"Then the elk are travelling around a good deal now, are they, Hugh?"
"No, not right now," said Hugh; "but in the course of a week they'll be travelling and whistling. Just about now the bulls are in the finest kind of order, fat as beef steers, but just as soon as they begin to travel and hunt for cows, and fight, they begin to lose their fat; and along about next month, say the middle of October, they get right poor, and ain't fit to eat. You see, at this time of the year the bull has his work cut out for him; he's got to hunt up cows, keep 'em together, drive off the young bulls, and fight the old ones."
"Did you ever see a fight, Hugh?" said Jack.
"Plenty of 'em," was the reply. "They charge each other, head on, and push and push, as hard as you ever see two range bulls push. Their horns clatter right smart when they come together, and there they stand, head to head, noses down, and just shove and shove. If both of 'em are the same size they may keep that up for an hour or two, but if one is considerable bigger than the other, he will push the little fellow back, slowly at first, but gradually faster and faster, until he gets a side push on him, and then the little fellow's got to be mighty spry, to get out of the way before the big one hits him with his horns."
"It must be great to see a fight like that," said Jack.
"Well, you'd think so; two big animals and with big horns like that, but really, it ain't much fun; they fight so slow; there's no jumping around, no quick work. I'd sooner see a pair of range bulls fight; they've got more go to 'em."
"Still, I'd like mighty well to see it," said Jack.
"Well," said Hugh, "maybe we'll get to see it before this month's over; we can't tell, though. There's one thing I don't want to do, and that is, to camp in among a lot of elk at this time of year; they make so much noise with their whistling, and their running around, and their splashing water (if it's near a lake or a creek), a man don't get no chance to sleep. I've seen it where I've had to get up at night and fire my rifle in the direction of the elk to see if I couldn't drive 'em away."
"Hugh, if I were to tell that at home, in the east, I don't think people would believe me."
"Well, of course," said Hugh, "there's lots of things happens out in this western country that seems strange to people that live back east there. I suppose they could tell me a lot of things that happens back there that I'd find it pretty hard to swallow."