CHAPTER XXII.
ELK HUNTING IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
F all the large game on the American continent, the elk (Cervus canadensis) is the noblest, the grandest, the stateliest. I would detract nothing from the noble game qualities of the moose, caribou, deer, or mountain sheep. Each has its peculiar points of excellence which endear it to the heart of the sportsman, but the elk possesses more than any of the others. In size he towers far above all, except the moose. In sagacity, caution, cunning, and wariness he is the peer, if not the superior, of them all. He is always on the alert, his keen scent, his piercing eye, his acute sense of hearing, combining to render him a vigilant sentinel of his own safety.
His great size and powerful muscular construction give him almost unbounded endurance. When alarmed or pursued he will travel for twenty or thirty hours, at a rapid swinging trot, without stopping for food or rest. He is a proud, fearless ranger, and even when simply migrating from one range of mountains to another, will travel from seventy-five to a hundred miles without lying down. He is a marvelous mountaineer, and, considering his immense size and weight, often ascends to heights that seem incredible. He may often be found away up to timber line, and will traverse narrow passes and defiles, climbing over walls of rock and through fissures where it would seem impossible for so large an animal, with such massive antlers as he carries, to go. He chooses his route, however, with rare good judgment, and all mountaineers know that an elk trail is the best that can possibly be selected over any given section of mountainous country. His faculty of traversing dense jungles and windfalls is equally astonishing. If given his own time, he will move quietly and easily through the worst of these, leaping over logs higher than his back as gracefully and almost as lightly as the deer; yet let a herd of elk be alarmed and start on a run through one of these labyrinthine masses, and they will make a noise like a regiment of cavalry on a precipitous charge.
I have stood on the margin of a quaking-asp thicket and heard a large band of elk coming toward me that had been "jumped" and fired upon by my friend at the other side, and the frightful noise of their horns pounding the trees, their hoofs striking each other and the numerous rocks, the crashing of dead branches, with the snorting of the affrighted beasts, might well have struck terror to the heart of anyone unused to such sights and sounds, and have caused him to seek safety in flight. But by standing my ground I was enabled to get in a couple of shots at short range, and to bring down two of the finest animals in the herd.
The whistle of the elk is a sound which many have tried to describe, yet I doubt if anyone who may have read all the descriptions of it ever written would recognize it on a first hearing. It is a most strange, weird, peculiar sound, baffling all efforts of the most skillful word-painter. It is only uttered by the male, and there is the same variety in the sound made by different stags as in different human voices. Usually the cry begins and ends with a sort of grunt, somewhat like the bellow of a domestic cow cut short, but the interlude is a long-drawn, melodious, flutelike sound that rises and falls with a rhythmical cadence, floating on the still evening air, by which it is often wafted with singular distinctness to great distances. By other individuals, or even by the same individual at various times, either the first or last of these abrupt sounds is omitted, and only the other, in connection with the long-drawn, silver-toned strain, is given.
The stag utters this call only in the love-making season, and for the purpose of ascertaining the whereabouts of his dusky mate, who responds by a short and utterly unmusical sound, similar to that with which the male begins or ends his call.
Once, when exploring in Idaho, I had an interesting and exciting experience with a band of elk. I had camped for the night on a high divide, between two branches of the Clearwater river. The weather had been intensely dry and hot for several days, and the tall rye grass that grew in the old burn where I had pitched my camp was dry as powder. There was a gentle breeze from the south. Fearing that a spark might be carried into the grass, I extinguished my camp-fire as soon as I had cooked and eaten my supper. As darkness drew on, I went out to picket my horses and noticed that they were acting strangely. They were looking down the mountain side with ears pointed forward, sniffing the air and moving about uneasily.
