Then it was clear they must have help. So Jack S---- was engaged at the
regular wages of $40 a month for outside work, and a year of struggle
went by, only to see John Cree in his grave, his cattle nearly all gone,
his widow and boy living in a house on which was still $500 of the
original mortgage. Josh was a brave boy and growing strong, but
unboyishly grave with the weight of care. He sold off the few cattle
that were left, and set about keeping the roof over his mother and baby
sister by working a truck farm for the market supplied by the summer
hotels of the Park, and managed to come out even. He would in time have
done well, but he could not get far enough ahead to meet that 10 per
cent mortgage already overdue.

The banker was not a hard man, but he was in the business for the
business. He extended the time, and waited for interest again and again,
but it only made the principal larger, and it seemed that the last ditch
was reached, that it would be best to let the money-man foreclose,
though that must mean a wipe-out and would leave the fatherless family
homeless.

[Illustration]

Winter was coming on, work was scarce, and Josh went to Gardiner to see
what he could get in the way of house or wage. He learned of a chance to
'substitute' for the Park mail-carrier, who had sprained his foot. It
was an easy drive to Fort Yellowstone, and there he readily agreed, when
they asked him, to take the letters and packages and go on farther to
the Canyon Hotel. Thus it was that on the 20th day of November 189--,
Josh Cree, sixteen years old, tall and ruddy, rode through the snow to
the kitchen door of the Canyon Hotel and was welcomed as though he were
old Santa Claus himself.

[Illustration]

Two Magpies on a tree were among the onlookers. The Park Bears were
denned up, but there were other fur-bearers about. High on the wood-pile
sat a Yellow Red Fox in a magnificent coat. Another was in front of the
house, and the keeper said that as many as a dozen came some days. And
sometimes, he said, there also came a wonderful Silver Fox, a size
bigger than the rest, black as coal, with eyes like yellow diamonds, and
a silver frosting like little stars on his midnight fur.

"My! but he's a beauty. That skin would buy the best team of mules on
the Yellowstone." That was interesting and furnished talk for a while.
In the morning when they were rising for their candlelight breakfast,
the hotel man glancing from the window exclaimed, "Here he is now!" and
Josh peered forth to see in the light of sunrise something he had often
heard of, but never before seen, a coal-black Fox, a giant among his
kind. How slick and elegant his glossy fur, how slim his legs, and what
a monstrous bushy tail; and the other Foxes moved aside as the patrician
rushed in impatient haste to seize the food thrown out by the cook.

"Ain't he a beauty?" said the hotel man. "I'll bet that pelt would fetch
five hundred."

Oh, why did he say "five hundred," the exact sum, for then it was that
the tempter entered into Josh Cree's heart. Five hundred dollars! just
the amount of the mortgage. "Who owns wild beasts? The man that kills
them," said the tempter, and the thought was a live one in his breast as
Josh rode back to Fort Yellowstone.

[Illustration]

At Gardiner he received his pay, $6, for three days' work and, turning
it into groceries, set out for the poor home that soon would be lost to
him, and as he rode he did some hard and gloomy thinking. On his wrist
there hung a wonderful Indian quirt of plaited rawhide and horsehair
with beads on the shaft, and a band of Elk teeth on the butt. It was a
pet of his, and "good medicine," for a flat piece of elkhorn let in the
middle was perforated with a hole, through which the distant landscape
was seen much clearer--a well-known law, an ancient trick, but it made
the quirt prized as a thing of rare virtue, and Josh had refused good
offers for it. Then a figure afoot was seen, and coming nearer, it
turned out to be a friend, Jack Day, out a-gunning with a .22 rifle. But
game was scarce and Jack was returning to Gardiner empty-handed and
disgusted. They stopped for a moment's greeting when Day said: "Huntin's
played out now. How'll you swap that quirt for my rifle?" A month before
Josh would have scorned the offer. A ten-dollar quirt for a five-dollar
rifle, but now he said briefly: "For rifle with cover, tools and
ammunition complete, I'll go ye." So the deal was made and in an hour
Josh was home. He stabled Grizzle, the last of their saddle stock, and
entered.

[Illustration]

Love and sorrow dwelt in the widow's home, but the return of Josh
brought its measure of joy. Mother prepared the regular meal of tea,
potatoes, and salt pork; there was a time when they had soared as high
as canned goods, but those prosperous days were gone. Josh was dandling
baby sister on his lap as he told of his trip, and he learned of two
things of interest: First, the bank must have its money by February;
second, the stable at Gardiner wanted a driver for the Cook City stage.
Then the little events moved quickly. His half-formed plan of getting
back to the Canyon was now frustrated by the new opening, and, besides
this, hope had been dampened by the casual word of one who reported that
"that Silver Fox had not been seen since at the Canyon."

Then began long days of dreary driving through the snow, with a noon
halt at Yancey's and then three days later the return, in the cold, the
biting cold. It was freezing work, but coldest of all was the chill
thought at his heart that February 1st would see him homeless.

[Illustration]

Small bands of Mountain Sheep he saw at times on the slope of Evarts,
and a few Blacktail, and later, when the winter deepened, huge bull Elk
were seen along the trail. Sometimes they moved not more than a few
paces to let him pass. These were everyday things to him, but in the
second week of his winter work he got a sudden thrill. He was coming
down the long hill back of Yancey's when what should he see there,
sitting on its tail, shiny black with yellow eyes like a huge black cat
unusually long and sharp in the nose, but a wonderful Silver Fox!
Possibly the same as the one he saw at the Canyon, for that one he knew
had disappeared and there were not likely to be two in the Park. Yes, it
might be the same, and Josh's bosom surged with mingled feelings. Why
did he not carry that little gun? Why did he not realize? Were the
thoughts that came--$500! A noble chance! broad daylight only
twenty-five yards! and gone!

The Fox was still there when Josh drove on. On the next trip he brought
the little rifle. He had sawed off the stock so he could hide it easily
in his overcoat if need be. No man knew that he carried arms, but the
Foxes seemed to know. The Red ones kept afar and the Black one came no
more. Day after day he drove and hoped but the Black Fox has cunning
measured to his value. He came not, or if he came, was wisely hidden,
and so the month went by, till late in the cold Moon of Snow he heard
old Yancey, say "There's a Silver Fox bin a-hanging around the stable
this last week. Leastwise Dave says he seen him." There were soldiers
sitting around that stove, game guardians of the Park, and still more
dangerous, a scout, the soldiers' guide, a mountaineer. Josh turned not
an inch, he made no sound in response, but his heart gave a jump. Half
an hour later he went out to bed his horses for the night, and peering
around the stable he saw a couple of shadowy forms that silently shifted
until swallowed by the gloom.

Then the soldiers came to bed their horses, and Josh went back to the
stove. His big driving coat hung with the little sawed-off rifle in the
long pocket. He waited till the soldiers one by one went up the ladder
to the general bunk-room. He rose again, got the lantern, lighted it,
carried it out behind the lonely stable. The horses were grinding their
hay, the stars were faintly lighting the snow. There was no one about as
he hung the lantern under the eaves outside so that it could be seen
from the open valley, but not from the house.

[Illustration]

A faint _Yap-yah_, of a Fox was heard on the piney hillside, as he lay
down on the hay in the loft, but there were no signs of life on the
snow. He had come to wait all night if need be, and waited. The lantern
might allure, it might scare, but it was needed in this gloom, and it
tinged the snow with faint yellow light below him. An hour went by, then
a big-tailed form came near and made a little bark at the lantern. It
looked very dark, but it had a paler patch on the throat. This waiting
was freezing work; Josh's teeth were chattering in spite of his
overcoat. Another gray form came, then a much larger black one shaped
itself on the white. It dashed at the first, which fled, and the second
one followed but a little, and then sat down on the snow, gazing at that
bright light. When you are sure, you are _so_ sure--Josh knew him now,
he was facing the Silver Fox. But the light was dim. Josh's hand
trembled as he bared it to lay the back on his lips and suck so as to
make a mousey squeak. The effect on the Fox was instant. He glided
forward intent as a hunting cat. Again he stood in, oh! such a wonderful
pose, still as a statue, frozen like a hiding partridge, unbudging as a
lone kid Antelope in May. And Josh raised--yes, he had come for that--he
raised that fatal gun. The lantern blazed in the Fox's face at twenty
yards; the light was flung back doubled by its shining eyes; it looked
perfectly clear. Josh lined the gun, but, strange to tell, the sights so
plain were lost at once, and the gun was shaking like a sorghum stalk
while the Gopher gnaws its root.

[Illustration]

He laid the weapon down with a groan, cursed his own poor trembling
hand, and in an instant the wonder Fox was gone.

Poor Josh! He wasn't bad-tongued, but now he used all the evil words he
had ever heard, and he was Western bred. Then he reacted on himself.
"The Fox might come back!" Suddenly he remembered something. He got out
a common sulphur match. He wet it on his lips and rubbed it on the
muzzle sight: Then on each side of the notch on the breech sight. He
lined it for a tree. Yes! surely! What had been a blur of blackness had
now a visible form.

A faint bark on a far hillside might mean a coming or a going Fox. Josh
waited five minutes, then again he squeaked on his bare hand. The effect
was a surprise when from the shelter of the stable wall ten feet below
there leaped the great dark Fox. At fifteen feet it paused. Those yellow
orbs were fiery in the light and the rifle sights with the specks of
fire were lined. There was a sharp report and the black-robed fur was
still and limp in the snow.

Who can tell the crack of a small rifle among the louder cracks of green
logs splitting with the fierce frost of a Yellowstone winter's night?
Why should travel-worn, storm-worn travellers wake at each slight,
usual sound? Who knows? Who cares?

       *       *       *       *       *

And afar in Livingston what did the fur dealer care? It was a great
prize--or the banker? he got his five hundred, and mother found it easy
to accept the Indians' creed: "Who owns wild beasts? The man who kills
them."

"I did not know how it would come," she said; "I only knew it would
come, for I prayed and believed."

We know that it came when it meant the most. The house was saved. It was
the turn in their fortune's tide, and the crucial moment of the change
was when those three bright sulphur spots were lined with the living
lamps in the head of the Silver Fox. Yes! Josh was a poacher. Just once.

[Illustration]


THE VILLAIN IN VELVET--THE MARTEN

This beautiful animal, the Sable of America, with its rich brown fur and
its golden throat, comes naturally after the Silver Fox, for such is the
relative value of their respective coats.

The Fox is a small wild dog; the Marten is a large tree Weasel. It is a
creature of amazing agility, so much so that it commonly runs down the
Red-squirrel among the tree tops.

Its food consists mainly of mice and Squirrels, but it kills Rabbits and
Grouse when it can find them, and sometimes even feasts on game of a far
more noble size.

Tom Newcomb, my old guide, has given me an interesting note on the
Marten, made while he was acting as hunting guide in the Shoshoni
Mountains.

In October, 1911, he was out with Baron D' Epsen and his party, hunting
on Miller Creek east of Yellowstone Park. They shot at a Deer. It ran
off as though unharmed, but turned to run down hill, and soon the snow
showed that it was spurting blood on both sides. They followed for three
or four hundred yards, and then the Deer track was joined by the tracks
of five Marten. In a few minutes they found the Deer down and the five
Marten, a family probably, darting about in the near trees, making their
peculiar soft purr as though in anticipation of the feast, which was
delayed only by the coming of the hunters. These attempts to share with
the killers of big game are often seen.

[Illustration]


THE INDUSTRIOUS BEAVER

In some respects the Beaver is the most notable animal in the West. It
was the search for Beaver skins that led adventurers to explore the
Rocky Mountains, and to open up the whole northwest of the United
States and Canada. It is the Beaver to-day that is the chief incentive
to poachers in the Park, but above all the Beaver is the animal that
most manifests its intelligence by its works, forestalls man in much of
his best construction, and amazes us by the well-considered labour of
its hands.

[Illustration: VII. Beaver: (a) Pond and house; (b) Stumps of tree cut
and removed by Beaver, near Yancey's, 1897
_Photos by E. T. Seton_]

[Illustration: VIII. Mule-deer
_Photo by E. T. Seton_]

[Illustration]

There was a time when the Beaver's works and wisdom were so new and
astounding that super-human intelligence was ascribed to this fur-clad
engineer. Then the scoffers came and reduced him to the low level of his
near kin, and explained the accounts of his works as mere fairy tales.
Now we have got back to the middle of the road. We find him a creature
of intelligence far above that of his near kinsmen, and endowed with
some extraordinary instincts that guide him in making dams, houses,
etc., that are unparalleled in the animal world. Here are the principal
deliberate constructions of the Beaver: First the lodge. The Beaver was
the original inventor of reinforced concrete. He has used it for a
million years, in the form of mud mixed with sticks and stones, for
building his lodge and dam. The lodge is the home of the family; that
is, it shelters usually one old male, one old female and sundry
offspring. It is commonly fifteen to twenty feet across outside, and
three to five feet high. Within is a chamber about two feet high and six
feet across, well above water and provided with a ventilator through the
roof, also two entering passages under water, one winding for ordinary
traffic, and one straight for carrying in wood, whose bark is a staple
food. This house is kept perfectly tidy, and when the branch is stripped
of all eatable parts, it is taken out and worked into the dam, which is
a crooked bank of mud and sticks across the running stream. It holds the
water so as to moat the Beaver Castle.

[Illustration]

But the canal is one of this animal's most interesting undertakings. It
is strictly a freight canal for bringing in food-logs, and is dug out
across level ground toward the standing timber.

Canals are commonly three or four hundred feet long, about three feet
wide and two feet deep. There was a small but good example at Yancey's
in 1897; it was only seventy feet long. The longest I ever saw was in
the Adirondacks, N. Y.; it was six hundred and fifty-four feet in length
following the curves, two or three feet wide and about two feet deep.

Three other Beaver structures should be noticed. One, the dock or plunge
hole, which is a deep place by a sharply raised bank, both made with
careful manual labour. Next, the sunning place, generally an ant-hill
on which the Beaver lies to enjoy a sun-bath, while the ants pick the
creepers out of his fur. Third, the mud-pie. This is a little patty of
mud mixed with a squeeze of the castor or body-scent glands. It answers
the purpose of a register, letting all who call know that so and so has
recently been here.

The chief food of the Beaver, at least its favourite food, is aspen,
also called quaking asp or poplar; where there are no poplars there are
no Beavers.


THE DAM

Usually the Beavers start a dam on some stream, right opposite a good
grove of poplars. When these are all cut down and the bark used for
food, the Beaver makes a second dam on the same stream, always with a
view to having deep water for safety, close by poplars for food. In this
way I found the Beavers at Yancey's in 1897 had constructed thirteen
dams in succession. But when I examined the ground again in 1912, the
dams were broken, the ponds all dry. Why? The answer is very simple. The
Beavers had used up all the food. Instead of the little aspen groves
there were now nothing but stumps, and the Beavers had moved elsewhere.

[Illustration: Beaver using his Tail as a Trowel]

Similarly in 1897 the largest Beaver pond in the Park was at Obsidian
Cliff. I should say the dam there was over four hundred yards long. But
now it is broken and the pond is drained. And the reason as before--the
Beavers used all the food and moved on. Of course the dam is soon broken
when the hardworking ones are not there in their eternal vigilance to
keep it tight.

There are many good Beaver ponds near Yancey's now and probably made by
the same colonies of Beavers as those I studied there.

Last September I found a fine lots of dams and dammers on the southeast
side of Yellowstone Lake where you may go on a camera hunt with
certainty of getting Beaver pictures. Yes, in broad daylight.

Let me correct here some popular errors about the Beaver:

It does not use its tail as a trowel.

It does not use big logs in building a dam.

It does not and cannot drive stakes.

It cannot throw a tree in any given way.

It finishes the lodge outside with sticks, not mud.


THE OTTER AND HIS SLIDE

[Illustration]

Every one of us that ever was a small boy and rejoiced in belly-bumping
down some icy hill, on a sled of glorious red, should have a brotherly
sympathy for the Otter.

While in a large sense this beautiful animal belongs to the Weasel
family, it has so far progressed that it is one of the merriest,
best-natured, unsanguinary creatures that ever caught their prey alive.
This may be largely owing to the fact that it has taken entirely to a
fish diet; for without any certain knowledge of the reason, we observe
that fisherfolk are gentler than hunterfolk, and the Otter among his
Weasel kin affords a good illustration of this.

We find the animals going through much the same stages as we do. First,
the struggle for food, then for mates, and later, when they have no
cause to worry about either, they seek for entertainment. Quite a number
of our animals have invented amusements. Usually these are mere games of
tag, catch, or tussle, but some have gone farther and have a regular
institution, with a set place to meet, and apparatus provided. This is
the highest form of all, and one of the best illustrations of it is
found in the jovial Otter. Coasting is an established game with this
animal; and probably every individual of the species frequents some
Otter slide. This is any convenient steep hill or bank, sloping down
into deep water, prepared by much use, and worn into a smooth shoot
that becomes especially serviceable when snow or ice are there to act as
lightning lubricants. And here the Otters will meet, old and young, male
and female, without any thought but the joy of fun together, and shoot
down one after the other, swiftly, and swifter still, as the hill grows
smooth with use, and plump into the water and out again; and chase each
other with little animal gasps of glee, each striving to make the shoot
more often and more quickly than the others. And all of this charming
scene, this group and their merry game, is unquestionably for the simple
social joy of being together in an exercise which gives to them the
delicious, exhilarating sensation of speeding through space without
either violence or effort. In fact, for the very same reason that you
and I went coasting when we were boys.

Do not fail to get one of the guides to show you the Otter slides as you
travel about the lake. Some of them are good and some are poor. The very
best are seen after the snow has come, but still you can see them with
your own eyes, and if you are very lucky and very patient you may be
rewarded by the sight of these merry creatures indulging in a game which
closely parallels so many of our own.




       *       *       *       *       *

IV

Horns and Hoofs and Legs of Speed

       *       *       *       *       *




IV

Horns and Hoofs and Legs of Speed


THE BOUNDING BLACKTAIL

When Lewis and Clark reached the Big Sioux River in Dakota, on their
famous journey up the Missouri, one hundred and ten years ago, they met,
on the very edge and beginning of its range, the Mule Deer, and added
the new species to their collection.

It is the characteristic Deer of the rough country from Mexico to
British Columbia, and from California to Manitoba; and is one of the
kinds most easily observed in the Yellowstone Sanctuary.

[Illustration]

Driving from Gardiner, passing under the Great Tower of Eagle Rock on
which an Osprey has nested year after year as far back as the records
go, and wheeling into the open space in front of the Mammoth Hot Springs
Hotel, one is almost sure to come on a family of Deer wandering across
the lawn, or posing among the shrubbery, with all the artless grace of
the truly wild creature. These are the representatives of several
hundred that collect in fall on and about this lawn, but are now
scattered for the summer season over the adjoining hills, to come again,
no doubt in increased numbers, when the first deep snow shall warn them
to seek their winter range.

Like the other animals, these are natives of the region and truly wild,
but so educated by long letting alone that it is easy to approach within
a few yards.

The camera hunter should not fail to use this opportunity, not only
because they are wild and beautiful things, but because he can have the
films developed at the hotel over night, and so find out how his camera
is behaving in this new light and surroundings.

[Illustration]

This is the common Blacktailed Deer of the hill country, called Mule
Deer on account of its huge ears and the shape of its tail. In Canada I
knew it by the name of "Jumping Deer," from its gait, and in the Rockies
it is familiar as the "Bounding Blacktail"--"Bounding" because of the
wonderful way in which it strikes the ground with its legs held stiffly,
then rises in the air with little apparent effort, and lands some ten or
fifteen feet away. As the hunters say, "The Blacktail hits only the high
places in the landscape." On the level it does not run so well as the
Antelope or the Whitetailed Deer, and I often wondered why it had
adopted this laborious mode of speeding, which seemed so inferior to the
normal pace of its kin. But at length I was eyewitness of an episode
that explained the puzzle.


THE MOTHER BLACKTAIL'S RACE FOR LIFE

[Illustration]

In the fall of 1897 I was out for a Wolf hunt with the Eaton boys in the
Badlands near Medora, N. D. We had a fine mixed pack of dogs, trailers,
runners, and fighters. The runners were thoroughbred greyhounds, that
could catch any four-foot on the plains except perhaps a buck Antelope;
that I saw them signally fail in. But a Wolf, or even the swift Coyote,
had no chance of getting away from them provided they could keep him in
view. We started one of these singers of the plains, and at first he set
off trusting to his legs, but the greyhounds were after him, and when he
saw his long start shrinking so fearfully fast he knew that his legs
could not save him, that now was the time for wits to enter the game.
And this entry he made quickly and successfully by dropping out of sight
down a brushy canyon, so the greyhounds saw him no more.

Then they were baffled by Prairie-dogs which dodged down out of reach
and hawks which rose up out of reach, and still we rode, till, rounding
a little knoll near a drinking place, we came suddenly on a mother
Blacktail and her two fawns. All three swung their big ears and eyes
into full bearing on us, and we reined our horses and tried to check our
dogs, hoping they had not seen the quarry that we did not wish to harm.
But Bran the leader gave a yelp, then leaping high over the sage,
directed all the rest, and in a flash it was a life and death race.

Again and frantically the elder Eaton yelled "Come back!" and his
brother tried to cut across and intercept the hounds. But a creature
that runs away is an irresistible bait to a greyhound, and the chase
across the sage-covered flat was on, with every nerve and tendon
strained.

[Illustration: X. Blacktail Family
_Photo by E. T. Seton_]

Away went the Blacktail, bounding, bounding at that famous beautiful,
birdlike, soaring pace, mother and young tapping the ground and sailing
to land, and tap and sail again. And away went the greyhounds, low
coursing, outstretched, bounding like bolts from a crossbow, curving but
little and dropping only to be shot again. They were straining hard; the
Blacktail seemed to be going more easily, far more beautifully. But
alas! they were losing time. The greyhounds were closing; in vain we
yelled at them. We spurred our horses, hoping to cut them off, hoping to
stop the ugly, lawless tragedy. But the greyhounds were frantic now. The
distance between Bran and the hindmost fawn was not forty feet. Then
Eaton drew his revolver and fired shots over the greyhounds' heads,
hoping to scare them into submission, but they seemed to draw fresh
stimulus from each report, and yelped and bounded faster. A little more
and the end would be. Then we saw a touching sight. The hindmost fawn
let out a feeble bleat of distress, and the mother, heeding, dropped
back between. It looked like choosing death, for now she had not twenty
feet of lead. I wanted Eaton to use his gun on the foremost hound, when
something unexpected happened. The flat was crossed, the Blacktail
reached a great high butte, and tapping with their toes they soared some
fifteen feet and tapped again; and tapped and tapped and soared, and so
they went like hawks that are bounding in the air, and the greyhounds,
peerless on the plain, were helpless on the butte. Yes! rush as they
might and did, and bounded and clomb, but theirs was not the way of the
hills. In twenty heartbeats they were left behind. The Blacktail mother
with her twins kept on and soared and lightly soared till lost to view,
and all were safely hidden in their native hills.

[Illustration: XI. Blacktail mother with her twins
_Photo by E. T. Seton_]


THE BLACKTAIL'S SAFETY IS IN THE HILLS

That day I learned the reason for the bounding flight, so beautiful, but
not the best or swiftest on the plain, yet the one that gives them
dominion and safety on the hills, that makes of them a hill folk that
the dangers of the plain can never reach.

So now, O traveller in the Park, if you approach too near the Blacktail
feeding near the great hotel, and so alarm them--for they are truly
wild--they make not for the open run as do the Antelope and the Hares,
not for the thickest bottomland as do the Whitetail and the Lynxes, but
for the steeper hillsides. They know right well where their safety lies,
and on that near and bushy bank, laying aside all alarm, they group and
pose in artless grace that tempts one to a lavish use of films and gives
the chance for that crowning triumph of the art, a wild animal group,
none of which is looking at the camera.

One more characteristic incident: In 1897 I was riding, with my wife,
from Yancey's over to Baronett's Bridge, when we came on a young buck
Blacktail. Now, said I, "I am going to show you the most wonderful and
beautiful thing to be seen in the way of wild life speeding. You shall
now see the famous bounding of the Blacktail." Then I spurred out after
the young buck, knowing that all he needed was a little alarm to make
him perform. Did he take alarm and run? Not at all. He was in the
Yellowstone Sanctuary. He knew nothing of guns or dogs; he had lived all
his life in safety. He would trot a few steps out of my way, then turn
and gaze at me, but run, bound, and make for the high land, not a bit of
it. And to this day my fair companion has not seen the Blacktail
bounding up the hills.


THE ELK OR WAPITI--THE NOBLEST OF ALL DEER

The Rocky Mountain Elk, or Wapiti, is the finest of all true Deer. The
cows weigh 400 to 500 pounds, the bulls 600 or 800, but occasionally
1000. At several of the hotels a small herd is kept in a corral for the
pleasure and photography of visitors.

The latest official census puts the summer population of Elk in the
Yellowstone Park at 35,000, but the species is migratory, at least to
the extent of seeking a winter feeding ground with as little snow as
possible, so that most of them move out as snow time sets in. Small
herds linger in the rich and sheltered valleys along the Yellowstone,
Snake and nearby rivers, but the total of those wintering in the Park
is probably less than 5,000.


STALKING A BAND OF ELK

[Illustration]

In the summer months the best places in which to look for these Deer are
all the higher forests, especially along the timber-line. I had an
interesting stalk after a large band of them among the woods of Tower
Falls in the June of 1897. I had found the trail of a considerable herd
and followed it up the mountain till the "sign" was fresh. Then I tied
up my horse and went forward on foot. For these animals are sufficiently
acquainted with man as a mischief-maker to be vigilant in avoiding him,
even in the Park. I was cautiously crawling from tree to tree, when out
across an open space I descried a cow Elk and her calf lying down. A
little more crawling and I sighted a herd all lying down and chewing the
cud. About twenty yards away was a stump whose shelter offered chances
to use the camera, but my present position promised nothing, so I set
out carefully to cross the intervening space in plain view of scores of
Elk; and all would have been well but for a pair of mischievous little
Chipmunks. They started a most noisy demonstration against my approach,
running back and forth across my path, twittering and flashing their
tails about. In vain I prayed for a paralytic stroke to fall on my
small tormentors. Their aggravating plan, if plan it was, they succeeded
in fully carrying out. The Elk turned all their megaphone ears, their
funnel noses and their blazing telescopic eyes my way. I lay like a log
and waited; so did they. Then the mountain breeze veered suddenly and
bore the taint of man to those watchful mothers. They sprang to their
feet, some fifty head at least, half of them with calves by their sides,
and away they dashed with a roaring sound, and a rattling and crashing
of branches that is wonderfully impressive to hear, and nothing at all
to tell about.

I had made one or two rough sketches as I lay on the ground, but the
photographs were failures.

[Illustration: XII. A young investigator among the Deer at Fort
Yellowstone
_Photo by E. T. Seton_]

[Illustration: XIII. Elk in Wyoming: (a) "Dawn" _Photo by E. T. Seton_
(b) "Nightfall" _Photo by G. G. Seton_]

This band contained only cows engaged in growing their calves. According
to Elk etiquette, the bulls are off by themselves at a much higher
elevation, engaged in the equally engrossing occupation of growing their
antlers. Most persons are surprised greatly when first they learn that
the huge antlers of the Elk, as with most deer, are grown and shed each
year. It takes only five months to grow them. They are perfect in late
September for the fighting season, and are shed in March. The bull Elk
now shapes his conduct to his weaponless condition. He becomes as meek
as he was warlike. And so far from battling with all of their own sex
that come near, these big "moollys" gather in friendly stag-parties on a
basis of equal loss, and haunt the upper woods whose pasture is rich
enough to furnish the high power nutriment needed to offset the
exhausting drain of growing such mighty horns in such minimum time.

They are more free from flies too in these high places, which is
important, for even the antlers are sensitive while growing. They are
even more sensitive than the rest of the body, besides being less
protected and more temptingly filled with blood. A mosquito would surely
think he had struck it rich if he landed on the hot, palpitating end of
a Wapiti's thin-skinned, blood-gorged antlers. It is quite probable that
some of the queer bumps we see on the finished weapons are due to
mosquito or fly stings suffered in the early period of formation.


THE BUGLING ELK

During the summer the bulls attend strictly to their self-development,
but late August sees them ready to seek once more the mixed society of
their kind. Their horns are fully grown, but are not quite hardened and
are still covered with velvet. By the end of September these weapons are
hard and cleaned and ready for use, just as a thrilling change sets in
in the body and mind of the bull. He is full of strength and vigour, his
coat is sleek, his neck is swollen, his muscles are tense, his horns are
clean, sharp, and strong, and at their heaviest. A burning ambition to
distinguish himself in war, and win favours from the shy ladies of his
kind, grows in him to a perfect insanity; goaded by desire, boiling with
animal force, and raging with war-lust, he mounts some ridge in the
valley and pours forth his very soul in a wild far-reaching battle-cry.
Beginning low and rising in pitch to a veritable scream of piercing
intensity, it falls to a rumbled growl, which broken into shorter growls
dies slowly away. This is the famed bugling of the Elk, and however
grotesque it may seem when heard in a zoo, is admitted by all who know
it in its homeland to be the most inspiring music in nature--because of
what it means. Here is this magnificent creature, big as a horse, strong
as a bull, and fierce as a lion, standing in all the pride and glory of
his primest prime, announcing to all the world: "I am out for a fight!
Do any of you want a F-I-G-H-T----!-!-!?" Nor does he usually have long
to wait. From some far mountainside the answer comes:

"Yes, yes, yes! _Yes, I Do_, Do, Do, Do!"

A few more bugle blasts and the two great giants meet; and when they do,
all the world knows it for a mile around, without it being seen. The
crashing of the antlers as they close, the roars of hate, the squeals of
combat, the cracking of breaking branches as they charge and charge, and
push and strive, and--_sometimes_ the thud of a heavy body going down.

Many a time have I heard them in the distant woods, but mostly at night.
Often have I gone forth warily hoping to see something of the fight, for
we all love to see a fight when not personally in danger; but luck has
been against me. I have been on the battlefield next morning to see
where the combatants had torn up an acre of ground, and trampled
unnumbered saplings, or tossed huge boulders about like pebbles, but the
fight I missed.

One day as I came into camp in the Shoshonees, east of the Park, an old
hunter said: "Say, you! you want to see a real old-time Elk fight? You
go up on that ridge back of the corral and you'll sure see a hull bunch
of 'em at it; not one pair of bulls, but _six_ of 'em."

I hurried away, but again I was too late; I saw nothing but the trampled
ground, the broken saplings, and the traces of the turmoil; the battling
giants were gone.

[Illustration]

Back I went and from the hunter's description made the sketch which I
give below. The old man said: "Well, you sure got it this time. That's
exactly like it was. One pair was jest foolin', one was fencing and was
still perlite; but that third pair was a playin' the game for keeps. An'
for givin' the facts, that's away ahead of any photograph I ever seen."

Once I did come on the fatal battle-ground, but it was some time after
the decision; and there I found the body of the one who did not win. The
antlers are a fair index of the size and vigour of the stag, and if the
fallen one was so big and strong, what like was he who downed him,
pierced him through and left him on the plain.


SNAPPING A CHARGING BULL

At one time in a Californian Park I heard the war-bugle of an Elk. He
bawled aloud in brazen, ringing tones: "Anybody want a F-I-G-H-T
t-t-t-t!!"

I extemporized a horn and answered him according to his mood. "_Yes, I
do; bring it ALONG!_" and he brought it at a trot, squealing and roaring
as he came. When he got within forty yards he left the cover and
approached me, a perfect incarnation of brute ferocity and hate.

[Illustration]

His ears were laid back, his muzzle raised, his nose curled up, his
lower teeth exposed, his mane was bristling and in his eyes there blazed
a marvellous fire of changing opalescent green. On he marched, gritting
his teeth and uttering a most unpleasantly wicked squeal.

Then suddenly down went his head, and he came crash at me, with all the
power of half a ton of hate. However, I was not so much exposed as may
have been inferred. I was safely up a tree. And there I sat watching
that crazy bull as he prodded the trunk with his horns, and snorted, and
raved around, telling me just what he thought of me, inviting him to a
fight and then getting up a tree. Finally he went off roaring and
gritting his teeth, but turning back to cast on me from time to time the
deadly, opaque green light of his mad, malignant eyes.

A friend of mine, John Fossum, once a soldier attached to Fort
Yellowstone, had a similar adventure on a more heroic scale. While out
on a camera hunt in early winter he descried afar a large bull Elk lying
asleep in an open valley. At once Fossum made a plan. He saw that he
could crawl up to the bull, snap him where he lay, then later secure a
second picture as the creature ran for the timber. The first part of
the programme was carried out admirably. Fossum got within fifty feet
and still the Elk lay sleeping. Then the camera was opened out. But
alas! that little _pesky_ "click," that does so much mischief, awoke the
bull, who at once sprang to his feet and ran--not for the woods--but
_for the man_. Fossum with the most amazing nerve stood there quietly
focussing his camera, till the bull was within ten feet, then pressed
the button, threw the camera into the soft snow and ran for his life
with the bull at his coat-tails. It would have been a short run but for
the fact that they reached a deep snowdrift that would carry the man,
and would not carry the Elk. Here Fossum escaped, while the bull snorted
around, telling just what he meant to do to the man when he caught him;
but he was not to be caught, and at last the bull went off grumbling and
squealing.

The hunter came back, recovered his camera, and when the plate was
developed it bore the picture No. xiv, b.

[Illustration: XIV. Elk on the Yellowstone in winter: (a) Caught in
eight feet of snow; _Photo by F. Jay Haynes_ (b) Bull Elk charging
_Photo by John Fossum_]

It shows plainly the fighting light in the bull's eye, the back laid
ears, the twisting of the nose, and the rate at which he is coming is
evidenced in the stamping feet and the wind-blown whiskers, and yet in
spite of the peril of the moment, and the fact that this was a hand
camera, there is no sign of shake on landscape or on Elk, and the
picture is actually over-exposed.


THE HOODOO COW

One of the best summer ranges for Elk is near the southeast corner of
the Yellowstone Lake, and here it was my luck to have the curious
experience that I call the "Story of a Hoodoo Elk."

[Illustration]

In the September of 1912, when out with Tom Newcomb of Gardiner, I had
this curious adventure, that I shall not try to explain. We had crossed
the Yellowstone Lake in a motor boat and were camped on the extreme
southeast Finger, at a point twenty-five miles as the crow flies, and
over fifty as the trail goes, from any human dwelling. We were in the
least travelled and most primitive part of the Park. The animals here
are absolutely in the wild condition and there was no one in the region
but ourselves.

On Friday, September 6th, we sighted some Elk on the lake shore at
sunrise, but could not get nearer than two hundred yards, at which
distance I took a poor snap. The Elk wheeled and ran out of sight. I set
off on foot with the guide about 8:30. We startled one or two Elk, but
they were very wild, and I got no chance to photograph.

About 10:30, when several miles farther in the wilderness, we sighted a
cow Elk standing in a meadow with a Coyote sneaking around about one
hundred yards away. "That's my Elk," I said, and we swung under cover.
By keeping in a little pine woods, I got within one hundred yards,
taking picture No. 1, Plate XV. As she did not move, I said to Tom: "You
stay here while I creep out to that sage brush and I'll get a picture of
her at fifty yards." By crawling on my hands I was able to do this and
got picture No. 2. Now I noticed a bank of tall grass some thirty yards
from the cow, and as she was still quiet, I crawled to that and got
picture No. 3. She did not move and I was near enough to see that she
was dozing in a sun-bath. So I stood up and beckoned to Tom to come out
of the woods at once. He came on nearly speechless with amazement. "What
is the meaning of this?" he whispered.

[Illustration: XV. The first shots at the Hoodoo Cow
_Photos by E. T. Seton_]

I replied calmly: "I told you I was a medicine man, perhaps you'll
believe me now. Don't you see I've made Elk medicine and got her
hypnotized? Now I am going to get up to about twenty yards and take her
picture. While I do so, you use the second camera and take me in the
act." So Tom took No. 4 while I was taking No. 5, and later No. 6.

"Now," I said, "let's go and talk to her." We walked up to within ten
yards. The Elk did not move, so I said: "Well, Bossie, you have callers.
Won't you please look this way?" She did so and I secured shot No. 7,
Plate XVI.

"Thank you," I said. "Now be good enough to lie down." She did, and I
took No. 9.

I went up and stroked her, so did Tom; then giving her a nudge of my
foot I said: "Now stand up again and look away."

She rose up, giving me Nos. 8, 10 and 11.

"Thank you, Bossie! now you can go!" And as she went off I fired my last
film, getting No. 12.

[Illustration: XVI. The last shots at the Hoodoo Cow
_Photos by E. T. Seton_]

By this time Tom had used up all his allowable words, and was falling
back on the contraband kind to express his surging emotions.

"What the ---- is the ---- meaning ---- of this ----?" and so on.

I replied calmly: "Maybe you'll believe I have Elk medicine. Now show me
a Moose and I'll give you some new shocks."

Our trip homeward occupied a couple of hours, during which I heard
little from Tom but a snort or two of puzzlement.

As we neared camp he turned on me suddenly and said: "Now, Mr. Seton,
what _is_ the meaning of this? That wasn't a sick Elk; she was fat and
hearty. She wasn't poisoned or doped, 'cause there's no possibility of
that. It wasn't a tame Elk, 'cause there ain't any, and, anyhow, we're
seventy miles from a house. Now what is the meaning of it?"

I replied solemnly: "Tom! I don't know any more than you do. I was as
much surprised as you were at everything but one, and that was when she
lay down. I didn't tell her to lie down till I saw she was going to do
it, or to get up either, or look the other way, and if you can explain
the incident, you've got the field to yourself."


THE MOOSE, THE BIGGEST OF ALL DEER

The Moose is one of the fine animals that have responded magnificently
to protection in Canada, Maine, Minnesota, and the Yellowstone Park.
Formerly they were very scarce in Wyoming and confined to the southwest
corner of the Reserve. But all they needed was a little help; and,
receiving it, they have flourished and multiplied. Their numbers have
grown by natural increase from about fifty in 1897 to some five hundred
and fifty to-day; and they have spread into all the southern half of the
Park wherever they find surroundings to their taste; that is, thick
level woods with a mixture of timber, as the Moose is a brush-eater,
and does not flourish on a straight diet of evergreen.

The first Deer, almost the only one I ever killed, was a Moose and that
was far back in the days of my youth. On the Yellowstone, I am sorry to
say, I never saw one, although I found tracks and signs in abundance
last September near the Lake.


MY PARTNER'S MOOSE-HUNT

Though I have never since fired at a Moose, I was implicated in the
killing of one a few years later.

It was in the fall of the year, in the Hunting Moon, I was in the
Kippewa Country with my partner and some chosen friends on a camping
trip. Our companions were keen to get a Moose; and daily all hands but
myself were out with the expert Moose callers. But each night the
company reassembled around the campfire only to exchange their stories
of failure.

[Illustration]

Moose there were in plenty, and good guides, Indian, halfbreed and
white, but luck was against them all. Without being a very expert caller
I have done enough of it to know the game and to pass for a "caller." So
one night I said in a spirit of half jest: "I'll have to go out and show
you men how to call a Moose." I cut a good piece of birch-bark and
fashioned carefully a horn. Disdaining all civilized materials as
"bad medicine," I stitched the edge with a spruce root or wattap, and
soldered it neatly with pine gum flowed and smoothed with a blazing
brand. And then I added the finishing touch, a touch which made the
Indian and the halfbreed shake their heads ominously; I drew two "hoodoo
Moose"--that is, men with Moose heads dancing around the horn.

[Illustration: XVII. Elk on the Yellowstone: (a) In Billings Park;
(b) Wild Cow Elk

_Photos by E. T. Seton_]


THE SIREN CALL

"You put that on before you catch one Moose, Moose never come," they
said.

Still I put them on, and near sundown set off in a canoe, with one guide
as paddler, and my partner in charge of the only gun. In half an hour we
reached a lonely lake surrounded by swamps, and woods of mixed timber.
The sunset red was purpling all the horizon belt of pines, and the peace
of the still hour was on lake and swamp. With some little sense of
profanity I raised the hoodoo horn to my mouth, gave one or two
high-pitched, impatient grunts, then poured forth the softly rising,
long-drawn love-call of a cow Moose, all alone, and "Oh, so lonesome."

The guide nodded in approval, "That's all right," then I took out my
watch and waited for fifteen minutes. For, strange to tell, it seems to
repel the bull Moose and alarm him if the cow seems over-eager. There is
a certain etiquette to be observed; it is easy to spoil all by trying to
go too fast. And it does not do to guess at the time; when one is
waiting so hard, the minute is like twenty.

So when fifteen minutes really had gone, I raised the magic horn again,
emitted a few hankering whines, then broke into a louder, farther
reaching call that thrilled up echoes from across the lake and seemed to
fill the woods for miles around with its mellifluous pleading.

Again I waited and gave a third call just as the sun was gone. Then we
strained our eyes and watched at every line of woods, and still were
watching when the sound of a falling tree was heard far off on a
hillside.

Then there was a sort of after-clap as though the tree had lodged the
first time, and hanging half a minute, had completed its fall with
breaking of many branches, and a muffled crash. We gazed hard that way,
and the guide, a very young one, whispered, "Bear!"

There was silence, then a stick broke nearer, and a deep, slow snort was
heard; it might have been the "woof" of a Bear, but I was in doubt. Then
without any more noises, a white array of shining antler tips appeared
above the near willows, and swiftly, silently, there glided into view a
huge bull Moose.

"How solid and beefy he looks!" was my first thought. He "woofed" again,
and the guide, with an eye always to the head, whispered to my partner:
"Take him! he's a stunner."

Striding on he came, with wonderful directness, seeing I had not called
for twenty minutes, and that when he was a mile or more away.

As he approached within forty yards, the guide whispered, "Now is your
chance. You'll never get a better one." My partner whispered, "Steady
the canoe." I drove my paddle point into the sandy bottom, the guide did
the same at the other end, and she arose standing in the canoe and
aimed. Then came the wicked "crack" of the rifle, the "pat" of the
bullet, the snort and whirl of the great, gray, looming brute, and a
second shot as he reached the willows, only to go down with a crash, and
sob his life out on the ground behind the leafy screen.

It all seemed so natural, so exactly according to the correct rules of
sporting books and tales, and yet so unlovely.

There were tears in the eyes of the fair killer, and heart wrenches were
hers, as the great sobs grew less and ceased; and a different sob was
heard at my elbow, as we stood beside the biggest Moose that had been
killed there in years. It was triumph I suppose; it is a proud thing to
act a lie so cleverly; the Florentine assassins often decoyed and
trapped a brave man, by crying like a woman. But I have never called a
Moose since, and that rifle has hung unused in its rack from that to the
present day.