[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.
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.