As before stated, I could have had my choice out of the herd, but my only pack-horse was loaded so that I could have carried but a small piece of meat, and was unwilling to waste so grand a creature for the little I could save from him.
The antlers of the bull elk grow to a great size. He sheds them in February of each year. The new horn begins to grow in April. During the summer it is soft and pulpy and is covered with a fine velvety growth of hair; it matures and hardens in August; early in September he rubs this velvet off and is then ready to try conclusions with any rival that comes in his way. The rutting season over, he has no further use for his antlers until the next autumn, and they drop off. Thus the process is repeated, year after year, as regularly as the leaves grow and fall from the trees. But it seems a strange provision of nature that should load an animal with sixty to seventy-five pounds of horns, for half the year, when weapons of one-quarter the size and weight would be equally effective if all were armed alike.
I have in my collection the head of a bull elk, killed in the Shoshone Mountains, in Northern Wyoming, the antlers of which measure as follows:
Length of main beam, 4 feet 8 inches; length of brow tine, 1 foot 6-1/2 inches; length of bes tine, 1 foot 8-1/2 inches; length of royal tine, 1 foot 7 inches; length of surroyal, 1 foot 8-1/2 inches: circumference around burr, 1 foot 3-1/4 inches; circumference around beam above burr, 12 inches; circumference of brow tine at base, 7-1/2 inches; spread of main beams at tips, 4 feet 9 inches. They are one of the largest and finest pairs of antlers of which I have any knowledge. The animal when killed would have weighed nearly a thousand pounds.
The elk is strictly gregarious, and in winter time, especially, the animals gather into large bands, and a few years ago herds of from five hundred to a thousand were not uncommon. Now, however, their numbers have been so far reduced by the ravages of "skin hunters" and others that one will rarely find more than twenty-five or thirty in a band.
In the fall of 1879, a party of three men were sight-seeing and hunting in the Yellowstone National Park, and having prolonged their stay until late in October, were overtaken by a terrible snowstorm, which completely blockaded and obliterated all the trails, and filled the gulches, cañons, and coulees to such a depth that their horses could not travel over them at all. They had lain in camp three days waiting for the storm to abate; but as it continued to grow in severity, and as the snow became deeper and deeper, their situation grew daily and hourly more alarming. Their stock of provisions was low, they had no shelter sufficient to withstand the rigors of a winter at that high altitude, and it was fast becoming a question whether they should ever be able to escape beyond the snow-clad peaks and snow-filled cañons with which they were hemmed in. Their only hope of escape was by abandoning their horses, and constructing snow-shoes which might keep them above the snow; but in this case they could not carry bedding and food enough to last them throughout the several days that the journey would occupy to the nearest ranch, and the chances of killing game en route after the severe weather had set in were extremely precarious. They had already set about making snow-shoes from the skin of an elk which they had saved. One pair had been completed, and the storm having abated, one of the party set out to look over the surrounding country for the most feasible route by which to get out, and also to try if possible to find game of some kind. He had gone about a mile toward the northeast when he came upon the fresh trail of a large band of elk that were moving toward the east. He followed, and in a short time came up with them. They were traveling in single file, led by a powerful old bull, who wallowed through snow in which only his head and neck were visible, with all the patience and perseverance of a faithful old ox. The others followed him—the stronger ones in front and the weaker ones bringing up the rear. There were thirty-seven in the band, and by the time they had all walked in the same line they left it an open, well-beaten trail. The hunter approached within a few yards of them. They were greatly alarmed when they saw him, and made a few bounds in various directions; but seeing their struggles were in vain, they meekly submitted to what seemed their impending fate, and fell back in rear of their file-leader. This would have been the golden opportunity of a skin hunter, who could and would have shot them all down in their tracks from a single stand. But such was not the mission of our friend. He saw in this noble, struggling band a means of deliverance from what had threatened to be a wintry grave for him and his companions. He did not fire a shot, and did not in any way create unnecessary alarm amongst the elk, but hurried back to camp and reported to his friends what he had seen.
In a moment the camp was a scene of activity and excitement. Tent, bedding, provisions, everything that was absolutely necessary to their journey, were hurriedly packed upon their pack animals; saddles were placed, rifles were slung to the saddles, and leaving all surplus baggage, such as trophies of their hunt, mineral specimens and curios of various kinds, for future comers, they started for the elk trail. They had a slow, tedious, and laborious task, breaking a way through the deep snow to reach it, but by walking and leading their saddle animals ahead, the pack animals were able to follow slowly. Finally they reached the trail of the elk herd, and following this, after nine days of tedious and painful traveling, the party arrived at a ranch on the Stinking Water river, which was kept by a "squaw man" and his wife, where they were enabled to lodge and recruit themselves and their stock, and whence they finally reached their homes in safety. The band of elk passed on down the river, and our tourists never saw them again; but they have doubtless long ere this all fallen a prey to the ruthless war that is constantly being waged against them by hunters white and red.
It is sad to think that such a noble creature as the American elk is doomed to early and absolute extinction, but such is nevertheless the fact. Year by year his mountain habitat is being surrounded and encroached upon by the advancing line of settlements, as the fisherman encircles the struggling mass of fishes in the clear pond with his long and closely-meshed net. The lines are drawn closer and closer each year. These lines are the ranches of cattle and sheep raisers, the cabins and towns of miners, the stations and residences of employés of the railroads. All these places are made the shelters and temporary abiding places of Eastern and foreign sportsmen who go out to the mountains to hunt. Worse than this, they are made the permanent abiding places, and constitute the active and convenient markets of the nefarious and unconscionable skin hunter and meat hunter. Here he can find a ready market for the meats and skins he brings in, and an opportunity to spend the proceeds of such outrageous traffic in ranch whisky and revelry. The ranchmen themselves hunt and lay in their stock of meat for the year when the game comes down into the valleys. The Indians, when they have eaten up their Government rations, lie in wait for the elk in the same manner. So that when the first great snows of the autumn or winter fall in the high ranges, when the elk band together and seek refuge in the valleys, as did the herd that our fortunate tourists followed out, they find a mixed and hungry horde waiting for them at the mouth of every cañon. Before they have reached the valley where the snow-fall is light enough to allow them to live through the winter their skins are drying in the neighboring "shacks."
WORK OF THE EXTERMINATORS.