house. I strolled over, expecting to find the
white-bellied nuthatch, which is rather common on Long Island. But
instead there were a couple of red-bellied nuthatches, birds familiar to
me in the Northern woods, but which I had never before seen at Sagamore
Hill. They were tame and fearless, running swiftly up and down the
tree-trunk and around the limbs while I stood and looked at them not ten
feet away. The two younger boys ran out to see them; and then we hunted
up their picture in Wilson. I find, by the way, that Audubon’s and
Wilson’s are still the most satisfactory large ornithologies, at least
for nature lovers who are not specialists; of course any attempt at
serious study of our birds means recourse to the numerous and excellent
books and pamphlets by recent observers. Bendire’s large work gives
admirable biographies of all the birds it treats of; unfortunately it
was never finished.

In May, 1907, two pairs of robins built their substantial nests, and
raised their broods, on the piazza at Sagamore Hill; one over the
transom of the north hall door and one over the transom of the south
hall door. Another pair built their nest and raised their brood on a
rafter in the half-finished new barn, quite undisturbed by the racket of
the carpenters who were finishing it. A pair of scarlet tanagers built
near the tennis ground; the male kept in the immediate neighborhood all
the time, flaming among the branches, and singing steadily until the
last part of July. To my ears the song of the tanager is like a louder,
more brilliant, less leisurely rendering of the red-eyed vireo’s song;
but with the characteristic “chip-churr” every now and then
interspersed. Only one pair of purple finches returned to us last
summer; and for the first time in many years no Baltimore orioles built
in the elm by the corner of the house; they began their nest but for
some reason left it unfinished. The red-winged blackbirds, however, were
more plentiful than for years previously, and two pairs made their nests
near the old barn, where the grass stood lush and tall; this was the
first time they had ever built nearer than the wood-pile pond, and I
believe it was owing to the season being so cold and wet. It was perhaps
due to the same cause that so many black-throated green warblers spent
June and July in the woods on our place; they must have been breeding,
though I only noticed the males. Each kept to his own special tract of
woodland, among the tops of the tall trees, seeming to prefer the
locusts, and throughout June, and far into July, each sang all day
long—a drawling, cadenced little warble of five or six notes, the first
two being the most noticeable near by, though, rather curiously, the
next two were the notes that had most carrying power. The song was
usually uttered at intervals of a few seconds; sometimes while the
singer was perched motionless, sometimes as he flitted and crawled
actively among the branches. With the resident of one particular grove I
became well acquainted, as I was chopping a path through the grove.
Every day when I reached the grove, I found the little warbler singing
away, and at least half the time in one particular locust tree. He paid
not the slightest attention to my chopping; whereas a pair of downy
woodpeckers and a pair of great-crested fly-catchers, both of them
evidently nesting near by, were much put out by my presence. While
listening to my little black-throated friend, I could also continually
hear the songs of his cousins, the prairie warbler, the redstart, the
black-and-white creeper and the Maryland yellow-throat; not to speak of
oven-birds, towhees, thrashers, vireos, and the beautiful golden-voiced
wood thrushes.

The black-throated green warblers have seemingly become regular summer
residents of Long Island, for after discovering them on my place I found
that two or three bird-loving neighbors were already familiar with them;
and I heard them on several different occasions as I rode through the
country roundabout. I already knew as summer residents in my
neighborhood the following representatives of the warbler family: the
oven-bird, chat, black-and-white creeper, Maryland yellow-throat, summer
yellow-bird, prairie warbler, pine warbler, blue-winged warbler,
golden-winged warbler (very rare), blue yellow-backed warbler and
redstart.

The black-throated green as a breeder and summer resident is a newcomer
who has extended his range southward. But this same summer I found one
warbler, the presence of which, if more than accidental, means that a
southern form is extending its range northward. This was the Dominican
or yellow-throated warbler. Two of my bird-loving neighbors are Mrs. E.
H. Swan, Jr., and Miss Alice Weekes. On July 4th Mrs. Swan told me that
a new warbler, the yellow-throated, was living near their house, and
that she and her husband had seen it there on several occasions. I was
rather skeptical, and told her I thought that it must be a Maryland
yellow-throat. Mrs. Swan meekly acquiesced in the theory that she might
have been mistaken; but two or three days afterward she sent me word
that she and Miss Weekes had seen the bird again, had examined it
thoroughly through their glasses, and were sure that it was a
yellow-throated warbler. Accordingly on the morning of the 8th I walked
down and met them both near Mrs. Swan’s house, about a mile from
Sagamore Hill. We did not have to wait long before we heard an
unmistakably new warbler’s song, loud, ringing, sharply accented, just
as the yellow-throat’s song is described in Chapman’s book. At first the
little bird kept high in the tops of the pines, but after a while he
came to the lower branches and we were able to see him distinctly. Only
a glance was needed to show that my two friends were quite right in
their identification and that the bird was undoubtedly the Dominican or
yellow-throated warbler. Its bill was as long as that of a
black-and-white creeper, giving the head a totally different look from
that of any of its brethren, the other true wood-warblers; and the
olive-gray back, yellow-throat and breast, streaked sides, white belly,
black cheek and forehead, and white line above the eye and spot on the
side of the neck, could all be plainly made out. The bird kept
continually uttering its loud, sharply modulated, and attractive warble.
It never left the pines, and though continually on the move, it yet
moved with a certain deliberation like a pine warbler, and not with the
fussy agility of most of its kinsfolk. Occasionally it would catch some
insect on the wing, but most of the time kept hopping about among the
needle-clad clusters of the pine twigs, or moving along the larger
branches, stopping from time to time to sing. Now and then it would sit
still on one twig for several minutes, singing at short intervals and
preening its feathers.

[Illustration:

  THE STONE WALL

  From a photograph by Mrs. Herbert Wadsworth
]

After looking at it for nearly an hour we had to solve the rather
difficult ethical question as to whether we ought to kill it or not. In
these cases it is always hard to draw the line between heartlessness and
sentimentality. In our own minds we were sure of our identification, and
did not feel that we could be mistaken, but we were none of us professed
ornithologists, and as far as I knew the bird was really rare thus far
north; so that it seemed best to shoot him, which was accordingly done.
I was influenced in this decision, in the first place because warblers
are so small that it is difficult for any observer to be absolutely
certain as to their identification; and in the next place by the fact
that the breeding season was undoubtedly over, and that this was an
adult male, so that no harm came to the species. I very strongly feel
that there should be no “collecting” of rare and beautiful species when
this is not imperatively demanded. Mocking-birds, for instance, are very
beautiful birds, well known and unmistakable; and there is not the
slightest excuse for “collecting” their nests and eggs or shooting
specimens of them, no matter where they may be found. So, there is no
excuse for shooting scarlet tanagers, summer redbirds, cardinals, nor of
course any of the common, well-known friends of the lawn, the garden and
the farm land; and with most birds nowadays observations on their habits
are of far more value than their skins can possibly be. But there must
be some shooting, especially of obscure and little-known birds, or we
would never be able to identify them at all; while most laymen are not
sufficiently close observers to render it possible to trust their
identification of rare species.

In one apple tree in the orchard we find a flicker’s nest every year;
the young make a queer, hissing, bubbling sound, a little like the
boiling of a pot. This same year one of the young ones fell out; I
popped it back into the hole, whereupon its brothers and sisters
“boiled” for several minutes like the cauldron of a small and friendly
witch. John Burroughs, and a Long Island neighbor, John Lewis Childs,
drove over to see me, in this same June of 1907, and I was able to show
them the various birds of most interest—the purple finch, the
black-throated green warbler, the redwings in their unexpected nesting
place by the old barn, and the orchard orioles and yellow-billed cuckoos
in the garden. The orchard orioles this year took much interest in the
haying, gleaning in the cut grass for grasshoppers. The barn swallows
that nest in the stable raised second broods, which did not leave the
nest until the end of July. When the barn swallows gather in their great
flocks just prior to the southward migration, the gathering sometimes
takes place beside a house, and then the swallows seem to get so excited
and bewildered that they often fly into the house. When I was a small
boy I took a keen, although not a very intelligent, interest in natural
history, and solemnly recorded whatever I thought to be notable. When I
was nine years old we were passing the summer near Tarrytown, on the
Hudson. My diary for September 4, 1868, runs as follows: “Cold and
rainy. I was called in from breakfast to a room. When I went in there
what was my surprise to see on walls, curtains and floor about forty
swallows. All the morning long in every room of the house (even the
kitchen) were swallows. They were flying south. Several hundred were
outside and about seventy-five in the house. I caught most of them (and
put them out of the windows). The others got out themselves. One flew on
my pants where he stayed until I took him off.”

At the White House we are apt to stroll around the grounds for a few
minutes after breakfast; and during the migrations, especially in
spring, I often take a pair of field glasses so as to examine any bird
as to the identity of which I am doubtful. From the end of April the
warblers pass in troops—myrtle, magnolia, chestnut-sided, bay-breasted,
blackburnian, black-throated blue, blue-winged, Canadian, and many
others, with at the very end of the season the black-poll—all of them
exquisite little birds, but not conspicuous as a rule, except perhaps
the blackburnian, whose brilliant orange throat and breast flame when
they catch the sunlight as he flits among the trees. The males in their
dress of courtship are easily recognized by any one who has Chapman’s
book on the warblers. On May 4, 1906, I saw a Cape May warbler, the
first I had ever seen. It was in a small pine. It was fearless, allowing
a close approach, and as it was a male in high plumage, it was
unmistakable.

In 1907, after a very hot week in early March, we had an exceedingly
late and cold spring. The first bird I heard sing in the White House
grounds was a white-throated sparrow on March 1st, a song sparrow
speedily following. The white-throats stayed with us until the middle of
May, overlapping the arrival of the indigo buntings; but during the last
week in April and first week in May their singing was drowned by the
music of the purple finches, which I never before saw in such numbers
around the White House. When we sat by the south fountain, under an
apple tree then blossoming, sometimes three or four purple finches would
be singing in the fragrant bloom overhead. In June a pair of wood
thrushes and a pair of black-and-white creepers made their homes in the
White House grounds, in addition to our ordinary homemakers, the
flickers, redheads, robins, catbirds, song sparrows, chippies, summer
yellow-birds, grackles, and, I am sorry to say, crows. A handsome
sapsucker spent a week with us. In the same year five night herons spent
January and February in a swampy tract by the Potomac, half a mile or so
from the White House.

At Mount Vernon there are of course more birds than there are around the
White House, for it is in the country. At present but one mocking-bird
sings around the house itself, and in the gardens and the woods of the
immediate neighborhood. Phœbe birds nest at the heads of the columns
under the front portico; and a pair—or rather, doubtless, a succession
of pairs—has nested in Washington’s tomb itself, for the twenty years
since I have known it. The cardinals, beautiful in plumage, and with
clear ringing voices, are characteristic of the place. I am glad to say
that the woods still hold many gray—not red—foxes; the descendants of
those which Washington so perseveringly hunted.

At Oyster Bay on a desolate winter afternoon many years ago I shot an
Ipswich sparrow on a strip of ice-rimmed beach, where the long coarse
grass waved in front of a growth of blue berries, beach plums and
stunted pines. I think it was the same winter that we were visited not
only by flocks of cross-bills, pine linnets, red-polls and pine
grossbeaks, but by a number of snowy owls, which flitted to and fro in
ghost-like fashion across the wintry landscape and showed themselves far
more diurnal in their habits than our native owls. One fall about the
same time a pair of duck-hawks appeared off the bay. It was early,
before many ducks had come, and they caused havoc among the night
herons, which were then very numerous in the marshes around Lloyd’s
Neck, there being a big heronry in the woods near by. Once I saw a
duck-hawk come around the bend of the shore, and dart into a loose gang
of young night herons, still in the brown plumage, which had jumped from
the marsh at my approach. The pirate struck down three herons in
succession and sailed swiftly on without so much as looking back at his
victims.[8] The herons, which are usually rather dull birds, showed
every sign of terror whenever the duck-hawk appeared in the distance;
whereas, they paid no heed to the fish-hawks as they sailed overhead. I
found the carcass of a black-headed or Bonaparte’s gull which had
probably been killed by one of these duck-hawks; these gulls appear in
the early fall, before their bigger brothers, the herring gulls, have
come for their winter stay. The spotted sand-pipers often build far away
from water; while riding, early in July, 1907, near Cold Spring, my
horse almost stepped on a little fellow that could only just have left
the nest. It was in a dry road between upland fields; the parents were
near by, and betrayed much agitation. The little fish-crows are not rare
around Washington, though not so common as the ordinary crows; once I
shot one at Oyster Bay. They are not so wary as their larger kinsfolk,
but are quite as inveterate destroyers of the eggs and nestlings of more
attractive birds. The soaring turkey buzzards, so beautiful on the wing
and so loathsome near by, are seen everywhere around the Capital.

Footnote 8:

  Dr. Lambert last fall, on a hunting trip in Northern Quebec, found a
  gyrfalcon on an island in a lake which had just killed a great blue
  heron; the heron’s feathers were scattered all over the lake. Lambert
  also shot a great horned owl in the dusk one evening, and found that
  it had a half-eaten duck in its claws.

Bird songs are often puzzling, and it is nearly impossible to write them
down so that any one but the writer will recognize them. Moreover, as we
ascribe to them qualities, such as plaintiveness or gladness, which
really exist in our own minds and not in the songs themselves, two
different observers, equally accurate, may ascribe widely different
qualities to the same song. To me, for instance, the bush sparrow’s song
is more attractive than the vesper sparrow’s; but I think most of my
friends feel just the reverse way about the two songs. To most of us the
bobolink’s song bubbles over with rollicking merriment, with the glad
joy of mere living; whereas the thrushes, the meadow lark, the
white-throated sparrow, all have a haunting strain of sadness or
plaintiveness in their melody; but I am by no means sure that there is
the slightest difference of this kind in the singers. Most of the songs
of the common birds I recognize fairly well; but even with these birds
there will now and then be a call, or a few bars, which I do not
recognize; and if I hear a bird but seldom, I find much difficulty in
recalling its song, unless it is very well marked indeed. Last spring I
for a long time utterly failed to recognize the song of a water thrush
by Rock Creek; and later in the season I on one occasion failed to make
out the flight song of an oven-bird until in the middle of it the singer
suddenly threw in two or three of the characteristic “teacher, teacher”
notes. Even in neighborhoods with which I am familiar I continually hear
songs and calls which I cannot place.

In Albemarle County, Virginia, we have a little place called Pine Knot,
where we sometimes go, taking some or all of the children, for a three
or four days’ outing. It is a mile from the big stock farm, Plain
Dealing, belonging to an old friend, Mr. Joseph Wilmer. The trees and
flowers are like those of Washington, but their general close
resemblance to those of Long Island is set off by certain exceptions.
There are osage orange hedges, and in spring many of the roads are
bordered with bands of the brilliant yellow blossoms of the flowering
broom, introduced by Jefferson. There are great willow oaks here and
there in the woods or pastures, and occasional groves of noble tulip
trees in the many stretches of forest; these tulip trees growing to a
much larger size than on Long Island. As at Washington, among the most
plentiful flowers are the demure little Quaker Ladies, which are not
found at Sagamore Hill—where we also miss such northern forms as the
wake robin and the other trilliums, which used to be among the
characteristic marks of spring-time at Albany. At Pine Knot the red bug,
dogwood and laurel are plentiful; though in the case of the last two no
more so than at Sagamore Hill. The azalea—its Knickerbocker name in New
York was pinkster—grows and flowers far more luxuriantly than on Long
Island. The moccasin flower, the china-blue Virginia cowslip with its
pale pink buds, the blood-red Indian pink, the painted columbine and
many, many other flowers somewhat less showy carpet the woods.

The birds are, of course, for the most part the same as on Long Island,
but with some differences. These differences are, in part, due to the
more southern locality; but in part I cannot explain them, for birds
will often be absent from one place seemingly without any real reason.
Thus around us in Albemarle County song-sparrows are certainly rare and
I have not seen savanna sparrows at all; but the other common sparrows,
such as the chippy, field sparrow, vesper sparrow, and grasshopper
sparrow abound; and in an open field where bind-weed morning glories and
evening primroses grew among the broom sedge, I found some small
grass-dwelling sparrows, which with the exercise of some little patience
I was able to study at close quarters with the glasses; as I had no gun
I could not be positive about their identification, though I was
inclined to believe that they were Henslow’s sparrows. Of birds of
brilliant color there are six species—the cardinal, the summer redbird
and the scarlet tanager, in red, and the bluebird, indigo bunting, and
blue grossbeak, in blue. I saw but one pair of blue grossbeaks; but the
little indigo buntings abound, and bluebirds are exceedingly common,
breeding in numbers. It has always been a puzzle to me why they do not
breed around us at Sagamore Hill, where I only see them during the
migrations. Neither the rosy summer redbirds nor the cardinals are quite
as brilliant as the scarlet tanagers, which fairly burn like live
flames; but the tanager is much less common than either of the others in
Albemarle County, and it is much less common than it is at Sagamore
Hill. Among the singers the wood thrush is not common, but the meadow
lark abounds. The yellow-breasted chat is everywhere and in the spring
its clucking, whistling and calling seem never to stop for a minute. The
white-eyed vireo is found in the same thick undergrowth as the chat and
among the smaller birds it is one of those most in evidence to the ear.
In one or two places I came across parties of the long-tailed Bewick’s
wren, as familiar as the house wren but with a very different song.
There are gentle mourning doves; and black-billed cuckoos seem more
common than the yellow-bills. The mocking-birds are, as always, most
interesting. I was much amused to see one of them following two crows;
when they lit in a plowed field the mocking-bird paraded alongside of
them six feet off, and then fluttered around to the attack. The crows,
however, were evidently less bothered by it than they would have been by
a kingbird. At Plain Dealing many birds nest within a stone’s throw of
the rambling attractive house, with its numerous outbuildings, old
garden, orchard, and venerable locusts and catalpas. Among them are
Baltimore and orchard orioles, purple grackles, flickers and red-headed
woodpeckers, bluebirds, robins, kingbirds and indigo buntings. One
observation which I made was of real interest. On May 18, 1907, I saw a
small party of a dozen or so of passenger pigeons, birds I had not seen
for a quarter of a century and never expected to see again. I saw them
two or three times flying hither and thither with great rapidity, and
once they perched in a tall dead pine on the edge of an old field. They
were unmistakable; yet the sight was so unexpected that I almost doubted
my eyes, and I welcomed a bit of corroborative evidence coming from
Dick, the colored foreman at Plain Dealing. Dick is a frequent companion
of mine in rambles around the country, and he is an unusually close and
accurate observer of birds, and of wild things generally. Dick had
mentioned to me having seen some “wild carrier pigeons,” as he called
them; and, thinking over this remark of his, after I had returned to
Washington, I began to wonder whether he too might not have seen
passenger pigeons. Accordingly I wrote to Mr. Wilmer, asking him to
question Dick and find out what the “carrier pigeons” looked like. His
answering letter runs in part as follows:

  “On May 12th last Dick saw a flock of about thirty wild pigeons,
  followed at a short distance by about half as many, flying in a
  circle very rapidly, between the Plain Dealing house and the
  woods, where they disappeared. They had pointed tails and
  resembled somewhat large doves—the breast and sides rather a
  brownish red. He had seen them before, but many years ago. I think
  it is unquestionably the passenger pigeon—_Ectopistes
  migratorius_—described on p. 25 of the 5th volume of Audubon. I
  remember the pigeon roosts as he describes them, on a smaller
  scale, but large flocks have not been seen in this part of
  Virginia for many years.”

I fear, by the way, that the true prairie chicken, one of the most
characteristic American game birds, will soon follow the passenger
pigeon. My two elder sons have now and then made trips for prairie
chickens and ducks to the Dakotas. Last summer, 1907, the second boy
returned from such a trip—which he had ended by a successful deer hunt
in Wisconsin—with the melancholy information that the diminution in the
ranks of the prairie fowl in the Dakotas was very evident.

The house at Pine Knot consists of one long room, with a broad piazza,
below, and three small bedrooms above. It is made of wood, with big
outside chimneys at each end. Wood rats and white-footed mice visit it;
once a weasel came in after them; now a flying squirrel has made his
home among the rafters. On one side the pines and on the other side the
oaks come up to the walls; in front the broom sedge grows almost to the
piazza and above the line of its waving plumes we look across the
beautiful rolling Virginia farm country to the foothills of the Blue
Ridge. At night whippoorwills call incessantly around us. In the late
spring or early summer we usually take breakfast and dinner on the
veranda listening to mocking-bird, cardinal, and Carolina wren, as well
as to many more common singers. In the winter the little house can only
be kept warm by roaring fires in the great open fireplaces, for there is
no plaster on the walls, nothing but the bare wood. Then the table is
set near the blazing logs at one end of the long room which makes up the
lower part of the house, and at the other end the colored cook—Jim Crack
by name—prepares the delicious Virginia dinner; while around him cluster
the little darkies, who go on errands, bring in wood, or fetch water
from the spring, to put in the bucket which stands below where the gourd
hangs on the wall. Outside the wind moans or the still cold bites if the
night is quiet; but inside there is warmth and light and cheer.

There are plenty of quail and rabbits in the fields and woods near by,
so we live partly on what our guns bring in; and there are also wild
turkeys. I spent the first three days of November, 1906, in a finally
successful effort to kill a wild turkey. Each morning I left the house
between three and five o’clock, under a cold brilliant moon. The frost
was heavy; and my horse shuffled over the frozen ruts as I rode after
Dick. I was on the turkey grounds before the faintest streak of dawn had
appeared in the east; and I worked as long as daylight lasted. It was
interesting and attractive in spite of the cold. In the night we heard
the quavering screech owls; and occasionally the hooting of one of their
bigger brothers. At dawn we listened to the lusty hammering of the big
logcocks, or to the curious coughing or croaking sound of a hawk before
it left its roost. Now and then loose flocks of small birds straggled
past us as we sat in the blind, or rested to eat our lunch; chickadees,
tufted tits, golden-crested kinglets, creepers, cardinals, various
sparrows and small woodpeckers. Once we saw a shrike pounce on a field
mouse by a haystack; once we came on a ruffed grouse sitting motionless
in the road.

[Illustration:

  ROSWELL BEHAVES LIKE A GENTLEMAN

  From a photograph, copyright, 1907, by Clinedinst
]

The last day I had with me Jim Bishop, a man who had hunted turkeys by
profession, a hard-working farmer, whose ancestors have for generations
been farmers and woodmen; an excellent hunter, tireless, resourceful,
with an eye that nothing escaped; just the kind of a man one likes to
regard as typical of what is best in American life. Until this day, and
indeed until the very end of this day, chance did not favor us. We tried
to get up to the turkeys on the roost before daybreak; but they roosted
in pines and, night though it was, they were evidently on the lookout,
for they always saw us long before we could make them out, and then we
could hear them fly out of the tree-tops. Turkeys are quite as wary as
deer, and we never got a sight of them while we were walking through the
woods; but two or three times we flushed gangs, and my companion then at
once built a little blind of pine boughs in which we sat while he tried
to call the scattered birds up to us by imitating, with marvellous
fidelity, their yelping. Twice a turkey started toward us, but on each
occasion the old hen began calling some distance off and all the
scattered birds at once went toward her. At other times I would slip
around to one side of a wood while my companion walked through it, but
either there were no turkeys or they went out somewhere far away from
me.

On the last day I was out thirteen hours. Finally, late in the
afternoon, Jim Bishop marked a turkey into a point of pines which
stretched from a line of wooded hills down into a narrow open valley on
the other side of which again rose wooded hills. I ran down to the end
of the point and stood behind a small oak, while Bishop and Dick walked
down through the trees to drive the turkey toward me. This time
everything went well; the turkey came out of the cover not too far off
and sprang into the air, heading across the valley and offering me a
side shot at forty yards as he sailed by. It was just the distance for
the close-shooting ten-bore duck gun I carried; and at the report down
came the turkey in a heap, not so much as a leg or wing moving. It was
an easy shot. But we had hunted hard for three days; and the turkey is
the king of American game birds; and, besides, I knew he would be very
good eating indeed when we brought him home; so I was as pleased as
possible when Dick lifted the fine young gobbler, his bronze plumage
iridescent in the light of the westering sun.

Formerly we could ride across country in any direction around Washington
and almost as soon as we left the beautiful, tree-shaded streets of the
city we were in the real country. But as Washington grows, it
naturally—and to me most regrettably—becomes less and less like its
former, glorified-village, self; and wire fencing has destroyed our old
cross-country rides. Fortunately there are now many delightful bridle
trails in Rock Creek Park; and we have fixed up a number of good jumps
at suitable places—a stone wall, a water jump, a bank with a ditch, two
or three posts-and-rails, about four feet high, and some stiff brush
hurdles, one of five feet seven inches. The last, which is the only
formidable jump was put up to please two sporting members of the
administration, Bacon and Meyer. Both of them school their horses over
it; and my two elder boys, and Fitzhugh Lee, my cavalry aide, also
school my horses over it. On one of my horses, Roswell, I have gone over
it myself; and as I weigh two hundred pounds without my saddle I think
that the jump, with such a weight, in cold blood, should be credited to
Roswell for righteousness. Roswell is a bay gelding; Audrey a black
mare; they are Virginia horses. In the spring of 1907 I had photographs
of them taken going over the various jumps. Roswell is a fine jumper,
and usually goes at his jumps in a spirit of matter-of-fact enjoyment.
But he now and then shows queer kinks in his temper. On one of these
occasions he began by wishing to rush his jumps, and by trying to go
over the wings instead of the jumps themselves. He fought hard for his
head; and as it happened that the best picture we got of him in the air
was at this particular time, it gives a wrong idea of his ordinary
behavior, and also, I sincerely trust, a wrong idea of my hands.
Generally he takes his jumps like a gentleman.

Many of the men with whom I hunted or with whom I was brought in close
contact when I lived on my ranch, and still more of the men who were
with me in the Rough Riders, have shared in some way or other in my
later political life. Phil Stewart was one of the Presidential Electors
who in 1904 gave me Colorado’s vote; Merrifield filled the same position
in Montana and is now Marshal of that State. Cecil Lyon and Sloan
Simpson, of Texas, were delegates for me at the National Convention
which nominated me in 1904. Sewell is Collector of Customs in Maine;
Sylvans and Joe Ferris are respectively Register of the Land Office and
Postmaster in North Dakota; Dennis Shea with whom I worked on the Little
Missouri round-up holds my commission as Marshal of North Dakota.
Abernathy the wolf hunter is my Marshal in Oklahoma. John Willis
declined to take any place; when he was last my guest at the White House
he told me, I am happy to say, that he does better with his ranch than
he could have done with any office. Johnny Goff is a forest ranger near
the Yellowstone Park. Seth Bullock is Marshal of South Dakota; he too is
an old friend of my ranch days and was sheriff in the Black Hills when I
was deputy sheriff due north of him in Billings County, in the then
Territory of Dakota. Among the people that we both arrested, by the way,
was a young man named “Calamity Joe,” a very well-meaning fellow but a
wild boy who had gone astray, as wild boys often used to go astray on
the frontier, through bad companionship. To my great amusement his uncle
turned up as United States Senator some fifteen years later, and was one
of my staunch allies. Of the men of the regiment Lieutenant Colonel
Brodie I made Governor of Arizona, Captain Frantz, Governor of Oklahoma,
and Captain Curry Governor of New Mexico. Ben Daniels I appointed
Marshal of Arizona; Colbert, the Chickasaw, Marshal in the Indian
Territory. Llewellyn is District Attorney in New Mexico. Jenkins is
Collector of Internal Revenue in South Carolina. Fred Herrig, who was
with me on the Little Missouri, where we hunted the blacktail and the
bighorn together, and who later served under me at Santiago, is a forest
ranger in Montana; and many other men of my old regiment have taken up
with unexpected interest occupations as diverse as those of postmaster,
of revenue agent, of land and forest officers of various kinds. Joe Lee
is Minister to Ecuador; John McIlhenny is Civil Service Commissioner;
Craig Wadsworth is Secretary of Legation at the Court of St. James;
Mason Mitchell is Consul in China, having already been Consul at
Mozambique, where he spent his holidays in hunting the biggest of the
world’s big game.

[Illustration:

  ROSWELL FIGHTS FOR HIS HEAD

  From a photograph, copyright, 1907, by Clinedinst
]

Appointments to public office must of course be made primarily because
of the presumable fitness of the man for the position. But even the most
rigid moralist ought to pardon the occasional inclusion of other
considerations. I am glad that I have been able to put in office certain
outdoor men who were typical leaders in the old life of the frontier,
the daring adventurous life of warfare against wild man and wild nature
which has now so nearly passed away. Bat Masterson, formerly of Dodge
City and the Texas cattle trail, the most famous of the oldtime
marshals, the iron-nerved gun-fighters of the border, is now a deputy
marshal in New York, under District Attorney Stimson—himself a big game
hunter, by the way. Pat Garret, who slew Billy the Kid, I made Collector
of Customs at El Paso; and other scarred gun-fighters of the vanished
frontier, with to their credit deeds of prowess as great as those of
either Masterson or Garret, now hold my commissions, on the Rio Grande,
in the Territories, or here and there in the States of the Rocky
Mountains and the Great Plains.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
 2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.
 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.