BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT

WORKS
STANDARD LIBRARY EDITION

8 vols., 8% illustrated. Each $2.50. Per set, $20.00

THE WINNING OF THE WEST

Four volumes. Each volume is complete in itself, and is
sold separately. 8°, cloth, with maps. Each, $2.50

HUNTING TRIPS OF A RANCHMAN

Sketches of Sport on the Northern Cattle Plains. With
27 full-page wood engravings and 8 smaller engrav-
ings, from designs by Frost, Swain Gifford, Beard,
Fannie E. Gifford, and Sandham. 8° . . $3.00

THE WILDERNESS HUNTER

With an Account of the Big Game of the United States,
and its Chase with Horse, Hound, and Rifle. With
illustrations by Remington, Frost, Sandham, Eaton,
Beard, and others. 8° .... $3.00

THE NAVAL WAR OF 1812
Or, The History of the United States Navy during the
Last War with Great Britain. 8th edition. 8°, $2.50

AMERICAN IDEALS

And Other Essays, Social and Political. I2mo, gilt
top $1.50

New Library Edition, reset, uniform with " The Win-
ning of the West " $2.50

ADDRESSES AND PRESIDENTIAL MESSAGES
1902-1904

With Introduction by Henry Cabot Lodge.

Standard Library Edition. 8° $20OO

Popular Edition. 12° ..... 1.50

THE DEATH OF THE GRIZZLY.

Frontispiece (see page 305)

Stan&arfc library Edition

The
Wilderness Hunter

An Account of the Big Game of the United

States and its Chase with Horse

Hound, and Rifle

BY

Theodore Roosevelt

Author of "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman," "The Winning of the West"
"American Ideals," "Naval War of 1812," etc.

Illustrated

G. P. Putnam's Sons

New York and London
ZTbe Ifcnicfeerbocfeer press

MCMIX

COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London

BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

Ubc fmicfcerbocfcer t>rea0, "Hew

TO

E. K. R

241488

" They saw the silences
Move by and beckon ; saw the forms,
The very beards, of burly storms,
And heard them talk like sounding seas . . .
They saw the snowy mountains rolled
And heaved along the nameless lands
Like mighty billows ; saw the gold
Of awful sunsets ; saw the blush
Of sudden dawn, and felt the hush
Of heaven when the day sat down
And hid his face in dusky hands."

Joaquin Miller.

" In vain the speeding or shyness ;

In vain the elk takes to the inner passes of the woods . . .
. . . where geese nip their food with short jerks,

Where sundown shadows lengthen over the limitless prairie,

Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles, far
and near,

Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and ice-clad trees . . .

The moose, large as an ox, cornered by hunters, plunging with his fore-
feet, the hoofs as sharp as knives . . .

The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper, the talk, the bed of
hemlock boughs, and the bear-skin."

Walt Whitman,

CONTENTS.

PREFACE

CHAPTER I.

THE AMERICAN WILDERNESS ; WILDERNESS HUNTERS AND WILDERNESS

GAME.

The American wilderness — Forests, plains, mountains — Likeness and unlike-
ness to the old-world wilderness — Wilderness hunters — Boone, Crockett,
Houston, Carson — The trappers — The buffalo hunters — The stockmen —
The regular army — Wilderness game — Bison, moose, elk, caribou, deer,
antelope — Other game — Hunting in the wilderness ..... 1-19

CHAPTER II.
HUNTING FROM THE RANCH ; THE BLACKTAIL DEER.

In the cattle country — Life on a ranch — A round-up — Branding a maverick —
The Bad Lands — A shot at a blacktail — Still-hunting the blacktail — Its
habits — Killing a buck in August — A shot at close range — Occasional un-
wariness of blacktail ......... 20-36

CHAPTER III.
THE WHITETAIL DEER ; AND THE BLACKTAIL OF THE COLUMBIA.

The whitetail — Yields poor sport — Fire hunting — Hunting with hounds — Shoot-
ing at running game — Queer adventure — Anecdotes of plainsmen — Good
and bad shots — A wagon trip — A shot from the ranch-house verandah — The

Columbian blacktail 37~54

tii

v;ii Contents.

CHAPTER IV.
ON THE CATTLE RANGES | THE PRONG-HORN ANTELOPE.

Riding to the round-up — The open plains — Sights and sounds — Gophers, prairie
dogs, sharp-tail grouse, antelope — The cow-camp — Standing night guard —
Dawn — Make an antelope hunt — An easy stalk — A difficult stalk — Three
antelope shot — The plains skylark — The meadow lark — The mocking-bird —
Other singers — Harsher wilderness sounds — Pack rats — Plains ferret, Its
ferocity — The war eagle — Attacks antelope — Kills jack-rabbit — One shot
on wing with rifle 55-73

CHAPTER V.
HUNTING THE PRONG-BUCK ; FROST, FIRE, AND THIRST.

Hunting the prong-buck — Long shots — Misses — Winter weather — A hunt in
December — Riding in the bitter cold — The old hunter's tepee — A night in a,
line camp — An antelope herd — Two bucks shot — Riding back to ranch —
The immigrant train — Hunting in fall — Fighting fire — A summer hunt —
Sufferings from thirst — Swimming cattle across a swollen stream — Wagon
trip to the Black Hills — The great prairies — A prong-buck shot — Pleasant
camp — Buck shot in morning — Continue our journey — Shooting sage fowl
and prairie fowl with rifle 74~99

CHAPTER VI.
AMONG THE HIGH HILLS ; THE BIGHORN OR MOUNTAIN SHEEP.

A summer on the ranch — Working among the cattle — Killing game for the ranch
— A trip after mountain sheep — The Bad Lands — Solitary camp — The old
horse Manitou — Still-hunt at dawn — Young ram shot — A hunt in the Rocky
Mountains — An old bighorn stalked and shot — Habits of the game . 100-110

CHAPTER VII.
MOUNTAIN GAME ; THE WHITE GOAT.

A. trip to the Bighole Basin — Incidents of travel with a wagon — Camp among
the mountains — A trip on foot after goats — Spruce grouse — Lying out at
night — A climb over the high peaks — Two goats shot — Weary tramp back
— A hunt in the Kootenai country — Hard climbing among the wooded
mountains — Goat shot on brink of chasm — Ptarmigan for supper — Goat
hunting very hard work — Ways and habits of the goats — Not much
decrease in numbers 111-130

Contents. ix

CHAPTER VIII.
HUNTING IN THE SELKIRKS J THE CARIBOU.

A camp on Kootenai Lake — Travelling on foot through the dense forests — Exces-
sive toil — Water shrew and water thrush — Black bear killed — Mountain
climbing — Woodchucks and conies — The Indian Ammal — Night sounds —
A long walk — A caribou killed — A midwinter trip on snow-shoes in Maine
— Footprints on the snow — A helpless deer — Caribou at ease in the deep
drifts I3I-I55

CHAPTER IX.
THE WAPITI OR ROUND-HORNED ELK.

A hunt in the Bitter Root mountains — A trip on foot — Two bull elk fighting—
The peace-maker — All three shot — Habits of the wapiti — Their bugling —
A grand chorus — Shooting a bull at sunrise — Another killed near the ranch
— Vanishing of the elk — Its antlers — The lynx — Porcupine — Chickarees and
chipmunks — Clarke's crow — Lewis' woodpecker — Whisky-jack — Trout —
The Yellowstone canyon 156-176

CHAPTER X.
AN ELK-HUNT AT TWO-OCEAN PASS.

In the Shoshones — Travelling with a pack-train — Scenery — Flowers — A squaw-
man — Bull elk shot in rain while challenging — Storm — Breaking camp in
rain — Two-Ocean Pass — Our camp — A young ten-pointer shot — The moun-
tains in moonlight — Blue grouse — Snow-shoe rabbits — Death of a master bull
— The Tetons — Following a bull by scent — 111 luck — Luck changes — Death
of spike bull — Three bulls killed — Travelling home — Heavy snowstorm —
Bucking horse — Various hunts compared — Number cartridges used — Still-
hunting the elk 177-202

CHAPTER XI.
THE MOOSE ; THE BEAST OF THE WOODLAND.

The moose of the Rocky Mountains — Its habits — Difficult nature of its haunts —
Repeated failures while hunting it — Watching a marsh at dawn — A moose
in the reeds — Stalking and shooting him — Travelling light with a pack-
train — A beaver meadow — Shooting a big bull at dawn — The moose in
summer ; in winter — Young moose — Pugnacity of moose — Still-hunting
moose — Rather more easy to kill than whitetail deer — At times a dangerous
antagonist — The winter yards — Hunting on snow-shoes — A narrow escape
— A fatal encounter .......... 203-229

Contents.

CHAPTER XII.
THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO.

Extermination of the bison — My brother and cousin take a hunting trip in Texas
— Hardships — Hunting on the Brazos — Many buffalo slain — Following four
bulls — A stampede — Splitting the herd — Occasional charges — A Comanche
war party — Great herds on the Arkansas — Adventure of Clarence King —
The bison of the mountains — At the vanishing point — A hunt for mountain
bison — A trail discovered — Skilful tracking — A band of six — Death of the
bull — A camp in the canyon . 230-254

CHAPTER XIII.
THE BLACK BEAR.

Habits of the black bear — Holds his own well in the land — The old hunters —
Hunting bear with dogs — General Hampton's hunting — Black bear at bay
— A bear catching mice and chipmunks— Occasional raids on the farm
yard — Their weight — Those I have killed 255-264

CHAPTER XIV.
OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR.

The king of American game — Varieties of the grisly — Worthlessness of old
hunters' opinions — Grisly contrasted with black bear — Size — Habits in old
times — Habits nowadays — Hybernating — Cattle killing — Horse killing —
Range cow repels bear — Bear kills sheep and hogs — Occasional raids on
game — Killing bison, elk, and moose — Eats carrion — Old he's sometimes kill
cubs — Usually eats roots and vegetables — Fondness for berries — Its foes —
Den — Fond of wallowing — She's and cubs — Trapping bears — Hunting them
with dogs — Ordinarily killed with rifle 265-295

CHAPTER XV.
HUNTING THE GRISLY.

Camp in the mountains — After the first snow — Trailing and stalking a big bear
— His death — Lying in camp — Stalking and shooting a bear at a moose car-
cass— Lying in wait for a bear by a dead elk — He comes late in the evening
— Is killed — A successful hunting trip — A quarrel — I start home alone — Get
lost on second day — Shot at a grisly — His resolute charge and death —
Danger in hunting the grisly — Exaggerated, but real — Rogers charged — Dif-
ference in ferocity in different bears — Dr. Merrill's queer experience —
Tazewell Woody's adventures — Various ways in which bears attack — Ex-
amples— Men maimed and slain — Instances — Mr. Whitney's experience — A
bear killed on the round-up — Ferocity of old-time bears — Occasional unpro-
voked attacks — A French trapper attacked— Cowboys and bears — Killing
them with a revolver — Feat of General Jackson .... 296-334

Contents. xi

CHAPTER XVI.

THE COUGAR.

Difficulty of killing the cougar — My own failures — Kill one in the mountains —
Hunting the cougar with hounds — Experience of General Wade Hampton_
and Col. Cecil Clay — " Hold on, Penny " — What the cougar preys on — Its
haunts — Its calls — Rarely turns on man — Occasionally dangerous — In-
stances 335-347

CHAPTER XVII.
A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES.

A trip in southern Texas — A ranch on the Frio — Roping cattle — Extermination
of the peccary — Odd habits— Occasionally attacks unprovoked — We drive
south to the Nueces — Flower prairies — Semi-tropical landscape — Hunting
on horseback — Half-blood hounds — Find a small band of peccaries — Kill
two — How they act when at bay — Their occasional freaks . . 348-360

CHAPTER XVIII.
HUNTING WITH HOUNDS.

Old-time hunters rarely used dogs — The packs of the southern planters — Cours-
ing in the West — Hunting with greyhounds near my ranch — Jack-rabbits,
foxes, coyotes, antelope, and deer — An original sportsman of the prairies —
Colonel Williams' greyhounds — Riding on the plains — Cross-country riding
— Fox-hunting at Geneseo — A day with Mr. Wadsworth's hounds — The
Meadowbrook drag hounds — High jumping — A meet at Sagamore Hill —
Fox-hunting and fetishism — Prejudices of sportsmen, foreign and native —
Different styles of riding 361-385

CHAPTER XIX.
WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS.

The wolf — Contrasted with coyote — Variations in color — Former abundance—
The riddle of its extermination — Inexplicable differences in habits between
closely related species — Size of wolf— Animals upon which it preys — At-
tacking cattle ; horses ; other animals ; foxes, dogs, and even coyotes —
Runs down deer and antelope — Coyotes catch jack-rabbits — Wolves around
camp — A wolf shot — Wolf-hunting with hounds — An overmatch for most
dogs — Decinating a pack — Coursing wolves with greyhounds — A hunt in the
foot-hills — Rousing the wolves — The chase — The worry — Death of both
wolves — Wolf hounds near Fort Benton— Other packs — The Sun River
hounds — Their notable feats — Col. Williams' hounds .... 386-411

xii Contents.

CHAPTER XX.
IN COWBOY LAND.

Development of archaic types of character — Cowboys and hunters — Rough vir-
tues and faults — Incidents — Hunting a horse-thief — Tale of the ending of a
desperado — Light-hearted way of regarding " broke horses" — Hardness of
the life — Deaths from many causes — Fight of Indians with trappers — The
slaying of the Medicine Chief Sword-Bearer — Mad feat and death of two
Cheyenne braves 412-447

CHAPTER XXI.
HUNTING LORE.

Game which ought not to be killed — Killing black bear with a knife — Sports
with rod and shotgun — Snow-shoeing and mountaineering — American wri-
ters on out-door life — Burroughs — Thoreau — Audubon, Coues, etc. — Ameri-
can hunting books — American writers on life in the wilderness ; Parkman,
Irving — Cooper on pioneer life — American statesmen and soldiers devoted
to the chase — Lincoln, Jackson, Israel Putnam — A letter from Webster on
trout-fishing — Clay — Washington — Hunting Extracts from Washington's
diaries — Washington as a fox-hunter 448-464

APPENDIX 465-468

INDEX .*...••« 469-472

PREFACE.

FOR a number of years much of my life was spent
either in the wilderness or on the borders of the
settled country — if, indeed, " settled" is a term
that can rightly be applied to the vast, scantily peopled
regions where cattle-ranching is the only regular industry.
During this time I hunted much, among the mountains
and on the plains, both as a pastime and to procure
hides, meat, and robes for use on the ranch ; and it was
my good luck to kill all the various kinds of large game
that can properly be considered to belong to temperate
North America.

In hunting, the finding and killing of the game is after
all but a part of the whole. The free, self-reliant, adven-
turous life, with its rugged and stalwart democracy ; the
wild surroundings, the grand beauty of the scenery, the
chance to study the ways and habits of the woodland
creatures — all these unite to give to the career of the wil-
derness hunter its peculiar charm. The chase is among
the best of all national pastimes ; it cultivates that vigor-
ous manliness for the lack of which in a nation, as in an
individual, the possession of no other qualities can possibly
atone.

xiii

Preface.

No one, but he who has partaken thereof, can under-
stand the keen delight of hunting in lonely lands. For
him is the joy of the horse well ridden and the rifle well
held ; for him the long days of toil and hardship, resolutely
endured, and crowned at the end with triumph. In after
years there shall come forever to his mind the memory of
endless prairies shimmering in the bright sun ; of vast
snow-clad wastes lying desolate under gray skies ; of the
melancholy marshes ; of the rush of mighty rivers ; of the
breath of the evergreen forest in summer ; of the croon-
ing of ice-armored pines at the touch of the winds of
winter; of cataracts roaring between hoary mountain
masses ; of all the innumerable sights and sounds of the
wilderness ; of its immensity and mystery ; and of the
silences that brood in its still depths.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

SAGAMORE HILL,

June, 1893.

ILLUSTRATIONS

PACB

THE DEATH OF THE GRIZZLY . . . Frontispiece

Drawn by A. B. Frost
BLACKTAIL BUCKS (From Photograph by A. S. Bennett) ... 28

A SHOT AT A BLACKTAIL 32

Drawn by Henry Sandham

A STARTLED FAMILY (From Photograph by A. s. Bennett) ... 36
A SHOT FROM THE VERANDAH 52

Drawn by Henry Sandham

EAGLES ATTACKING A PRONG-BUCK 70

Drawn by Henry Sandham

FIGHTING FIRE .86

Drawn by A. B. Frost

HEAD OF MOUNTAIN RAM <sbot November, i887) . . .108

Drawn by J. Carter Beard

A SUCCESSFUL SHOT (From Photograph by author) . . .122

HEAD OF WHITE GOAT (shot August, i889) . . . .124

Drawn by J. Carter Beard

CAMP IN THE FOREST 140

Drawn by Henry Sandham

THE DEATH OF THE CARIBOU BULL . . . .150

Drawn by J. Carter Beard

BULL ELK FIGHTING 160

Drawn by J. Carter Beard

THE YELLOWSTONE CANYON (From Photograph) . . .176

XV

xvi The Wilderness Hunter.

THE THREE TETONS ..*....

Drawn by C. Harry Eaton

HEAD OF ELK (Shot September, 1891)

Drawn by J. Carter Beard
HEAD OF MOOSE (Shot September, 1889) ....

Drawn by J. Carter Beard

A BUFFALO STAMPEDE; SPLITTING THE HERD

Drawn by Frederick Remington

GRIZZLY KILLING A STEER

Drawn by Henry Sandham

A COWBOY AND BEAR FIGHT

Drawn by Henry Sandham
HEAD OF COUGAR (Shot September, 1889) ....

Drawn by J. Carter Beard

PECCARIES AT BAY

Drawn by Henry Sandham

THE END OF THE COURSE

Drawn by J. Carter Beard

WORRY OF THE WOLF

Drawn by J. Carter Beard

PACK
. 192

. 198

. 214

. 242

. 2/4

• 330

• 338

• 358

• 366
406

THE WILDERNESS HUNTER.

CHAPTER I.

THE AMERICAN WILDERNESS; WILDERNESS HUNTERS AND
WILDERNESS GAME.

M

ANIFOLD are the shapes taken by the American
wilderness. In the east, from the Atlantic coast
to the Mississippi valley, lies a land of mag-
nificent hardwood forest. In endless variety and beauty,
the trees cover the ground, save only where they have
been cleared away by man, or where towards the west the
expanse of the forest is broken by fertile prairies. To-
wards the north, this region of hardwood trees merges
insensibly into the southern extension of the great sub-
arctic forest ; here the silver stems of birches gleam
against the sombre background of coniferous evergreens.
In the southeast again, by the hot, oozy coasts of the
South Atlantic and the Gulf, the forest becomes semi-
tropical ; palms wave their feathery fronds, and the tepid
swamps teem with reptile life.

*:*': The Wilderness Hunter.

Some distance beyond the Mississippi, stretching from
Texas to North Dakota, and westward to the Rocky
Mountains, lies the plains country. This is a region of
light rainfall, where the ground is clad with short grass,
while cottonwood trees fringe the courses of the winding
plains streams ; streams that are alternately turbid tor-
rents and mere dwindling threads of water. The great
stretches of natural pasture are broken by gray sage-brush
plains, and tracts of strangely shaped and colored Bad
Lands ; sun-scorched wastes in summer, and in winter
arctic in their iron desolation. Beyond the plains rise the
Rocky Mountains, their flanks covered with coniferous
woods ; but the trees are small, and do not ordinarily
grow very closely together. Towards the north the
forest becomes denser, and the peaks higher ; and glaciers
creep down towards the valleys from the fields of ever-
lasting snow. The brooks are brawling, trout-filled tor-
rents ; the swift rivers foam over rapid and cataract, on
their way to one or the other of the two great oceans.

Southwest of the Rockies evil and terrible deserts
stretch for leagues and leagues, mere waterless wastes of
sandy plain and barren mountain, broken here and there
by narrow strips of fertile ground. Rain rarely falls, and
there are no clouds to dim the brazen sun. The rivers
run in deep canyons, or are swallowed by the burning
sand ; the smaller watercourses are dry throughout the
greater part of the year.

Beyond this desert region rise the sunny Sierras of
California, with their flower-clad slopes and groves of
giant trees ; and north of them, along the coast, the rain-

The American Wilderness. 3

shrouded mountain chains of Oregon and Washington,
matted with the towering growth of the mighty evergreen
forest.

The white hunters, who from time to time first pene-
trated the different parts of this wilderness, found them-
selves in such hunting grounds as those wherein, long
ages before, their Old-World forefathers had dwelt ; and
the game they chased was much the same as that their
lusty barbarian ancestors followed, with weapons of bronze
and of iron, in the dim years before history dawned.
As late as the end of the seventeenth century the tur-
bulent village nobles of Lithuania and Livonia hunted the
bear, the bison, the elk, the wolf, and the stag, and hung
the spoils in their smoky wooden palaces ; and so, two
hundred years later, the free hunters of Montana, in the
interludes between hazardous mining quests and bloody
Indian campaigns, hunted game almost or quite the same
in kind, through the cold mountain forests surrounding
the Yellowstone and Flathead lakes, and decked their
log cabins and ranch houses with the hides and horns of
the slaughtered beasts.

Zoologically speaking, the north temperate zones of
the Old and New Worlds are very similar, differing from
one another much less than they do from the various
regions south of them, or than these regions differ among
themselves. The untrodden American wilderness resem-
bles both in game and physical character the forests, the
mountains, and the steppes of the Old World as it was
at the beginning of our era. Great woods of pine and
fir, birch and beech, oak and chestnut ; streams where the

4 The Wilderness Hunter.

chief game fish are spotted trout and silvery salmon ;
grouse of various kinds as the most common game birds ;
all these the hunter finds as characteristic of the New
World as of the Old. So it is with most of the beasts of
the chase, and so also with the fur-bearing animals that
furnish to the trapper alike his life work and his means of
livelihood. The bear, wolf, bison, moose, caribou, wapiti,
deer, and bighorn, the lynx, fox, wolverine, sable, mink,
ermine, beaver, badger, and otter of both worlds are
either identical or more or less closely kin to one another.
Sometimes of the two forms, that found in the Old World
is the largest. Perhaps more often the reverse is true,
the American beast being superior in size. This is
markedly the case with the wapiti, which is merely a giant
brother of the European stag, exactly as the fisher is
merely a very large cousin of the European sable or
marten. The extraordinary prong-buck, the only hollow-
horned ruminant which sheds its horns annually, is a
distant representative of the Old-World antelopes of the
steppes ; the queer white antelope-goat has for its nearest
kinsfolk certain Himalayan species. Of the animals com-
monly known to our hunters and trappers, only a few,
such as the cougar, peccary, raccoon, possum (and among
birds the wild turkey), find their nearest representatives
and type forms in tropical America.

Of course this general resemblance does not mean
identity. The differences in plant life and animal life, no
less than in the physical features of the land, are suffi-
ciently marked to give the American wilderness a charac-
ter distinctly its own. Some of the most characteristic of

The American Wilderness. 5

the woodland animals, some of those which have most
vividly impressed themselves on the imagination of the
hunters and pioneer settlers, are the very ones which have
no Old- World representatives. The wild turkey is in
every way the king of American game birds. Among
the small beasts the coon and the possum are those
which have left the deepest traces in the humbler lore of
the frontier; exactly as the cougar — usually under the
name of panther or mountain lion — is a favorite figure in
the wilder hunting tales. Nowhere else is there anything
to match the wealth of the eastern hardwood forests, in
number, variety, and beauty of trees ; nowhere else is
it possible to find conifers approaching in size the giant
redwoods and sequoias of the Pacific slope. Nature here
is generally on a larger scale than in the Old- World home
of our race. The lakes are like inland seas, the rivers
like arms of the sea. Among stupendous mountain
chains there are valleys and canyons of fathomless depth
and incredible beauty and majesty. There are tropical
swamps, and sad, frozen marshes ; deserts and Death Val-
leys, weird and evil, and the strange wonderland of the
Wyoming geyser region. The waterfalls are rivers rush-
ing over precipices ; the prairies seem without limit, and
the forest never ending.

At the time when we first became a nation, nine tenths
of the territory now included within the limits of the
United States was wilderness. It was during the stirring
and troubled years immediately preceding the outbreak
of the Revolution that the most adventurous hunters, the
vanguard of the hardy army of pioneer settlers, first

6 The Wilderness Hunter.

crossed the Alleghanies, and roamed far and wide through
the lonely, danger-haunted forests which filled the No-
man's-land lying between the Tennessee and the Ohio.
They waged ferocious warfare with Shawnee and Wyan-
dott and wrought huge havoc among the herds of game
with which the forests teemed. While the first Conti-
nental Congress was still sitting, Daniel Boone, the arche-
type of the American hunter, was leading his bands of
tall backwoods riflemen to settle in the beautiful country
of Kentucky, where the red and the white warriors strove
with such obstinate rage that both races alike grew to
know it as " the dark and bloody ground."

Boone and his fellow-hunters were the heralds of the
oncoming civilization, the pioneers in that conquest of
the wilderness which has at last been practically achieved
in our own day. Where they pitched their camps and
built their log huts or stockaded hamlets, towns grew up,
and men who were tillers of the soil, not mere wilderness
wanderers, thronged in to take and hold the land. Then,
ill-at-ease among the settlements for which they had
themselves made ready the way, and fretted even by the
slight restraints of the rude and uncouth semi-civilization
of the border, the restless hunters moved onward into
the yet unbroken wilds where the game dwelt and the red
tribes marched forever to war and hunting. Their un-
tamable souls ever found something congenial and beyond
measure attractive in the lawless freedom of the lives of
the very savages against whom they warred so bitterly.

Step by step, often leap by leap, the frontier of set-
tlement was pushed westward ; and ever from before its

The American Wilderness. 7

advance fled the warrior tribes of the red men and the
scarcely less intractable array of white Indian fighters
and game hunters. When the Revolutionary war was at
its height, George Rogers Clarke, himself a mighty hun-
ter of the old backwoods type, led his handful of hunter-
soldiers to the conquest of the French towns of the Illi-
nois. This was but one of the many notable feats of
arms performed by the wild soldiery of the backwoods.
Clad in their fringed and tasselled hunting shirts of buck-
skin or homespun, with coonskin caps and deer-hide leg-
gings and moccasins, with tomahawk and scalping knife
thrust into their bead-worked belts, and long rifles in
hand, they fought battle after battle of the most bloody
character, both against the Indians, as at the Great
Kanawha, at the Fallen Timbers, and at Tippecanoe, and
against more civilized foes, as at King's Mountain, New
Orleans, and the River Thames.

Soon after the beginning of the present century-
Louisiana fell into our hands, and the most daring hun-
ters and explorers pushed through the forests of the Mis-
sissippi valley to the great plains, steered across these
vast seas of grass to the Rocky Mountains, and then
through their rugged defiles onwards to the Pacific Ocean.
In every work of exploration, and in all the earlier battles
with the original lords of the western and southwestern
lands, whether Indian or Mexican, the adventurous hun-
ters played the leading part ; while close behind came the
swarm of hard, dogged, border-farmers, — a masterful race,
good fighters and good breeders, as all masterful races
must be.

8 The Wilderness Hunter.

Very characteristic in its way was the career of quaint,
honest, fearless Davy Crockett, the Tennessee rifleman
and Whig Congressman, perhaps the best shot in all our
country, whose skill in the use of his favorite weapon
passed into a proverb, and who ended his days by a
hero's death in the ruins of the Alamo. An even more
notable man was another mighty hunter, Houston, who
when a boy ran away to the Indians ; who while still a
lad returned to his own people to serve under Andrew
Jackson in the campaigns which that greatest of all the
backwoods leaders waged against the Creeks, the Span-
iards, and the British. He was wounded at the storming
of one of the strongholds of Red Eagle's doomed war-
riors, and returned to his Tennessee home to rise to high
civil honor, and become the foremost man of his State.
Then, while Governor of Tennessee, in a sudden fit of
moody anger, and of mad longing for the unfettered life
of the wilderness, he abandoned his office, his people, and
his race, and fled to the Cherokees beyond the Missis-
sippi. For years he lived as one of their chiefs ; until
one day, as he lay in ignoble ease and sloth, a rider from
the south, from the rolling plains of the San Antonio and
Brazos, brought word that the Texans were up, and in
doubtful struggle striving to wrest their freedom from the
lancers and carbineers of Santa Anna. Then his dark
soul flamed again into burning life ; riding by night and
day he joined the risen Texans, was hailed by them as a
heaven-sent leader, and at the San Jacinto led them on
to the overthrow of the Mexican host. Thus the stark
hunter, who had been alternately Indian fighter and In-

The American Wilderness. 9

dian chief, became the President of the new Republic,
and, after its admission into the United States, a Senator
at Washington ; and, to his high honor, he remained to the
end of his days staunchly loyal to the flag of the Union.

By the time that Crockett fell, and Houston became
the darling leader of the Texans, the typical hunter and
Indian fighter had ceased to be a backwoodsman ; he
had become a plains-man, or mountain-man ; for the
frontier, east of which he never willingly went, had been
pushed beyond the Mississippi. Restless, reckless, and
hardy, he spent years of his life in lonely wanderings
through the Rockies as a trapper ; he guarded the slow-
moving caravans, which for purposes of trade journeyed
over the dangerous Santa Fe trail ; he guided the large
parties of frontier settlers who, driving before them their
cattle, with all their household goods in their white-
topped wagons, spent perilous months and seasons on
their weary way to Oregon or California. Joining in
bands, the stalwart, skin-clad riflemen waged ferocious
war on the Indians scarcely more savage than themselves,
or made long raids for plunder and horses against the
outlying Mexican settlements. The best, the bravest,
the most modest of them all was the renowned Kit Car-
son. He was not only a mighty hunter, a daring fighter,
a finder of trails, and maker of roads through the un-
known, untrodden wilderness, but also a real leader of
men. Again and again he crossed and re-crossed the
continent, from the Mississippi to the Pacific ; he guided
many of the earliest military and exploring expeditions of
the United States Government ; he himself led the troops

io The Wilderness Hunter.

in victorious campaigns against Apache and Navahoe ;
and in the Civil War he was made a colonel of the Fed-
eral army.

After him came many other hunters. Most were
pure-blooded Americans, but many were Creole French-
men, Mexicans, or even members of the so-called civilized
Indian tribes, notably the Delawares. Wide were their
wanderings, many their strange adventures in the chase,
bitter their unending warfare with the red lords of the land.
Hither and thither they roamed, from the desolate, burn-
ing deserts of the Colorado to the grassy plains of the
Upper Missouri ; from the rolling Texas prairies, bright
beneath their sunny skies, to the high snow peaks of the
northern Rockies, or the giant pine forests, and soft
rainy weather, of the coasts of Puget Sound. Their main
business was trapping, furs being the only articles yielded
by the wilderness, as they knew it, which were both valu-
able and portable. These early hunters were all trappers
likewise, and, indeed, used their rifles only to procure
meat or repel attacks. The chief of the fur-bearing ani-
mals they followed was the beaver, which abounded in
the streams of the plains and mountains ; in the far north
they also trapped otter, mink, sable, and fisher. They
married squaws from among the Indian tribes with which
they happened for the moment to be at peace ; they
acted as scouts for the United States troops in their
campaigns against the tribes with which they happened
to be at war.

Soon after the Civil War the life of these hunters,
taken as a class, entered on its final stage. The Pacific

The American Wilderness. n

coast was already fairly well settled, and there were a few
mining camps in the Rockies ; but most of this Rocky
Mountains region, and the entire stretch of plains country
proper, the vast belt of level or rolling grass land lying
between the Rio Grande and the Saskatchewan, still re-
mained primeval wilderness, inhabited only by roving
hunters and formidable tribes of Indian nomads, and by
the huge herds of game on which they preyed. Beaver
swarmed in the streams and yielded a rich harvest to the
trapper ; but trapping was no longer the mainstay of the
adventurous plainsmen. Foremost among the beasts of
the chase, on account of its numbers, its size, and its
economic importance, was the bison or American buffalo •.
its innumerable multitudes darkened the limitless prairies.
As the transcontinental railroads were pushed towards
completion, and the tide of settlement rolled onwards with
ever increasing rapidity, buffalo robes became of great
value. The hunters forthwith turned their attention
mainly to the chase of the great clumsy beasts, slaughter-
ing them by hundreds of thousands for their hides ; some-
times killing them on horseback, but more often on foot,
by still-hunting, with the heavy long-range Sharp's rifle.
Throughout the fifteen years during which this slaughter
lasted, a succession of desperate wars was waged with
the banded tribes of the Horse Indians. All the time,
in unending succession, long trains of big white-topped
wagons crept slowly westward across the prairies, marking
the steady oncoming of the frontier settlers.

By the close of 1883 the last buffalo herd was de-
stroyed. The beaver were trapped out of all the streams,

12 The Wilderness Hunter.

or their numbers so thinned that it no longer paid to fol-
low them. The last formidable Indian war had been
brought to a successful close. The flood of the incoming
whites had risen over the land ; tongues of settlement
reached from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains, and
from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. The frontier
had come to an end ; it had vanished. With it vanished
also the old race of wilderness hunters, the men who spent
all their days in the lonely wilds, and who killed game as
their sole means of livelihood. Great stretches of wilder-
ness still remain in the Rocky Mountains, and here and
there in the plains country, exactly as much smaller tracts
of wild land are to be found in the Alleghanies and
northern New York and New England ; and on these
tracts occasional hunters and trappers still linger ; but as
a distinctive class, with a peculiar and important position
in American life, they no longer exist.

There were other men beside the professional hunters,
who lived on the borders of the wilderness, and followed
hunting, not only as a pastime, but also as yielding an
important portion of their subsistence. The frontier
farmers were all hunters. In the eastern backwoods, and
in certain places in the west, as in Oregon, these adven-
turous tillers of the soil were the pioneers among the
actual settlers ; in the Rockies their places were taken by
the miners, and on the great plains by the ranchmen and
cowboys, the men who lived in the saddle, guarding their
branded herds of horses and horned stock. Almost all
of the miners and cowboys were obliged on occasions to
turn hunters.

The American Wilderness. 13

Moreover, the regular army which played so important
a part in all the later stages of the winning of the west
produced its full share of mighty hunters. The later In^
dian wars were fought principally by the regulars. The
West Point officer and his little company of trained sol-
diers appeared abreast of the first hardy cattlemen and
miners. The ordinary settlers rarely made their appear-
ance until in campaign after campaign, always inconceiv-
ably wearing and harassing, and often very bloody in
character, the scarred and tattered troops had broken and
overthrown the most formidable among the Indian tribes.
Faithful, uncomplaining, unflinching, the soldiers wearing
the national uniform lived for many weary years at their
lonely little posts, facing unending toil and danger with
quiet endurance, surrounded by the desolation of vast sol-
itudes, and menaced by the most merciless of foes. Hunt-
ing was followed not only as a sport, but also as the only
means of keeping the posts and the expeditionary trains
in meat. Many of the officers became equally proficient
as marksmen and hunters. The three most famous In-
dian fighters since the Civil War, Generals Custer, Miles,
and Crook, were all keen and successful followers of the
chase.

Of American big game the bison, almost always known
as the buffalo, was the largest and most important to man.
When the first white settlers landed in Virginia the bison
ranged east of the Alleghanies almost to the sea-coast,
westward to the dry deserts lying beyond the Rocky
Mountains, northward to the Great Slave Lake and south-
ward to Chihuahua. It was a beast of the forests and

14 The Wilderness Hunter.

mountains, in the Alleghanies no less than in the Rockies;
but its true home was on the prairies, and the high plains.
Across these it roamed, hither and thither, in herds of
enormous, of incredible magnitude ; herds so large that
they covered the waving grass land for hundreds of square
leagues, and when on the march occupied days and days
in passing a given point. But the seething myriads of
shaggy-maned wild cattle vanished with remarkable and
melancholy rapidity before the inroads of the white hun-
ters, and the steady march of the oncoming settlers.
Now they are on the point of extinction. Two or three
hundred are left in that great national game preserve, the
Yellowstone Park ; and it is said that others still remain
in the wintry desolation of Athabasca. Elsewhere only
a few individuals exist — probably considerably less than
half a hundred all told — scattered in small parties in the
wildest and most remote and inaccessible portions of the
Rocky Mountains. A bison bull is the largest American
animal. His huge bulk, his short, curved black horns,
the shaggy mane clothing his great neck and shoulders,
give him a look of ferocity which his conduct belies. Yet
he is truly a grand and noble beast, and his loss from our
prairies and forest is as keenly regretted by the lover of
nature and of wild life as by the hunter.

Next to the bison in size, and much superior in height
to it and to all other American game — for it is taller than
the tallest horse — comes the moose, or broad-horned elk.
It is a strange, uncouth-looking beast, with very long legs,
short thick neck, a big, ungainly head, a swollen nose, and
huge shovel horns. Its home is in the cold, wet pine and

The American Wilderness. 15

spruce forests, which stretch from the sub-arctic region of
Canada southward in certain places across our frontier.
Two centuries ago it was found as far south as Massachu-
setts. It has now been exterminated from its former
haunts in northern New York and Vermont, and is on
the point of vanishing from northern Michigan. It is still
found in northern Maine and northeastern Minnesota
and in portions of northern Idaho and Washington ; while
along the Rockies it extends its range southward through
western Montana to northwestern Wyoming, south of the
Tetons. In 1884 I saw the fresh hide of one that was
killed in the Bighorn Mountains.

The wapiti, or round-horned elk, like the bison, and
unlike the moose, had its centre of abundance in the
United States, though extending northward into Canada.
Originally its range reached from ocean to ocean and it
went in herds of thousands of individuals ; but it has suf-
fered more from the persecution of hunters than any other
game except the bison. By the beginning of this century it
had been exterminated in most localities east of the Mis-
sissippi ; but a few lingered on for many years in the
Alleghanies. Col. Cecil Clay informs me that an Indian
whom he knew killed one in Pennsylvania in 1869. A
very few still exist here and there in northern Michigan
and Minnesota, and in one or two spots on the western
boundary of Nebraska and the Dakotas ; but it is now
properly a beast of the wooded western mountains. It is
still plentiful in western Colorado, Wyoming, and Mon-
tana, and in parts of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.
Though not as large as the moose it is the most beautiful

1 6 The Wilderness Hunter.

and stately of all animals of the deer kind, and its antlers
are marvels of symmetrical grandeur.

The woodland caribou is inferior to the wapiti both in
size and symmetry. The tips of the many branches of
its long, irregular antlers are slightly palmated. Its range
is the same as that of the moose, save that it does not go
so far southward. Its hoofs are long and round ; even
larger than the long, oval hoofs of the moose, and much
larger than those of the wapiti. The tracks of all three
can be told apart at a glance, and cannot be mistaken for the
footprints of other game. Wapiti tracks, however, look
much like those of yearling and two-year-old cattle, unless
the ground is steep or muddy, in which case the marks of
the false hoofs appear, the joints of wapiti being more
flexible than those of domestic stock.

The whitetail deer is now, as it always has been, the
best known and most abundant of American big game,
and though its numbers have been greatly thinned it is
still found in almost every State of the Union. The com-
mon blacktail or mule deer, which has likewise been sadly
thinned in numbers, though once extraordinarily abun-
dant, extends from the great plains to the Pacific ; but is
supplanted on the Puget Sound coast by the Columbian
blacktail. The delicate, heart-shaped footprints of all
three are nearly indistinguishable ; when the animal is
running the hoof points are of course separated. The
track of the antelope is more oval, growing squarer with
age. Mountain sheep leave footmarks of a squarer shape,
the points of the hoof making little indentations in the
soil, well apart, even when the animal is only walking ; and

The American Wilderness. 17

a yearling's track is not unlike that made by a big prong*
buck when striding rapidly with the toes well apart.
White-goat tracks are also square, and as large as those
of the sheep ; but there is less indentation of the hoof
points, which come nearer together.

The antelope, or prong-buck, was once found in
abundance from the eastern edge of the great plains to
the Pacific, but it has everywhere diminished in numbers,
and has been exterminated along the eastern and western
borders of its former range. The bighorn, or mountain
sheep, is found in the Rocky Mountains from northern
Mexico to Alaska ; and in the United States from the
Coast and Cascade ranges to the Bad Lands of the
western edges of the Dakotas, wherever there are moun-
tain chains or tracts of rugged hills. It was never very
abundant, and, though it has become less so, it has held
its own better than most game. The white goat, how-
ever, alone among our game animals, has positively in-
creased in numbers since the advent of settlers ; because
white hunters rarely follow it, and the Indians who once
sought its skin for robes now use blankets instead. Its
true home is in Alaska and Canada, but it crosses our
borders along the lines of the Rockies and Cascades, and
a few small isolated colonies are found here and there
southward to California and New Mexico.

The cougar and wolf, once common throughout the
United States, have now completely disappeared from all
save the wildest regions. The black bear holds its own
better ; it was never found on the great plains. The
huge grisly ranges from the great plains to the Pacific.

1 8 The Wilderness Hunter.

The little peccary or Mexican wild hog merely crosses our
southern border.

The finest hunting ground in America was, and indeed
is, the mountainous region of western Montana and
northwestern Wyoming. In this high, cold land, of lofty
mountains, deep forests, and open prairies, with its beauti-
ful lakes and rapid rivers, all the species of big game
mentioned above, except the peccary and Columbian
blacktail, are to be found. Until 1880 they were very
abundant, and they are still, with the exception of the
bison, fairly plentiful. On most of the long hunting ex-
peditions which I made away from my ranch, I went
into this region.

The bulk of my hunting has been done in the cattle
country, near my ranch on the Little Missouri, and in
the adjoining lands round the lower Powder and Yel-
lowstone. Until 1 88 1 the valley of the Little Missouri
was fairly thronged with game, and was absolutely un-
changed in any respect from its original condition of
primeval wildness. With the incoming of the stockmen
all this changed, and the game was wofully slaughtered ;
but plenty of deer and antelope, a few sheep and bear,
and an occasional elk are still left.

Since the professional hunters have vanished, with the
vast herds of game on which they preyed, the life of the
ranchman is that which yields most chance of hunting.
Life on a cattle ranch, on the great plains or among the
foothills of the high mountains, has a peculiar attraction
for those hardy, adventurous spirits who take most kindly
to a vigorous out-of-doors existence, and who are there-

The American Wilderness. 19

fore most apt to care passionately for the chase of big
game. The free ranchman lives in a wild, lonely country,
and exactly as he breaks and tames his own horses, and
guards and tends his own branded herds, so he takes the
keenest enjoyment in the chase, which is to him not
merely the pleasantest of sports but also a means of add-
ing materially to his comforts, and often his only method
of providing himself with fresh meat.

Hunting in the wilderness is of all pastimes the most
attractive, and it is doubly so when not carried on merely
as a pastime. Shooting over a private game preserve is
of course in no way to be compared to it. The wilder-
ness hunter must not only show skill in the use of the rifle
and address in finding and approaching game, but he
must also show the qualities of hardihood, self-reliance,
and resolution needed for effectively grappling with his
wild surroundings. The fact that the hunter needs the
game, both for its meat and for its hide, undoubtedly
adds a zest to the pursuit. Among the hunts which I
have most enjoyed were those made when I was engaged
in getting in the winter's stock of meat for the ranch, or
was keeping some party of cowboys supplied with game
from day to day.

CHAPTER II.

HUNTING FROM THE RANCH ; THE BLACKTAIL DEER.

NO life can be pleasanter than life during the months
of fall on a ranch in the northern cattle country.
The weather is cool ; in the evenings and on the
rare rainy days we are glad to sit by the great fireplace,
with its roaring cottonwood logs. But on most days not
a cloud dims the serene splendor of the sky ; and the
fresh pure air is clear with the wonderful clearness of
the high plains. We are in the saddle from morning
to night.

The long, low, roomy ranch house, of clean hewed
logs, is as comfortable as it is bare and plain. We fare
simply but well ; for the wife of my foreman makes excel-
lent bread and cake, and there are plenty of potatoes,
grown in the forlorn little garden-patch on the bottom.
We also have jellies and jams, made from wild plums and
buffalo berries ; and all the milk we can drink. For meat
we depend on our rifles ; and, with an occasional interlude
of ducks or prairie chickens, the mainstay of each meal
is venison, roasted, broiled, or fried.

Sometimes we shoot the deer when we happen on

Hunting from the Ranch. 21

them while about our ordinary business, — indeed through-
out the time that I have lived on the ranch, very many
of the deer and antelope I killed were thus obtained. -Of
course while doing the actual round-up work it is impos-
sible to attend to anything else ; but we generally carry
rifles while riding after the saddle band in the early morn-
ing, while visiting the line camps, or while in the saddle
among the cattle on the range ; and get many a shot in
this fashion.

In the fall of 1890 some friends came to my ranch;
and one day we took them to see a round-up. The OX,
a Texan steer-outfit, had sent a couple of wagons to work
down the river, after beef cattle, and one of my men had
gone along to gather any of my own scattered steers that
were ready for shipping, and to brand the late calves.
There were perhaps a dozen riders with the wagons ; and
they were camped for the day on a big bottom where
Blacktail and Whitetail creeks open into the river, several
miles below my ranch.

At dawn one of the men rode off to bring in the sad-
dle band. The rest of us were up by sunrise ; and as we
stood on the verandah under the shimmering cottonwood
trees, revelling in the blue of the cloudless sky, and drink-
ing in the cool air before going to breakfast, we saw the
motley-colored string of ponies file down from the oppo-
site bank of the river, and splash across the broad, shallow
ford in front of the ranch house. Cantering and trotting
the band swept towards the high, round horse-corral, in
the open glade to the rear of the house. Guided by the
jutting wing which stuck out at right angles, they entered

22 The Wilderness Hunter.

the open gate, which was promptly closed by the. cowboy
who had driven them in.

After breakfast we strolled over to the corral, with our
lariats, and, standing by the snubbing-post in the middle,
roped the horses we wished for the party — some that
were gentle, and others that were not. Then every man
saddled his horse ; and at the moment of mounting for
the start there was, as always, a thrill of mild excitement,
each rider hoping that his own horse would not buck,
and that his neighbor's would. I had no young horses
on the ranch at the time ; but a number of the older
ones still possessed some of the least amiable traits of
their youth.

Once in the saddle we rode off down river, along the
bottoms, crossing the stream again and again. We went
in Indian file, as is necessary among the trees and in
broken ground, following the cattle-trails — which them-
selves had replaced or broadened the game paths that
alone crossed the plateaus and bottoms when my ranch
house was first built. Now we crossed open reaches of
coarse grass, thinly sprinkled with large, brittle cotton-
wood trees, their branches torn and splintered ; now we
wound our way through a dense jungle where the gray,
thorny buffalo bushes, spangled with brilliant red berry
clusters, choked the spaces between the thick-growing box-
alders ; and again the sure-footed ponies scrambled down
one cut bank and up another, through seemingly im-
possible rifts, or with gingerly footsteps trod a path which
cut the side of a butte or overhung a bluff. Sometimes
we racked, or shacked along at the fox trot which is the

Hunting from the Ranch. 23

cow-pony's ordinary gait ; and sometimes we loped or
galloped and ran.

At last we came to the ford beyond which the riders
of the round-up had made their camp. In the bygone
days of the elk and buffalo, when our branded cattle were
first driven thus far north, this ford had been dangerous
from quicksand ; but the cattle, ever crossing and re-cros-
sing, had trodden down and settled the sand, and had
found out the firm places ; so that it was now easy to get
over.

Close beyond the trees on the farther bank stood the
two round-up wagons ; near by was the cook's fire, in a
trench, so that it might not spread ; the bedding of the
riders and horse-wranglers lay scattered about, each roll
of blankets wrapped and corded in a stout canvas sheet.
The cook was busy about the fire ; the night-wrangler
was snatching an hour or two's sleep under one of the
wagons. Half a mile away, on the plain of sage brush
and long grass, the day-wrangler was guarding the grazing
or resting horse herd, of over a hundred head. Still far-
ther distant, at the mouth of a ravine, was the day-herd of
cattle, two or three cowboys watching it as they lolled
drowsily in their saddles. The other riders were off on
circles to bring in cattle to the round-up ; they were ex-
pected every moment.

With the ready hospitality always shown in a cow-camp
we were pressed to alight and take dinner, or at least a
lunch ; and accordingly we jumped off our horses and sat
down. Our tin plates were soon heaped with fresh beef,
bread, tomatoes, rice, and potatoes, all very good ; for

24 The Wilderness Hunter.

the tall, bearded, scrawny cook knew his work, and the
OX outfit always fed its men well, — and saw that they
worked well too.

Before noon the circle riders began to appear on the
plain, coming out of the ravines, and scrambling down the
steep hills, singly or in twos and threes. They herded
before them bunches of cattle, of varying size ; these were
driven together and left in charge of a couple of cow-
punchers. The other men rode to the wagon to get a
hasty dinner — lithe, sinewy fellows, with weather-rough-
ened faces and fearless eyes ; their broad felt hats flapped
as they galloped, and their spurs and bridle chains jingled.
They rode well, with long stirrups, sitting straight in the
deep stock saddles, and their wiry ponies showed no signs
of fatigue from the long morning's ride.

The horse-wrangler soon drove the saddle band to the
wagons, where it was caught in a quickly improvised rope-
corral. The men roped fresh horses, fitted for the cutting-
work round the herd, with its attendant furious galloping
and flash-like turning and twisting. In a few minutes all
were in the saddle again and riding towards the cattle.

Then began that scene of excitement and turmoil, and
seeming confusion, but real method and orderliness, so
familiar to all who have engaged in stock-growing on the
great plains. The riders gathered in a wide ring round
the herd of uneasy cattle, and a couple of men rode into
their midst to cut out the beef steers and the cows that
were followed by unbranded calves. As soon as the ani-
mal was picked out the cowboy began to drive it slowly
towards the outside of the herd, and when it was near the

Hunting from the Ranch, . 25

edge he suddenly raced it into the open. The beast
would then start at full speed and try to double back
among its fellows ; while the trained cow-pony followed
like a shadow, heading it off at every turn. The riders
round that part of the herd opened out and the chosen
animal was speedily hurried off to some spot a few hundred
yards distant, where it was left under charge of another
cowboy. The latter at first had his hands full in prevent-
ing his charge from rejoining the herd ; for cattle dread
nothing so much as being separated from their comrades.
However, as soon as two or three others were driven out,
enough to form a little bunch, it became a much easier
matter to hold the " cut" as it is called. The cows and
calves were put in one place, the beeves in another ; the
latter were afterwards run into the day-herd.

Meanwhile from time to time some clean-limbed young
steer or heifer, able to run like an antelope and double
like a jack-rabbit, tried to break out of the herd that was
being worked, when the nearest cowboy hurried in pur-
suit at top speed and brought it back, after a headlong,
break-neck race, in which no heed was paid to brush, fal-
len timber, prairie-dog holes, or cut banks. The dust rose
in little whirling clouds, and through it dashed bolting
cattle and galloping cowboys, hither and thither, while
the air was filled with the shouts and laughter of the men,
and the bellowing of the herd.

As soon as the herd was worked it was turned loose,
while the cows and calves were driven over to a large cor-
ral, where the branding was done. A fire was speedily
kindled, and in it were laid the branding irons of the dif-

26 The Wilderness Hunter.

ferent outfits represented on the round-up. Then two of
the best ropers rode into the corral and began to rope the
calves, round the hind legs by preference, but sometimes
round the head. The other men dismounted to ''wrestle"
and brand them. Once roped, the calf, bawling and
struggling, was swiftly dragged near the fire, where one
or two of the calf-wrestlers grappled with and threw the
kicking, plunging little beast, and held it while it was
branded. If the calf was large the wrestlers had hard
work ; and one or two young maverick bulls — that is, un-
branded yearling bulls, which had been passed by in the
round-ups of the preceding year — fought viciously, bel-
lowing and charging, and driving some of the men up
the sides of the corral, to the boisterous delight of the
others.

After watching the work for a little while we left and
rode homewards. Instead of going along the river bot-
toms we struck back over the buttes. From time to time
we came out on some sharp bluff overlooking the river.
From these points of vantage we could see for several
mues up and down the valley of the Little Missouri.
The level bottoms were walled in by rows of sheer cliffs,
and steep, grassy slopes. These bluff lines were from a
quarter of a mile to a mile apart ; they did not run
straight, but in a succession of curves, so as to look like
the halves of many amphitheatres. Between them the
river swept in great bends from side to side ; the wide
bed, brimful during the time of freshets, now held but a
thin stream of water. Some of the bottoms were covered
only with grass and sage brush ; others with a dense jun-

Hunting from the Ranch. 27

gle of trees ; while yet others looked like parks, the cot-
tonwoods growing in curved lines or in clumps scattered
here and there.

On our way we came across a bunch of cattle, among
which the sharp eyes of my foreman detected a maverick
two-year-old heifer. He and one of the cowboys at once
got down their ropes and rode after her ; the rest of us
first rounding up the bunch so as to give a fair start.
After a sharp run one of the men, swinging his lariat
round his head, got close up ; in a second or two the
noose settled round the heifer's neck, and as it became
taut she was brought to with a jerk ; immediately after-
wards the other man made his throw and cleverly heeled
her. In a trice the red heifer was stretched helpless on
the ground, the two fierce little ponies, a pinto and a
buckskin, keeping her down on their own account, tossing
their heads and backing so that the ropes which led from
the saddle-horns to her head and hind feet never slack-
ened. Then we kindled a fire ; one of the cinch rings
was taken off to serve as a branding iron, and the heifer
speedily became our property — for she was on our range.

When we reached the ranch it was still early, and
after finishing dinner it lacked over an hour of sundown.
Accordingly we went for another ride ; and I carried my
rifle. We started up a winding coulie which opened
back of the ranch house ; and after half an hour's canter
clambered up the steep head-ravines, and emerged on a
high ridge which went westward, straight as an arrow, to
the main divide between the Little Missouri and the Big
Beaver. Along this narrow, grassy crest we loped and

28 The Wilderness Hunter.

galloped ; we were so high that we could look far and
wide over all the country round about. To the south-
ward, across a dozen leagues of rolling and broken
prairie, loomed Sentinel Butte, the chief landmark of all
that region. Behind us, beyond the river, rose the weird
chaos of Bad Lands which at this point lie for many miles
east of the Little Missouri. Their fantastic outlines
were marked against the sky as sharply as if cut with a
knife ; their grim and forbidding desolation warmed into
wonderful beauty by the light of the dying sun. On our
right, as we loped onwards, the land sunk away in smooth
green-clad slopes and valleys ; on our left it fell in sheer
walls. Ahead of us the sun was sinking behind a mass
of blood-red clouds ; and on either hand the flushed skies
were changing their tint to a hundred hues of opal and
amethyst. Our tireless little horses sprang under us,
thrilling with life ; we were riding through a fairy world
of beauty and color and limitless space and freedom.

Suddenly a short hundred yards in front three black-
tail leaped out of a little glen and crossed our path, with
the peculiar bounding gait of their kind. At once I
sprang from my horse and, kneeling, fired at the last and
largest of the three. My bullet sped too far back, but
struck near the hip, and the crippled deer went slowly
down a ravine. Running over a hillock to cut it off, I
found it in some brush a few hundred yards beyond and
finished it with a second ball. Quickly dressing it, I
packed it on my horse, and trotted back leading him ; an
hour afterwards we saw through the waning light the
quaint, home-like outlines of the ranch house.

Hunting from the Ranch. 29

After all, however, blacktail can only at times be
picked up by chance in this way. More often it is need-
ful to kill them by fair still-hunting, among the hills or
wooded mountains where they delight to dwell. If hun-
ted they speedily become wary. By choice they live in
such broken country that it is difficult to pursue them
with hounds ; and they are by no means such water-lov-
ing animals as whitetail. On the other hand, the land in
which they dwell is very favorable to the still-hunter who
does not rely merely on stealth, but who can walk and
shoot well. They do not go on the open prairie, and, if
possible, they avoid deep forests, while, being good
climbers, they like hills. In the mountains, therefore,
they keep to what is called park country, where glades
alternate with open groves. On the great plains they
avoid both the heavily timbered river bottoms and the
vast treeless stretches of level or rolling grass land ; their
chosen abode being the broken and hilly region, scantily
wooded, which skirts almost every plains river and forms
a belt, sometimes very narrow, sometimes many miles in
breadth, between the alluvial bottom land and the prai-
ries beyond. In these Bad Lands dwarfed pines and cedars
grow in the canyon-like ravines and among the high steep
hills; there are also basins and winding coulies, filled with
brush and shrubbery and small elm or ash. In all such
places the blacktail loves to make its home,

I have not often hunted blacktail in the mountains,
because while there I was generally after larger game ;
but round my ranch I have killed more of them than of
any other game, and for me their chase has always

30 The Wilderness Hunter.

sessed a peculiar charm. We hunt them in the loveliest
season of the year, the fall and early winter, when it is
keen pleasure merely to live out-of-doors. Sometimes
we make a regular trip, of several days' duration, taking
the ranch wagon, with or without a tent, to some rugged
and little disturbed spot where the deer are plenty ; per-
haps returning with eight or ten carcasses, or even more
— enough to last a long while in cold weather. We often
make such trips while laying in our winter supply of meat.

At other times we hunt directly from the ranch house.
We catch our horses overnight, and are in the saddle for
an all-day's hunt long before the first streak of dawn,
possibly not returning until some hours after nightfall.
The early morning and late evening are the best time for
hunting game, except in regions where it is hardly ever
molested, and where in consequence it moves about more
or less throughout the day.

During the rut, which begins in September, the deer
are in constant motion, and are often found in bands.
The necks of the bucks swell and their sides grow gaunt ;
they chase the does all night, and their flesh becomes
strong and stringy — far inferior to that of the barren does
and yearlings. The old bucks then wage desperate con-
flicts with one another, and bully their smaller brethren
unmercifully. Unlike the elk, the blacktail, like the
whitetail, are generally silent in the rutting season. They
occasionally grunt when fighting ; and once, on a fall
evening, I heard two young bucks barking in a ravine
back of my ranch house, and crept up and shot them
but this was a wholly exceptional instance.

Hunting from the Ranch. 31

At this time I hunt on foot, only using the horse to
carry me to and from the hunting ground ; for while
rutting, the deer, being restless, do not try to escape
observation by lying still, and on the other hand are apt
to wander about and so are easily seen from a distance.
When I have reached a favorable place I picket my horse
and go from vantage point to vantage point, carefully
scanning the hillsides, ravines, and brush coulies from
every spot that affords a wide outlook. The quarry once
seen it may be a matter of hours, or only of minutes, to
approach it, accordingly as the wind and cover are or are
not favorable. The walks for many miles over the hills,
the exercise of constant watchfulness, the excitement of
the actual stalk, and the still greater excitement of the
shot, combine to make still-hunting the blacktail, in the
sharp fall weather, one of the most attractive of hardy out-
door sports. Then after the long, stumbling walk home-
wards, through the cool gloom of the late evening, comes
the meal of smoking venison and milk and bread, and the
sleepy rest, lying on the bear-skins, or sitting in the rock-
ing chair before the roaring fire, while the icy wind moans
outside.

Earlier in the season, while the does are still nursing
the fawns, and until the bucks have cleaned the last ves-
tiges of velvet from their antlers, the deer lie very close,
and wander round as little as may be. In the spring and
early summer, in the ranch country, we hunt big game
very little, and then only antelope ; because in hunting
antelope there is no danger of killing aught but bucks.
About the first of August we begin to hunt blacktail,

3 2 The Wilderness Hunter.

but do not kill does until a month later — and then only
when short of meat. In the early weeks of the deer sea-
son we frequently do even the actual hunting on horse-
back instead of on foot ; because the deer at this time
rarely appear in view, so as to afford chance for a stalk,
and yet are reluctant to break cover until very closely
approached. In consequence we keep on our horses, and
so get over much more ground than on foot, beating
through or beside all likely-looking cover, with the object
of jumping the deer close by. Under such circumstances
bucks sometimes lie until almost trodden on.

One afternoon in mid-August, when the ranch was
entirely out of meat, I started with one of my cow-hands,
Merrifield, to kill a deer. We were on a couple of stout,
quiet ponies, accustomed to firing and to packing game.
After riding a mile or two down the bottoms we left the
river and struck off up a winding valley, which led back
among the hills. In a short while we were in a blacktail
country, and began to keep a sharp lookout for game,
riding parallel to, but some little distance from, one
another. The sun, beating down through the clear air,
was very hot ; the brown slopes of short grass, and still
more the white clay walls of the Bad Lands, threw the
heat rays in our faces. We skirted closely all likely-look-
ing spots, such as the heavy brush-patches in the bottoms
of the winding valleys, and the groves of ash and elm in
the basins and pockets flanking the high plateaus ; some-
times we followed a cattle trail which ran down the mid-
dle of a big washout, and again we rode along the brink
of a deep cedar canyon. After a while we came to a

Hunting from the Ranch. 33

coulie with a small muddy pool at its mouth ; and round
this pool there was much fresh deer sign. The coulie
was but half a mile long, heading into and flanked by the
spurs of some steep, bare hills. Its bottom, which was
fifty yards or so across, was choked by a dense growth of
brush, chiefly thorny bullberries, while the sides were
formed by cut banks twelve or fifteen feet high. My
companion rode up the middle, while I scrambled up one
of the banks, and, dismounting, led my horse along its
edge, that I might have a clear shot at whatever we
roused. We went nearly to the head, and then the cow-
boy reined up and shouted to me that he " guessed there
were no deer in the coulie." Instantly there was a smash-
ing in the young trees midway between us, and I caught
a glimpse of a blacktail buck speeding round a shoulder
of the cut bank ; and though I took a hurried shot I
missed. However, another buck promptly jumped up
from the same place ; evidently the two had lain secure
in their day-beds, shielded by the dense cover, while the
cowboy rode by them, and had only risen when he halted
and began to call to me across them. This second buck,
a fine fellow with big antlers not yet clear of velvet,
luckily ran up the opposite bank and I got a fair shot at
him as he galloped broadside to me along the open hill-
side. When I fired he rolled over with a broken back.
As we came up he bleated loudly, an unusual thing for a
buck to do.

Now these two bucks must have heard us coming, but
reckoned on our passing them by without seeing them ;
which we would have done had they not been startled

34 The Wilderness Hunter.

when the cowboy halted and spoke. Later in the season
they would probably not have let us approach them, but
would have run as soon as they knew of our presence.
Of course, however, even later in the season, a man may
by chance stumble across a deer close by. I remember
one occasion when my ranch partner, Robert Munro Fer-
guson, and I almost corralled an unlucky deer in a small
washout.

It was October, and our meat supply unexpectedly gave
out ; on our ranch, as on most ranches, an occasional
meat famine of three or four days intervenes between the
periods of plenty. So Ferguson and I started together,
to get venison ; and at the end of two days' hard work,
leaving the ranch by sunrise, riding to the hunting grounds
and tramping steadily until dark, we succeeded. The
weather was stormy and there were continual gusts of
wind and of cold rain, sleet, or snow. We hunted through
a large tract of rough and broken country, six or eight
miles from the ranch. As often happens in such wild
weather the deer were wild too ; they were watchful and
were on the move all the time. We saw a number, but
either they ran off before we could get a shot, or if we did
fire it was at such a distance or under such unfavorable
circumstances that we missed. At last, as we were plod-
ding drearily up a bare valley, the sodden mud caking
round our shoes, we roused three deer from the mouth of
a short washout but a few paces from us. Two bounded
off ; the third by mistake rushed into the washout, where
he found himself in a regular trap and was promptly shot
by my companion. We slung the carcass on a pole and

Hunting from the Ranch. 35

carried it down to where we had left the horses ; and then
we loped homewards, bending to the cold slanting rain.
Although in places where it is much persecuted the
blacktail is a shy and wary beast, the successful pursuit of
which taxes to the uttermost the skill and energy of the
hunter, yet, like the elk, if little molested it often shows
astonishing tameness and even stupidity. In the Rockies
I have sometimes come on blacktail within a very short
distance, which would merely stare at me, then trot off a
few yards, turn and stare again, and wait for several min-
utes before really taking alarm. What is much more
extraordinary I have had the same thing happen to me in
certain little hunted localities in the neighborhood of my
ranch, even of recent years. In the fall of 1890 I was
riding down a canyon-coulie with my foreman, Sylvane
Ferris, and a young friend from Boston, when we almost
rode over a barren blacktail doe. She only ran some fifty
yards, round a corner of the coulie, and then turned and
stood until we ran forward and killed her— for we were
in need of fresh meat. One October, a couple of years
before this, my cousin, West Roosevelt, and I took a trip
with the wagon to a very wild and rugged country, some
twenty miles from the ranch. We found that the deer
had evidently been but little disturbed. One day while
scrambling down a steep, brushy hill, leading my horse, I
came close on a doe and fawn ; they merely looked at me
with curiosity for some time, and then sauntered slowly
off, remaining within shot for at least five minutes. For-
tunately we had plenty of meat at the time, and there was
no necessity to harm the graceful creatures. A few days

36 The Wilderness Hunter.

later we came on two bucks sunning themselves in the
bottom of a valley. My companion killed one. The
other was lying but a dozen rods off; yet it never moved,
until several shots had been fired at the first. It was
directly under me and in my anxiety to avoid overshoot-
ing, to my horror I committed the opposite fault, and
away went the buck.

Every now and then any one will make most unaccount-
able misses. A few days after thus losing the buck I
spent nearly twenty cartridges in butchering an unfortu-
nate yearling, and only killed it at all because it became
so bewildered by the firing that it hardly tried to escape.
I never could tell why I used so many cartridges to such
little purpose. During the next fortnight I killed seven
deer without making a single miss, though some of the
shots were rather difficult.

CHAPTER III.

THE WHITETAIL DEER ; AND THE BLACKTAIL OF
THE COLUMBIA.

THE whitetail deer is much the commonest game
animal of the United States, being still found,
though generally in greatly diminished numbers
throughout most of the Union. It is a shrewd, wary,
knowing beast ; but it owes its prolonged stay in the
land chiefly to the fact that it is an inveterate skulker,
and fond of the thickest cover. Accordingly it usually
has to be killed by stealth and stratagem, and not by fair,
manly hunting ; being quite easily slain in any one of half
a dozen unsportsmanlike ways. In consequence I care
less for its chase than for the chase of any other kind of
American big game. Yet in the few places where it dwells
in open, hilly forests and can be killed by still-hunting as
if it were a blacktail ; or better still, where the nature of
the ground is such that it can be run down in fair chase
on horseback, either with greyhounds, or with a pack of
trackhounds, it yields splendid sport.

Killing a deer from a boat while the poor animal is
swimming in the water, or on snow-shoes as it flounders

37

38 The Wilderness Hunter.

helplessly in the deep drifts, can only be justified on the
plea of hunger. This is also true of lying in wait at a
lick. Whoever indulges in any of these methods save
from necessity, is a butcher, pure and simple, and has no
business in the company of true sportsmen.

Fire hunting may be placed in the same category ; yet
it is possibly allowable under exceptional circumstances
to indulge in a fire hunt, if only for the sake of seeing the
wilderness by torch-light. My first attempt at big-game
shooting, when a boy, was "jacking " for deer in the Adi-
rondacks, on a pond or small lake surrounded by the
grand northern forests of birch and beech, pine, spruce,
and fir. I killed a spike buck ; and while I have never
been willing to kill another in this manner, I cannot say
that I regret having once had the experience. The ride
over the glassy, black water, the witchcraft of such silent
progress through the mystery of the night, cannot but
impress one. There is pleasure in the mere buoyant
gliding of the birch-bark canoe, with its curved bow and
stern ; nothing else that floats possesses such grace, such
frail and delicate beauty, as this true craft of the wilder-
ness, which is as much a creature of the wild woods as
the deer and bear themselves. The light streaming from
the bark lantern in the bow cuts a glaring lane through
the gloom ; in it all objects stand out like magic, shining
for a moment white and ghastly and then vanishing into
the impenetrable darkness ; while all the time the paddler
in the stern makes not so much as a ripple, and there is
never a sound but the occasional splash of a muskrat,
or the moaning uloo-oo — uloo-uloo of an owl from the

The Whitetail Deer. 39

deep forests ; and at last perchance the excitement of
a shot at a buck, standing at gaze, with luminous eye-
balls.

The most common method of killing the whitetail is
by hounding ; that is, by driving it with hounds past run-
ways where hunters are stationed — for all wild animals
when on the move prefer to follow certain definite routes.
This is a legitimate, but inferior, kind of sport.

However, even killing driven deer may be good fun at
certain times. Most of the whitetail we kill round the
ranch are obtained in this fashion. On the Little Missouri
—as throughout the plains country generally — these deer
cling to the big wooded river bottoms, while the blacktail
are found in the broken country back from the river. The
tangled mass of cottonwoods, box-alders, and thorny bull-
berry bushes which cover the bottoms afford the deer a
nearly secure shelter from the still-hunter ; and it is only
by the aid of hounds that they can be driven from their
wooded fastnesses. They hold their own better than any
other game. The great herds of buffalo, and the bands
of elk, have vanished completely ; the swarms of antelope
and blacktail have been wofully thinned ; but the white-
tail, which were never found in such throngs as either
buffalo or elk, blacktail or antelope, have suffered far less
from the advent of the white hunters, ranchmen, and set-
tlers. They are of course not as plentiful as formerly ; but
some are still to be found in almost all their old haunts.
Where the river, winding between rows of high buttes,
passes my ranch house, there is a long succession of
heavily wooded bottoms ; and on all of these, even on the

40 TJie Wilderness Hunter.

one whereon the house itself stands, there are a good many
whitetail yet left.

When we take a day's regular hunt we usually wander
afar, either to the hills after blacktail or to the open prairie
after antelope. But if we are short of meat, and yet have
no time for a regular hunt, being perhaps able to spare
only a couple of hours after the day's work is over, then all
hands turn out to drive a bottom forwhitetail. We usually
have one or two trackhounds at the ranch ; true southern
deer-hounds, black and tan, with lop ears and hanging lips,
their wrinkled faces stamped with an expression of almost
ludicrous melancholy. They are not fast, and have none
of the alert look of the pied and spotted modern foxhound ;
but their noses are very keen, their voices deep and mel-
low, and they are wonderfully staunch on a trail.

All is bustle and laughter as we start on such a hunt.
The baying hounds bound about, as the rifles are taken
down ; the wiry ponies are roped out of the corral, and each
broad-hatted hunter swings joyfully into the saddle. If
the pony bucks or " acts mean " the rider finds that his rifle
adds a new element of interest to the performance, which
is of course hailed with loud delight by all the men on quiet
horses. Then we splash off over the river, scramble across
the faces of the bluffs, or canter along the winding cattle
paths, through the woods, until we come to the bottom we
intend to hunt. Here a hunter is stationed at each runway
along which it is deemed likely that the deer will pass ; and
one man, who has remained on horseback, starts into the
cover with the hounds ; occasionally this horseman himself,
skilled, as most cowboys are, in the use of the revolver,

The IV hit et ail Deer. 41

gets a chance to kill a deer. The deep baying of the
hounds speedily gives warning that the game is afoot ; and
the watching hunters, who have already hid their horses
carefully, look to their rifles. Sometimes the deer comes
far ahead of the dogs, running very swiftly with neck
stretched straight out ; and if the cover is thick such an
animal is hard to hit. At other times, especially if the
quarry is a young buck, it plays along not very far ahead
of its baying pursuers, bounding and strutting with head up
and white flag flaunting. If struck hard, down goes the
flag at once, and the deer plunges into a staggering
run, while the hounds yell with eager ferocity as they follow
the bloody trail. Usually we do not have to drive more
than one or two bottoms before getting a deer, which is
forthwith packed behind one of the riders, as the distance
is not great, and home we come in triumph. Sometimes,
however, we fail to find game, or the deer take unguarded
passes, or the shot is missed. Occasionally I have killed
deer on these hunts ; generally I have merely sat still a
long while, listened to the hounds, and at last heard some-
body else shoot. In fact such hunting, though good enough
fun if only tried rarely, would speedily pall if followed at
all regularly.

Personally the chief excitement I have had in connection
therewith has arisen from some antic of my horse ; a half-
broken bronco is apt to become unnerved when a man with
a gun tries to climb on him in a hurry. On one hunt in 1890
I rode a wild animal named Whitefoot. He had been a con*
firmed and very bad bucker three years before, when I had
him in my string on the round-up ; but had grown quieter

42 The Wilderness Hunter.

with years. Nevertheless I found he had some fire left ;
for a hasty vault into the saddle on my part, was followed
on his by some very resolute pitching. I lost my rifle and
hat, and my revolver and knife were bucked out of my
belt ; but I kept my seat all right, and finally got his head
up and mastered him without letting him throw himself
over backwards, a trick he sometimes practised. Never-
theless, in the first jump when I was taken unawares, I
strained myself across the loins, and did not get entirely
over it for six months.

To shoot running game with the rifle it is always
necessary to be a good and quick marksman ; for it is never
easy to kill an animal, when in rapid motion, with a single
bullet. If on a runway a man who is a fairly skilful rifle-
man, has plenty of time for a clear shot, on open ground,
at comparatively short distance, say under eighty yards,
and if the deer is cantering, he ought to hit ; at least I
generally do under such circumstances, by remembering to
hold well forward, in fact just in front of the deer's chest.
But I do not always kill by any means ; quite often when I
thought I held far enough ahead, my bullet has gone into
the buck's hips or loins. However, one great feature in
the use of dogs is that they enable one almost always to
recover wounded game.

If the animal is running at full speed a long distance
off, the difficulty of hitting is of course very much in-
creased ; and if the country is open the value of a repeat-
ing rifle is then felt. If the game is bounding over logs
or dodging through underbrush, the difficulty is again
increased. Moreover, the natural gait of the different

The Whitetail Deer. 43

kinds of game must be taken into account. Of course
the larger kinds, such as elk and moose, are the easiest to
hit ; then comes the antelope, in spite of its swiftness, and
the sheep, because of the evenness of their running ; then
the whitetail, with its rolling gallop ; and last and hardest
of all, the blacktail, because of its extraordinary stiff-
legged bounds.

Sometimes on a runway the difficulty is not that the
game is too far, but that it is too close ; for a deer may
actually almost jump on the hunter, surprising him out of
all accuracy of aim. Once something of the sort happened
to me.

Winter was just beginning. I had been off with the
ranch wagon on a last round-up of the beef steers ; and
had suffered a good deal, as one always does on these
cold weather round-ups, sleeping out in the snow, wrapped
up in blankets and tarpaulin, with no tent and generally
no fire. Moreover, I became so weary of the intermi-
nable length of the nights, that I almost ceased to mind
the freezing misery of standing night guard round the
restless cattle ; while roping, saddling, and mastering the
rough horses each morning, with numbed and stiffened
limbs, though warming to the blood was harrowing to
the temper.

On my return to the ranch I found a strange hunter
staying there ; a clean, square-built, honest-looking little
fellow, but evidently not a native American. As a rule,
nobody displays much curiosity about any one's else ante-
cedents in the Far West ; but I happened to ask my fore-
man who the new-comer was, — chiefly because the said

44 The Wilderness Hunter.

new-comer, evidently appreciating the warmth and comfort
of the clean, roomy, ranch house, with its roaring fires,
books, and good fare, seemed inclined to make a per-
manent stay, according to the custom of the country.
My foreman, who had a large way of looking at questions
of foreign ethnology and geography, responded with
indifference: "Oh, he's a kind of a Dutchman; but he
hates the other Dutch, mortal. He's from an island
Germany took from France in the last war ! " This
seemed puzzling ; but it turned out that the " island " in
question was Alsace. Native Americans predominate
among the dwellers in and on the borders of the wilder-
ness, and in the wild country over which the great herds
of the cattle-men roam ; and they take the lead in every
way. The sons of the Germans, Irish, and other Euro-
pean new-comers are usually quick to claim to be " straight
United States," and to disavow all kinship with the fellow-
countrymen of their fathers. Once, while with a hunter
bearing a German name, we came by chance on a German
hunting party from one of the eastern cities. One of
them remarked to my companion that he must be part
German himself, to which he cheerfully answered : " Well,
my father was a Dutchman, but my mother was a white
woman ! I 'm pretty white myself ! " whereat the Germans
glowered at him gloomily.

As we were out of meat the Alsatian and one of the
cowboys and I started down the river with a wagon. The
first day in camp it rained hard, so that we could not hunt.
Towards evening we grew tired of doing nothing, and as
the rain had become a mere fine drizzle, we sallied out to

The IVhitetail Deer. 45

drive one of the bottoms for whitetail. The cowboy and
our one trackhound plunged into the young cottonwood,
which grew thickly over the sandy bottom ; while the
little hunter and I took our stands on a cut bank,
twenty feet high and half a mile long, which hedged
in the trees from behind. Three or four game trails
led up through steep, narrow clefts in this bank ; and
we tried to watch these. Soon I saw a deer in an open-
ing below, headed towards one end of the bank, round
which another game trail led ; and I ran hard towards this
end, where it turned into a knife-like ridge of clay. About
fifty yards from the point there must have been some
slight irregularities in the face of the bank, enough to give
the deer a foothold ; for as I ran along the animal sud-
denly bounced over the crest, so close that I could have
hit it with my right hand. As I tried to pull up short and
swing round, my feet slipped from under me in the wet
clay, and down I went ; while the deer literally turned a
terrified somersault backwards. I flung myself to the
edge and missed a hurried shot as it raced back on its
tracks. Then, wheeling, I saw the little hunter running
towards me along the top of the cut bank, his face on a
broad grin. He leaped over one of the narrow clefts, up
which a game trail led ; and hardly was he across before
the frightened deer bolted up it, not three yards from his
back. He did not turn, in spite of my shouting and
handwaving, and the frightened deer, in the last stage of
panic at finding itself again almost touching one of its
foes, sped off across the grassy slopes like a quarter horse.
When at last the hunter did turn, it was too late ; and our

46 The Wilderness Hunter.

long-range fusillade proved harmless. During the next
two days I redeemed myself, killing four deer.

Coming back our wagon broke down, no unusual
incident in ranch-land, where there is often no road, while
the strain is great in hauling through quicksands, and up
or across steep broken hills ; it rarely makes much differ-
ence beyond the temporary delay, for plains-men and
mountain-men are very handy and self-helpful. Besides,
a mere break-down sinks into nothing compared to having
the team play out ; which is, of course, most apt to happen
at the times when it insures hardship and suffering, as in
the middle of a snowstorm, or when crossing a region
with no water. However, the reinsmen of the plains
must needs face many such accidents, not to speak of
runaways, or having the wagon pitchpole over on to the
team in dropping down too steep a hillside. Once after a
three days' rainstorm some of us tried to get the ranch
wagon along a trail which led over the ridge of a gumbo
or clay butte. The sticky stuff clogged our shoes, the
horses' hoofs, and the wheels ; and it was even more
slippery than it was sticky. Finally we struck a sloping
shoulder; with great struggling, pulling, pushing, and
shouting, we reached the middle of it, and then, as one of
my men remarked, "the whole darned outfit slid into the
coulie."

These hunting trips after deer or antelope with the
wagon usually take four or five days. I always ride some
tried hunting horse ; and the wagon itself when on such
a hunt is apt to lead a chequered career, as half the time
there is not the vestige of a trail to follow. Moreover

The Whitetail Deer. 47

we often make a hunt when the good horses are on the
round-up, or otherwise employed, and we have to get to-
gether a scrub team of cripples or else of outlaws — vicious
devils, only used from dire need. The best teamster for
such a hunt that we ever had on the ranch was a weather-
beaten old fellow known as " Old Man Tompkins." In the
course of a long career as lumberman, plains teamster,
buffalo hunter, and Indian fighter, he had passed several
years as a Rocky Mountain stage driver ; and a stage
driver of the Rockies is of necessity a man of such skill
and nerve that he fears no team and no country. No
matter how wild the unbroken horses, Old Tompkins never
asked help ; and he hated to drive less than a four-in-hand.
When he once had a grip on the reins, he let no one hold
the horses' heads. All he wished was an open plain foi
the rush at the beginning. The first plunge might take
the wheelers' fore-feet over the cross-bars of the leaders,
but he never stopped for that ; on went the team, run-
ning, bounding, rearing, tumbling, while the wagon
leaped behind, until gradually things straightened out of
their own accord. I soon found, however, that I could
not allow him to carry a rifle ; for he was an inveterate
game butcher. In the presence of game the old fellow
became fairly wild with excitement, and forgot the years
and rheumatism which had crippled him. Once, after a
long and tiresome day's hunt, we were walking home to-
gether ; he was carrying his boots in his hands, bemoan-
ing the fact that his feet hurt him. Suddenly a whitetail
jumped up ; down dropped Old Tompkins' boots, and
away he went like a college sprinter, entirely heedless of

48 The Wilderness Hunter.

stones and cactus. By some indiscriminate firing at
long range we dropped the deer ; and as Old Tompkins
cooled down he realized that his bare feet had paid full
penalty for his dash.

One of these wagon trips I remember because I
missed a fair running shot which I much desired to hit ;
and afterwards hit a very much more difficult shot about
which I cared very little. Ferguson and I, with Sylvane
and one or two others, had gone a day's journey down
the river for a hunt. We went along the bottoms, cross-
ing the stream every mile or so, with an occasional
struggle through mud or quicksand, or up the steep, rot-
ten banks. An old buffalo hunter drove the wagon, with
a couple of shaggy, bandy-legged ponies ; the rest of us
jogged along in front on horseback, picking out a trail
through the bottoms and choosing the best crossing
places. Some of the bottoms were grassy pastures ; on
others great, gnarled cottonwoods, with shivered branches,
stood in clumps ; yet others were choked with a true for-
est growth. Late in the afternoon we went into camp,
choosing a spot where the cottonwoods were young ; their
glossy leaves trembled and rustled unceasingly. We
speedily picketed the horses — changing them about as
they ate off the grass, — drew water, and hauled great logs
in front of where we had pitched the tent, while the wagon
stood nearby. Each man laid out his bed ; the food and
kitchen kit were taken from the wagon ; supper was
cooked and eaten ; and we then lay round the camp-fire,
gazing into it, or up at the brilliant stars, and listening to
the wild, mournful wailing of the coyotes. They were

The Whitetail Deer. 49

very plentiful round this camp ; before sunrise and after
sundown they called unceasingly.

Next day I took a long tramp and climb after
mountain sheep and missed a running shot at a fine ram,
about a hundred yards off ; or rather I hit him and followed
his bloody trail a couple of miles, but failed to find him ;
whereat I returned to camp much cast down.

Early the following morning Sylvane and I started for
another hunt, this time on horseback. The air was crisp
and pleasant ; the beams of the just-risen sun struck
sharply on the umber-colored hills and white cliff walls
guarding the river, bringing into high relief their strangely
carved and channelled fronts. Below camp the river was
little but a succession of shallow pools strung along the
broad sandy bed which in spring-time was filled from
bank to bank with foaming muddy water. Two mallards
sat in one of these pools ; and I hit one with the rifle, so
nearly missing that the ball scarcely ruffled a feather ; yet
in some way the shock told, for the bird after flying
thirty yards dropped on the sand.

Then we left the river and our active ponies scrambled
up a small canyon-like break in the bluffs. All day we
rode among the hills ; sometimes across rounded slopes,
matted with short buffalo grass ; sometimes over barren
buttes of red or white clay, where only sage brush and
cactus grew ; or beside deep ravines, black with stunted
cedar ; or along beautiful winding coulies, where the grass
grew rankly, and the thickets of ash and wild plum made
brilliant splashes of red and yellow and tender green.
Yet we saw nothing.

50 The Wilderness Hunter.

As evening drew on we rode riverwards ; we slid down
the steep bluff walls, and loped across a great bottom of
sage brush and tall grass, our horses now and then leap-
ing like cats over the trunks of dead cottonwoods. As
we came to the brink of the cut bank which forms the
hither boundary of the river in freshet time, we suddenly
saw two deer, a doe and a well grown fawn — of course
long out of the spotted coat. They were walking with
heads down along the edge of a sand-bar, near a pool, on
the farther side of the stream bed, over two hundred
yards distant. They saw us at once, and turning, galloped
away, with flags aloft, the pictures of springing, vigorous
beauty. I jumped off my horse in an instant, knelt, and
covered the fawn. It was going straight away from me,
running very evenly, and I drew a coarse sight at the tip
of the white flag. As I pulled trigger down went the
deer, the ball having gone into the back of its head. The
distance was a good three hundred yards ; and while of
course there was much more chance than skill in the shot
I felt well pleased with it — though I could not help a re-
gret that while making such a difficult shot at a mere
whitetail I should have missed a much easier shot at a
noble bighorn. Not only I, but all the camp, had a prac-
tical interest in my success ; for we had no fresh meat,
and a fat whitetail fawn, killed in October, yields the best
of venison. So after dressing the deer I slung the carcass
behind my saddle, and we rode swiftly back to camp
through the dark ; and that evening we feasted on the
juicy roasted ribs.

The Whitetail Deer. 51

The degree of tameness and unsuspiciousness shown
by whitetail deer depends, of course, upon the amount of
molestation to which they are exposed. Their times for
sleeping, feeding, and coming to water vary from the
same cause. Where they are little persecuted they feed
long after sunrise and before sunset, and drink when the
sun is high in the heavens, sometimes even at midday ;
they then show but little fear of man, and speedily become
indifferent to the presence of deserted dwellings.

In the cattle country the ranch houses are often shut
during the months of warm weather, when the round-ups
succeed one another without intermission, as the calves must
be branded, the beeves gathered and shipped, long trips
made to collect strayed animals, and the trail stock driven
from the breeding to the fattening grounds. At that time
all the men-folk may have to be away in the white-topped
wagons, working among the horned herds, whether plod-
ding along the trail, or wandering to and fro on the range.
Late one summer, when my own house had been thus
closed for many months, I rode thither with a friend to
pass a week. The place already wore the look of having
slipped away from the domain of man. The wild forces,
barely thrust back beyond the threshold of our habitation,
were prompt to spring across it to renewed possession the
moment we withdrew. The rank grass grew tall in the
yard, and on the sodded roofs of the stable and sheds ;
the weather-beaten log walls of the house itself were^We
in tint with the trunks of the gnarled cottonwoods by
which it was shaded. Evidently the woodland creatures

52 The Wilderness Hunter,

had come to regard the silent, deserted buildings as mere
outgrowths of the wilderness, no more to be feared than
the trees around them or the gray, strangely shaped buttes
behind.

Lines of delicate, heart-shaped footprints in the muddy
reaches of the half-dry river-bed showed where the deer
came to water ; and in the dusty cattle-trails among the
ravines many round tracks betrayed the passing and re-
passing of timber wolves, — once or twice in the late even-
ing we listened to their savage and melancholy howling.
Cotton-tail rabbits burrowed under the verandah. Within
doors the bushy-tailed pack-rats had possession, and at
night they held a perfect witches' sabbath in the garret and
kitchen ; while a little white-footed mouse, having dragged
half the stuffing out of a mattress, had made thereof a big
fluffy nest, entirely filling the oven.

Yet, in spite of the abundant sign of game, we at first
suffered under one of those spells of ill-luck which at times
befall all hunters, and for several days we could kill noth-
ing, though we tried hard, being in need of fresh meat.
The moon was full — each evening, sitting on the ranch
verandah, or walking homeward, we watched it rise over
the line of bluffs beyond the river — and the deer were feed-
ing at night ; moreover in such hot weather they lie very
close, move as little as possible, and are most difficult to
find. Twice we lay out from dusk until dawn, in spite of
the mosquitoes, but saw nothing ; and the chances we did
get we failed to profit by.

One morning, instead of trudging out to hunt I stayed
at home, and sat in a rocking-chair on the verandah read-

The Whitetail Deer. 53

ing, rocking, or just sitting still listening to the low rustling
of the cottonwood branches overhead, and gazing across
the river. Through the still, clear, hot air, the faces of
the bluffs shone dazzling white ; no shadow fell from the
cloudless sky on the grassy slopes, or on the groves of
timber ; only the faraway cooing of a mourning dove broke
the silence. Suddenly my attention was arrested by a
slight splashing in the water ; glancing up from my book
I saw three deer, which had come out of the thick fringe
of bushes and young trees across the river, and were
strolling along the sand-bars directly opposite me. Slip-
ping stealthily into the house I picked up my rifle, and
slipped back again. One of the deer was standing motion-
less, broadside to me ; it was a long shot, two hundred
and fifty yards, but I had a rest against a pillar of the
verandah. I held true, and as the smoke cleared away
the deer lay struggling on the sands.

As the whitetail is the most common and widely dis-
tributed of American game, so the Columbian blacktail
has the most sharply limited geographical range ; for it is
confined to the northwest coast, where it is by far the most
abundant deer. In antlers it is indistinguishable from the
common blacktail of the Rockies and the great plains, and
it has the regular blacktail gait, a succession of stiff-legged
bounds on all four feet at once ; but its tail is more like
a whitetail's in shape, though black above. As regards
methods of hunting, and the amount of sport yielded, it
stands midway between its two brethren. It lives in a
land of magnificent timber, where the trees tower far into

54 The Wilderness Hunter.

the sky, the giants of their kind ; and there are few more
attractive sports than still-hunting on the mountains, among
these forests of marvellous beauty and grandeur. There
are many lakes among the mountains where it dwells, and
as it cares more for water than the ordinary blacktail, it is
comparatively easy for hounds to drive it into some pond
where it can be killed at leisure. It is thus often killed
by hounding.

The only one I ever killed was a fine young buck. We
had camped near a little pond, and as evening fell I strolled
off towards it and sat down. Just after sunset the buck
came out of the woods. For some moments he hesitated
and then walked forward and stood by the edge of the
water, about sixty yards from me. We were out of meat,
so I held right behind his shoulder, and though he went
off, his bounds were short and weak, and he fell before he
reached the wood.

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE CATTLE RANGES ; THE PRONG-HORN ANTELOPE.

EARLY one June just after the close of the regular
spring round-up, a couple of wagons, with a score
of riders between them, were sent to work some
hitherto untouched country, between the Little Missouri
and the Yellowstone. I was to go as the representative
of our own and of one or two neighboring brands ; but
as the round-up had halted near my ranch I determined
to spend a day there, and then to join the wagons ; — the
appointed meeting-place being a cluster of red scoria
buttes, some forty miles distant, where there was a spring
of good water.

Most of my day at the ranch was spent in slumber ;
for I had been several weeks on the round-up, where no-
body ever gets quite enough sleep. This is the only
drawback to the work ; otherwise it is pleasant and excit-
ing, with just that slight touch of danger necessary to
give it zest, and without the wearing fatigue of such labor
as lumbering or mining. But there is never enough sleep,
at least on the spring and mid-summer round-ups. The
men are in the saddle from dawn until dusk, at the time

55

56 The Wilderness Hunter.

when the days are longest on these great northern plains;
and in addition there is the regular night guarding and
now and then a furious storm or a stampede, when for
twenty-four hours at a stretch the riders only dismount to
change horses or snatch a mouthful of food.

I started in the bright sunrise, riding one horse and
driving loose before me eight others, one carrying my
bedding. They travelled strung out in single file. I kept
them trotting and loping, for loose horses are easiest to
handle when driven at some speed, and moreover the way
was long. My rifle was slung under my thigh ; the lariat
was looped on the saddle-horn.

At first our trail led through winding coulies, and
sharp grassy defiles ; the air was wonderfully clear, the
flowers were in bloom, the breath of the wind in my face
was odorous and sweet. The patter and beat of the un-
shod hoofs, rising in half-rhythmic measure, frightened
the scudding deer ; but the yellow-breasted meadow larks,
perched on the budding tops of the bushes, sang their
rich full songs without heeding us as we went by.

When the sun was well on high and the heat of the
day had begun we came to a dreary and barren plain,
broken by rows of low clay buttes. The ground in places
was whitened by alkali ; elsewhere it was dull gray. Here
there grew nothing save sparse tufts of coarse grass, and
cactus, and sprawling sage brush. In the hot air all
things seen afar danced and wavered. As I rode and
gazed at the shimmering haze the vast desolation of the
landscape bore on me ; it seemed as if the unseen and
unknown powers of the wastes were moving by and

On the Cattle Ranges. 57

marshalling their silent forces. No man save the wilder-
ness dweller knows the strong melancholy fascination of
these long rides through lonely lands.

At noon, that the horses might graze and drink, I
halted where some box-alders grew by a pool in the bed
of a half-dry creek ; and shifted my saddle to a fresh beast.
When we started again we came out on the rolling prairie,
where the green sea of wind-rippled grass stretched limit-
less as far as the eye could reach. Little striped gophers
scuttled away, or stood perfectly straight at the mouths
of their burrows, looking like picket pins. Curlews
clamored mournfully as they circled overhead. Prairie
fowl swept off, clucking and calling, or strutted about with
their sharp tails erect. Antelope were very plentiful
running like race-horses across the level, or uttering theii
queer, barking grunt as they stood at gaze, the white hairs
on their rumps all on end, their neck bands of broken
brown and white vivid in the sunlight. They were found
singly or in small straggling parties ; the master bucks
had not yet begun to drive out the younger and weaker
ones as later in the season, when each would gather into
a herd as many does as his jealous strength could guard
from rivals. The nursing does whose kids had come early
were often found with the bands ; the others kept apart.
The kids were very conspicuous figures on the prairies,
across which they scudded like jack rabbits, showing near-
ly as much speed and alertness as their parents ; only the
very young sought safety by lying flat to escape notice.

The horses cantered and trotted steadily over the mat
of buffalo grass, steering for the group of low scoria

58 The Wilderness Hunter.

mounds which was my goal. In mid-afternoon I reached
it. The two wagons were drawn up near the spring ;
under them lay the night-wranglers, asleep ; nearby the
teamster-cooks were busy about the evening meal. A
little way off the two day-wranglers were watching the
horse-herd ; into which I speedily turned my own animals.
The riders had already driven in the bunches of cattle ;
and were engaged in branding the calves, and turning
loose the animals that were not needed, while the remain-
der were kept, forming the nucleus of the herd which was
to accompany the wagon.

As soon as the work was over the men rode to the
wagons ; sinewy fellows, with tattered broad-brimmed
hats and clanking spurs, some wearing leather shaps or
leggings, others having their trousers tucked into their
high-heeled top-boots, all with their flannel shirts and loose
neckerchiefs dusty and sweaty. A few were indulging in
rough, good-natured horse play, to an accompaniment of
yelling mirth ; most were grave and taciturn, greeting me
with a silent nod or a " How ! friend." A very talkative
man, unless the acknowledged wit of the party, according
to the somewhat florid frontier notion of wit, is always
looked on with disfavor in a cow-camp. After supper,
eaten in silent haste, we gathered round the embers of
the small fires, and the conversation glanced fitfully over
the threadbare subjects common to all such camps ; the
antics of some particularly vicious bucking bronco, how
the different brands of cattle were showing up, the small-
ness of the calf drop, the respective merits of rawhide
lariats and grass ropes, and bits of rather startling and

On the Cattle Ranges. 59

violent news concerning the fates of certain neighbors.
Then one by one we began to turn in under our blankets.

Our wagon was to furnish the night guards for the cat-
tle ; and each of us had his gentlest horse tied ready to
hand. The night guards went on duty two at a time for
two-hour watches. By good luck my watch came last.
My comrade was a happy-go-lucky young Texan who for
some inscrutable reason was known as " Latigo Strap " ;
he had just come from the south with a big drove of trail
cattle.

A few minutes before two one of the guards who had
gone on duty at midnight rode into camp and wakened
us by shaking our shoulders. Fumbling in the dark I
speedily saddled my horse ; Latigo had left his saddled,
and he started ahead of me. One of the annoyances of
night guarding, at least in thick weather, is the occasional
difficulty of finding the herd after leaving camp, or in re-
turning to camp after the watch is over ; there are few
things more exasperating than to be helplessly wandering
about in the dark under such circumstances. However,
on this occasion there was no such trouble ; for it was a
brilliant starlight night and the herd had been bedded down
by a sugar-loaf butte which made a good landmark. As
we reached the spot we could make out the loom of the
cattle lying close together on the level plain ; and then the
dim figure of a horseman rose vaguely from the darkness
and moved by in silence ; it was the other of the two mid-
night guards, on his way back to his broken slumber.

At once we began to ride slowly round the cattle in
opposite directions. We were silent, for the night was

60 The Wilderness Hunter.

clear, and the herd quiet ; in wild weather, when the cattle
are restless, the cowboys never cease calling and singing as
they circle them, for the sounds seem to quiet the beasts.

For over an hour we steadily paced the endless round,
saying nothing, with our great-coats buttoned, for the air
is chill towards morning on the northern plains, even in
summer. Then faint streaks of gray appeared in the east.
Latigo Strap began to call merrily to the cattle. A coyote
came sneaking over the butte nearby, and halted to yell
and wail ; afterwards he crossed the coulie and from the
hillside opposite again shrieked in dismal crescendo. The
dawn brightened rapidly ; the little skylarks of the plains
began to sing, soaring far overhead, while it was still much
too dark to see them. Their song is not powerful, but it
is so clear and fresh and long-continued that it always
appeals to one very strongly ; especially because it is most
often heard in the rose-tinted air of the glorious mornings,
while the listener sits in the saddle, looking across the
endless sweep of the prairies.

As it grew lighter the cattle became restless, rising and
stretching themselves, while we continued to ride round
them.

" Then the bronc* began to pitch

And I began to ride ;
He bucked me off a cut bank,
Hell ! I nearly died ! "

sang Latigo from the other side of the herd. A yell
from the wagons told that the cook was summoning the
sleeping cow-punchers to breakfast ; we were soon able
to distinguish their figures as they rolled out of their bed-

On the Cattle Ranges. 61

ding, wrapped and corded it into bundles, and huddled
sullenly round the little fires. The horse wranglers were
driving in the saddle bands. All the cattle got on their
feet and started feeding. In a few minutes the hasty
breakfast at the wagons had evidently been despatched for
we could see the men forming rope corrals into which the
ponies were driven ; then each man saddled, bridled, and
mounted his horse, two or three of the half-broken beasts
bucking, rearing, and plunging frantically in the vain effort
to unseat their riders.

The two men who were first in the saddle relieved
Latigo and myself and we immediately galloped to camp,
shifted our saddles to fresh animals, gulped down a cup or
two of hot coffee, and some pork, beans, and bread, and
rode to the spot where the others were gathered, lolling
loosely in their saddles, and waiting for the round-up boss
to assign them their tasks. We were the last, and as soon
as we arrived the boss divided all into two parties for the
morning work, or " circle riding," whereby the cattle were
to be gathered for the round-up proper. Then, as the
others started, he turned to me and remarked : " We Ve
got enough hands to drive this open country without you ;
but we Ve out of meat, and I don't want to kill a beef for
such a small outfit ; can't you shoot some antelope this
morning ? We '11 pitch camp by the big blasted cottonwood
at the foot of the ash coulies, over yonder, below the breaks
of Dry Creek."

Of course I gladly assented, and was speedily riding
alone across the grassy slopes. There was no lack of the
game I was after, for from every rise of ground I could see

62 The Wilderness Hunter.

antelope scattered across the prairie, singly, in couples, or
in bands. But their very numbers, joined to the lack of
cover on such an open, flattish country, proved a bar to
success ; while I was stalking one band another was sure
to see me and begin running, whereat the first would like-
wise start ; I missed one or two very long shots, and noon
found me still without game.

However, I was then lucky enough to see a band of a
dozen feeding to windward of a small butte, and by gal-
loping in a long circle I got within a quarter of a mile of
them before having to dismount. The stalk itself was
almost too easy ; for I simply walked to the butte, climbed
carefully up a slope where the soil was firm and peered over
the top to see the herd, a little one, a hundred yards off.
They saw me at once and ran, but I held well ahead of a
fine young prong-buck, and rolled him over like a rabbit,
with both shoulders broken. In a few minutes I was
riding onwards once more with the buck lashed behind my
saddle.

The next one I got, a couple of hours later, offered a
much more puzzling stalk. He was a big fellow in com-
pany with four does or small bucks. All five were lying
in the middle of a slight basin, at the head of a gentle val-
ley. At first sight it seemed impossible to get near them,
for there was not so much cover as a sage brush, and the
smooth, shallow basin in which they lay was over a thou-
sand yards across, while they were looking directly down
the valley. However, it is curious how hard it is to tell,
even from nearby, whether a stalk can or cannot be
made ; the difficulty being to estimate the exact amount

On the Cattle Ranges. 63

of shelter yielded by little inequalities of ground. In this
instance a small shallow watercourse, entirely dry, ran along
the valley, and after much study I decided to try to crawl
up it, although the big bulging telescopic eyes of the
prong-buck — which have much keener sight than deer
or any other game— would in such case be pointed directly
my way.

Having made up my mind I backed cautiously down
from the coign of vantage whence I had first seen the
game, and ran about a mile to the mouth of a washout
which formed the continuation of the watercourse in
question. Protected by the high clay banks of this wash-
out I was able to walk upright until within half a mile of
the prong-bucks ; then my progress became very tedious
and toilsome, as I had to work my way up the water-
course flat on my stomach, dragging the rifle beside me.
At last I reached a spot beyond which not even a snake
could crawl unnoticed. In front was alow bank, a couple
of feet high, crested with tufts of coarse grass. Raising
my head very cautiously I peered through these and saw
the prong-horn about a hundred and fifty yards distant.
At the same time I found that I had crawled to the edge
of a village of prairie dogs, which had already made me
aware of their presence by their shrill yelping. They
saw me at once ; and all those away from their homes
scuttled towards them, and dived down the burrows, or
sat on the mounds at the entrances, scolding convulsively
and jerking their fat little bodies and short tails. This
commotion at once attracted the attention of the antelope.
They rose forthwith, and immediately caught a glimpse

64 The Wilderness Hunter.

of the black muzzle of the rifle which I was gently push-
ing through the grass tufts. The fatal curiosity which so
often in this species offsets wariness and sharp sight,
proved my friend ; evidently the antelope could not quite
make me out and wished to know what I was. They
moved nervously to and fro, striking the earth with their
fore hoofs, and now and then uttering a sudden bleat.
At last the big buck stood still broadside to me, and I
fired. He went off with the others, but lagged behind as
they passed over the hill crest, and when I reached it I
saw him standing, not very far off, with his head down.
Then he walked backwards a few steps, fell over on his
side, and died.

As he was a big buck I slung him across the saddle,
and started for camp afoot, leading the horse. However
my hunt was not over, for while still a mile from the
wagons, going down a coulie of Dry Creek, a yearling
prong-buck walked over the divide to my right and stood
still until I sent a bullet into its chest ; so that I made my
appearance in camp with three antelope.

I spoke above of the sweet singing of the western
meadow lark and plains skylark ; neither of them kin to
the true skylark, by the way, one being a cousin of the
grakles and hang-birds, and the other a kind of pipit. To
me both of these birds are among the most attractive
singers to which I have ever listened ; but with all bird-
music much must be allowed for the surroundings, and
much for the mood, and the keenness of sense, of the
listener. The lilt of the little plains skylark is neither
very powerful nor very melodious ; but it is sweet, pure,

On the Cattle Ranges. 65

long-sustained, with a ring of courage befitting a song
uttered in highest air.

The meadow lark is a singer of a higher order, de-
serving to rank with the best. Its song has length, varie-
ty, power and rich melody ; and there is in it sometimes
a cadence of wild sadness, inexpressibly touching. Yet I
cannot say that either song would appeal to others as it
appeals to me ; for to me it comes forever laden with a
hundred memories and associations ; with the sight of
dim hills reddening in the dawn, with the breath of cool
morning winds blowing across lonely plains, with the
scent of flowers on the sunlit prairie, with the motion
of fiery horses, with all the strong thrill of eager and
buoyant life. I doubt if any man can judge dispassion-
ately the bird songs of his own country ; he cannot disas-
sociate them from the sights and sounds of the land that
is so dear to him.

This is not a feeling to regret, but it must be taken
into account in accepting any estimate of bird music —
even in considering the reputation of the European sky-
lark and nightingale. To both of these birds I have
often listened in their own homes ; always with pleasure
and admiration, but always with a growing belief that
relatively to some other birds they were ranked too high.
They are pre-eminently birds with literary associations ;
most people take their opinions of them at second-hand,
from the poets.

No one can help liking the lark ; it is such a brave,
honest, cheery bird, and moreover its song is uttered in
the air, and is very long-sustained. But it is by no means

66 The Wilderness Hunter.

a musician of the first rank. The nightingale is a per-
former of a very different and far higher order ; yet though
it is indeed a notable and admirable singer, it is an ex-
aggeration to call it unequalled. In melody, and above
all in that finer, higher melody where the chords vibrate
with the touch of eternal sorrow, it cannot rank with such
singers as the wood thrush and hermit thrush. The
serene, ethereal beauty of the hermit's song, rising and
falling through the still evening, under the archways of
hoary mountain forests that have endured from time ever-
lasting ; the golden, leisurely chiming of the wood thrush,
sounding on June afternoons, stanza by stanza, through
sun-flecked groves of tall hickories, oaks, and chestnuts ;
with these there is nothing in the nightingale's song to
compare. But in volume and continuity, in tuneful, volu-
ble, rapid outpouring and ardor, above all in skilful and
intricate variation of theme, its song far surpasses that of
either of the thrushes. In all these respects it is more
just to compare it with the mocking-bird's, which, as a
rule, likewise falls short precisely on those points where
the songs of the two thrushes excel.

The mocking-bird is a singer that has suffered much
in reputation from its powers of mimicry. On ordinary
occasions, and especially in the daytime, it insists on
playing the harlequin. But when free in its own favorite
haunts at night in the love season it has a song, or rather
songs, which are not only purely original, but are also
more beautiful than any other bird music whatsoever.
Once I listened to a mocking-bird singing the livelong
spring night, under the full moon, in a magnolia tree \
and I do not think I shall ever forget its song.

On the Cattle Ranges. 67

It was on the plantation of Major Campbell Brown,
near Nashville, in the beautiful, fertile mid-Tennessee
country. The mocking-birds were prime favorites on the
place ; and were given full scope for the development, not
only of their bold friendliness towards mankind, but also
of that marked individuality and originality of character
in which they so far surpass every other bird as to become
the most interesting of all feathered folk. One of the
mockers, which lived in the hedge bordering the garden,
was constantly engaged in an amusing feud with an honest
old setter dog, the point of attack being the tip of the
dog's tail. For some reason the bird seemed to regard
any hoisting of the setter's tail as a challenge and insult.
It would flutter near the dog as he walked; the old setter
would become interested in something and raise his tail.
The bird would promptly fly at it and peck the tip ; where-
upon down went the tail until in a couple of minutes the
old fellow would forget himself, and the scene would be
repeated. The dog usually bore the assaults with comic
resignation ; and the mocker easily avoided any momentary
outburst of clumsy resentment.

On the evening in question the moon was full. My
host kindly assigned me a room of which the windows
opened on a great magnolia tree, where, I was told, a
mocking-bird sang every night and all night long. I went
to my room about ten. The moonlight was shining in
through the open window, and the mocking-bird was
already in the magnolia. The great tree was bathed in a
flood of shining silver ; I could see each twig, and mark
every action of the singer, who was pouring forth such a
rapture of ringing melody as I have never listened to

68 The Wilderness Hunter.

before or since. Sometimes he would perch motionless
for many minutes, his body quivering and thrilling with the
outpour of music. Then he would drop softly from twig
to twig, until the lowest limb was reached, when he would
rise, fluttering and leaping through the branches, his song
never ceasing for an instant, until he reached the summit
of the tree and launched into the warm, scent-laden air,
floating in spirals, with outspread wings, until, as if spent,
he sank gently back into the tree and down through the
branches, while his song rose into an ecstasy of ardor and
passion. His voice rang like a clarionet, in rich, full
tones, and his execution covered the widest possible com-
pass ; theme followed theme, a torrent of music, a swelling
tide of harmony, in which scarcely any two bars were
alike. I stayed till midnight listening to him ; he was
singing when I went to sleep ; he was still singing when I
woke a couple of hours later ; he sang through the livelong
night.

There are many singers beside the meadow lark and
little skylark in the plains country ; that brown and deso-
late land, once the home of the thronging buffalo, still
haunted by the bands of the prong-buck, and roamed over
in ever increasing numbers by the branded herds of the
ranchman. In the brush of the river bottoms there are
the thrasher and song sparrow ; on the grassy uplands the
lark finch, vesper sparrow, and lark bunting ; and in the
rough canyons the rock wren, with its ringing melody.

Yet in certain moods a man cares less for even the love-
liest bird songs than for the wilder, harsher, stronger sounds
of the wilderness ; the guttural booming and clucking of the

On the Cattle Ranges. 69

prairie fowl and the great sage fowl in spring ; the honk-
ing of gangs of wild geese, as they fly in rapid wedges ;
the bark of an eagle, wheeling in the shadow of storm-
scarred cliffs ; or the far-off clanging of many sand-hill
cranes, soaring high overhead in circles which cross and
recross at an incredible altitude. Wilder yet, and stranger,
are the cries of the great four-footed beasts ; the rhyth-
mic pealing of a bull-elk's challenge ; and that most sinister
and mournful sound, ever fraught with foreboding of
murder and rapine, the long-drawn baying of the gray
wolf.

Indeed, save to the trained ear most mere bird songs
are not very noticeable. The ordinary wilderness dweller,
whether hunter or cowboy, scarcely heeds them ; and in
fact knows but little of the smaller birds. If a bird has
some conspicuous peculiarity of look or habit he will
notice its existence ; but not otherwise. He knows a
good deal about magpies, whiskey jacks, or water ousels ;
but nothing whatever concerning the thrushes, finches,
and warblers.

It is the same with mammals. The prairie-dogs he
cannot help noticing. With the big pack-rats also he is
well acquainted ; for they are handsome, with soft gray
fur, large eyes, and bushy tails ; and, moreover, no one
can avoid remarking their extraordinary habit of carrying
to their burrows everything bright, useless, and portable,
from an empty cartridge case to a skinning knife. But he
knows nothing of mice, shrews, pocket gophers, or weasels ;
and but little even of some larger mammals with very
marked characteristics. Thus I have met but one or two

70 The Wilderness Hunter.

plainsmen who knew anything of the curious plains ferret,
that rather rare weasel-like animal, which plays the same
part on the plains that the mink does by the edges of all
our streams and brooks, and the tree-loving sable in the
cold northern forests. The ferret makes its home in bur-
rows, and by preference goes abroad at dawn and dusk,
but sometimes even at mid-day. It is as blood-thirsty as
the mink itself, and its life is one long ramble for prey,
gophers, prairie-dogs, sage rabbits, jack-rabbits, snakes,
and every kind of ground bird furnishing its food. I
have known one to fairly depopulate a prairie-dog town,
it being the arch foe of these little rodents, because of
its insatiable blood lust and its capacity to follow them
into their burrows. Once I found the bloody body and
broken eggs of a poor prairie-hen which a ferret had evi-
dently surprised on her nest. Another time one of my
men was eye-witness to a more remarkable instance of the
little animal's blood-thirsty ferocity. He was riding the
range, and being attracted by a slight commotion in a
clump of grass, he turned his horse thither to look, and
to his astonishment found an antelope fawn at the last
gasp, but still feebly struggling, in the grasp of a ferret,
which had throttled it and was sucking its blood with
hideous greediness. He avenged the murdered innocent
by a dexterous blow with the knotted end of his lariat.

That mighty bird of rapine, the war eagle, which on
the great plains and among the Rockies supplants the
bald-headed eagle of better-watered regions, is another
dangerous foe of the young antelope. It is even said
that under exceptional circumstances eagles will assail a

EAGLES ATTACKING A PRONG-BUCK.

On the Cattle Ranges. 7*

full grown prong-horn ; and a neighboring ranchman
informs me that he was once an eye-witness to such an
attack. It was a bleak day in the late winter, and he was
riding home across a wide dreary plateau, when he saw
two eagles worrying and pouncing on a prong-buck — seem-
ingly a yearling. It made a gallant fight. The eagles
hovered over it with spread wings, now and then swooping
down, their talons out-thrust, to strike at the head, or to
try to settle on the loins. The antelope reared and struck
with hoofs and horns like a goat ; but its strength was
failing rapidly, and doubtless it would have succumbed in
the end had not the approach of the ranchman driven off
the marauders.

I have likewise heard stories of eagles attacking
badgers, foxes, bob-cats, and coyotes ; but I am inclined
to think all such cases exceptional. I have never myself
seen an eagle assail anything bigger than a fawn, lamb,
kid, or jack-rabbit. It also swoops at geese, sage fowl,
and prairie fowl. On one occasion while riding over the
range I witnessed an attack on a jack-rabbit. The eagle
was soaring overhead, and espied the jack while the latter
was crouched motionless. Instantly the great bird rushed
down through the humming air, with closed wings ;
checked itself when some forty yards above the jack,
hovered for a moment, and again fell like a bolt. Away
went long-ears, running as only a frightened jack can ;
and after him the eagle, not with the arrowy rush of its
descent from high air, but with eager, hurried flapping.
In a short time it had nearly overtaken the fugitive, when
the latter dodged sharply to one side, and the eagle over-

72 The Wilderness Hunter.

shot it precisely as a grayhound would have done,
stopping itself by a powerful, setting motion of the great
pinions. Twice this manoeuvre was repeated ; then the
eagle made a quick rush, caught and overthrew the quarry
before it could turn, and in another moment was sitting
triumphant on the quivering body, the crooked talons
driven deep into the soft, furry sides.

Once while hunting mountain sheep in the Bad Lands I
killed an eagle on the wing with the rifle. I was walking
beneath a cliff of gray clay, when the eagle sailed into
view over the crest. As soon as he saw me he threw his
wings aback, and for a moment before wheeling poised
motionless, offering a nearly stationary target ; so that
my bullet grazed his shoulder, and down he came through
the air, tumbling over and over. As he struck the
ground he threw himself on his back, and fought against
his death with the undaunted courage proper to his
brave and cruel nature.

Indians greatly prize the feathers of this eagle. With
them they make their striking and beautiful war bonnets,
and bedeck the manes and tails of their spirited war
ponies. Every year the Grosventres and Mandans from
the Big Missouri come to the neighborhood of my ranch
to hunt. Though not good marksmen they kill many
whitetail deer, driving the bottoms for them in bands, on
horseback ; and they catch many eagles. Sometimes
they take these alive by exposing a bait near which a hole
is dug, where one of them lies hidden for days, with
Indian patience, until an eagle lights on the bait and is
noosed.

On the Cattle Ranges. 73

Even eagles are far less dangerous enemies to antelope
than are wolves and coyotes. These beasts are always
prowling round the bands, to snap up the sick or unwary ;
and in spring they revel in carnage of the kids and fawns.
They are not swift enough to overtake the grown animals
by sheer speed ; but they are superior in endurance, and
especially in winter, often run them down in fair chase.
A prong-buck is a plucky little beast, and when cornered
it often makes a gallant, though not a very effectual, fight.

CHAPTER V.

HUNTING THE PRONG-BUCK ; FROST, FIRE, AND THIRST.

AS with all other American game man is a worse
foe to the prong-horns than all their brute
enemies combined. They hold their own much
better than the bigger game ; on the whole even better
than the blacktail ; but their numbers have been wofully
thinned, and in many places they have been com-
pletely exterminated. The most exciting method of chas-
ing them is on horseback with grayhounds ; but they are
usually killed with the rifle. Owing to the open nature
of the ground they frequent the shots must generally be
taken at long range ; hence this kind of hunting is pre-
eminently that needing judgment of distance and skill in
the use of the long-range rifle at stationary objects. On
the other hand the antelope are easily seen, making no
effort to escape observation, as deer do, and are so curious
that in very wild districts to this day they can sometimes
be tolled within rifle shot by the judicious waving of a
red flag. In consequence, a good many very long, but
tempting, shots can be obtained. More cartridges are
used, relatively to the amount of game killed, on antelope,
than in any other hunting.

Hunting the Prong-Buck. 75

Often I have killed prong-bucks while riding between
the outlying line camps, which are usually stationed ~a
dozen miles or so back from the river, where the Bad
Lands melt into the prairie. In continually trying long
shots, of course one occasionally makes a remarkable hit.
Once I remember while riding down a broad, shallow
coulie with two of my cow-hands — Seawell and Dow,
both keen hunters and among the staunchest friends I
have ever had, — rousing a band of antelope which stood
irresolute at about a hundred yards until I killed one.
Then they dashed off, and I missed one shot, but with my
next, to my own utter astonishment, killed the last of the
band, a big buck, just as he topped a rise four hundred
yards away. To offset such shots I have occasionally
made an unaccountable miss. Once I was hunting with
the same two men, on a rainy day, when we came on a
bunch of antelope some seventy yards off, lying down on
the side of a coulie, to escape the storm. They huddled
together a moment to gaze, and, with stiffened fingers I
took a shot, my yellow oilskin slicker flapping around me
in the wind and rain. Down went one buck, and away
went the others. One of my men walked up to the fallen
beast, bent over it, and then asked, " Where did you aim ? "
Not reassured by the question, I answered doubtfully,
" Behind the shoulder " ; whereat he remarked drily, " Well,
you hit it in the eye ! " I never did know whether I killed
the antelope I aimed at or another. Yet that same day I
killed three more bucks at decidedly long shots ; at the
time we lacked meat at the ranch, and were out to make
a good killing.

76 The Wilderness Hunter.

Besides their brute and human foes, the prong-horn
must also fear the elements, and especially the snows of
winter. On the northern plains the cold weather is of
polar severity, and turns the green, grassy prairies of mid-
summer into ironbound wastes. The blizzards whirl
and sweep across them with a shrieking fury which
few living things may face. The snow is like fine ice
dust, and the white waves glide across the grass with a
stealthy, crawling motion which has in it something sinister
and cruel. Accordingly, as the bright fall weather passes,
and the dreary winter draws nigh, when the days shorten,
and the nights seem interminable, and gray storms lower
above the gray horizon, the antelope gather in bands and
seek sheltered places, where they may abide through the
winter-time of famine and cold and deep snow. Some of
these bands travel for many hundred miles, going and re-
turning over the same routes, swimming rivers, crossing
prairies, and threading their way through steep defiles.
Such bands make their winter home in places like the
Black Hills, or similar mountainous regions, where the
shelter and feed are good, and where in consequence ante-
lope have wintered in countless thousands for untold gen-
erations. Other bands do not travel for any very great
distance, but seek some sheltered grassy table-land in the
Bad Lands, or some well-shielded valley, where their in-
stinct and experience teach them that the snow does not lie
deep in winter. Once having chosen such a place they
stand much persecution before leaving it.

One December, an old hunter whom I knew told me
that such a band was wintering a few miles from a camp

Hunting the Prong-Buck. 77

where two line-riders of the W Bar brand were stationed ;
and I made up my mind to ride thither and kill a couple.
The line camp was twenty miles from my ranch ; the shack
in which the old hunter lived was midway between, and I
had to stop there to find out the exact lay of the land.

At dawn, before our early breakfast, I saddled a tough,
shaggy sorrel horse ; hastening in-doors as soon as the job
was over, to warm my numbed fingers. After breakfast I
started, muffled in my wolf-skin coat, with beaver-fur cap,
gloves, and shaps, and great felt over-shoes. The wind-
less air was bitter cold, the thermometer showing well
below zero. Snow lay on the ground, leaving bare patches
here and there, but drifted deep in the hollows. Under
the steel-blue heavens the atmosphere had a peculiar glint
as if filled with myriads of tiny crystals. As I crossed
the frozen river, immediately in front of the ranch house,
the strangely carved tops of the bluffs were reddening
palely in the winter sunrise. Prairie fowl were perched
in the bare cottonwoods along the river brink, showing
large in the leafless branches ; they called and clucked to
one another.

Where the ground was level and the snow not too deep
I loped, and before noon I reached the sheltered coulie
where, with long poles and bark, the hunter had built his
tepee — wigwam, as eastern woodsmen would have called
it. It stood in a loose grove of elms and box-alders ;
from the branches of the nearest trees hung saddles of
frozen venison. The smoke rising from the funnel-shaped
top of the tepee showed that there was more fire than
usual within ; it is easy to keep a good tepee warm, though

78 The Wilderness Hunter.

it is so smoky that no one therein can stand upright. As
I drew rein the skin door was pushed aside, and the hard
old face and dried, battered body of the hunter appeared.
He greeted me with a surly nod, and a brief request to
"light and hev somethin' to eat"-— the invariable proffer
of hospitality on the plains. He wore a greasy buckskin
shirt or tunic, and an odd cap of badger skin, from beneath
which strayed his tangled hair ; age, rheumatism, and the
many accidents and incredible fatigue, hardship, and ex-
posure of his past life had crippled him, yet he still pos-
sessed great power of endurance, and in his seamed
weather-scarred face his eyes burned fierce and piercing as
a hawk's. Ever since early manhood he had wandered
over the plains, hunting and trapping ; he had waged
savage private war against half the Indian tribes of the
north ; and he had wedded wives in each of the tribes of
the other half. A few years before this time the great
buffalo herds had vanished, and the once swarming beaver
had shared the same fate ; the innumerable horses and
horned stock of the cattlemen, and the daring rough riders
of the ranches, had supplanted alike the game and the red
and white wanderers who had followed it with such fierce
rivalry. When the change took place the old fellow, with
failing bodily powers, found his life-work over. He had
little taste for the career of the desperado, horse-thief,
highwayman, and man-killer, which not a few of the old
buffalo hunters adopted when their legitimate occupation
was gone ; he scorned still more the life of vicious and
idle semi-criminality led by others of his former com-
panions who were of weaker mould. Yet he could not do

Hunting the Prong-Buck. 79

regular work. His existence had been one of excitement,
adventure, and restless roaming, when it was not passed in
lazy ease ; his times of toil and peril varied by fits of
brutal revelry. He had no kin, no ties of any kind. He
would accept no help, for his wants were very few, and he
was utterly self-reliant. He got meat, clothing, and bed-
ding from the antelope and deer he killed ; the spare hides
and venison he bartered for what little else he needed. So
he built him his tepee in one of the most secluded parts
of the Bad Lands, where he led the life of a solitary
hunter, awaiting in grim loneliness the death which he
knew to be near at hand.

I unsaddled and picketed my horse, and followed the
old hunter into his smoky tepee ; sat down on the pile of
worn buffalo robes which formed his bedding, and waited
in silence while he fried some deer meat, and boiled some
coffee — he was out of flour. As I ate, he gradually unbent
and talked quite freely, and before I left he told me exactly
where to find the band, which he assured me was located
for the winter, and would not leave unless much harried.

After a couple of hours' rest I again started, and
pushed out to the end of the Bad Lands. Here, as there
had been no wind, I knew I should find in the snow the
tracks of one of the riders from the line camp, whose
beat lay along the edge of the prairie for some eight miles,
until it met the beat of a rider from the line camp next
above. As nightfall came on it grew even colder ; long
icicles hung from the lips of my horse ; and I shivered
slightly in my fur coat. I had reckoned the distance ill,
and it was dusk when I struck the trail ; but my horse at

8o The Wilderness Hunter.

once turned along it of his own accord and began to lope.
Half an hour later I saw through the dark what looked
like a spark on the side of a hill. Toward this my horse
turned ; and in another moment a whinneying from in
front showed I was near the camp. The light was shining
through a small window, the camp itself being a dugout
with a log roof and front — a kind of frontier building
always warm in winter. After turning my horse into the
rough log stable with the horses of the two cowboys, I
joined the latter at supper inside the dugout ; being re-
ceived of course with hearty cordiality. After the intense
cold outside the warmth within was almost oppressive, for
the fire was roaring in the big stone fireplace. The bunks
were broad ; my two friends turned into one, and I was
given the other, with plenty of bedding ; so that my sleep
was sound.

We had breakfasted and saddled our horses and were
off by dawn next morning. My companions, muf-
fled in furs, started in opposite directions to ride their
lonely beats, while I steered for my hunting-ground. It
was a lowering and gloomy day ; at sunrise pale, lurid
sundogs hung in the glimmering mist ; gusts of wind
moaned through the ravines.

At last I reached a row of bleak hills, and from a
ridge looked cautiously down on the chain of plateaus,
where I had been told I should see the antelope. Sure
enough, there they were, to the number of several hun-
dred, scattered over the level snow-streaked surface of the
nearest and largest plateau, greedily cropping the thick,
short grass. Leaving my horse tied in a hollow I speedily

Hunting the Prong-Buck. 81

stalked up a coulie to within a hundred yards of the near-
est band and killed a good buck. Instantly all the ante
lope in sight ran together into a thick mass and raced
away from me, until they went over the opposite edge of
the plateau ; but almost as soon as they did so they were
stopped by deep drifts of powdered snow, and came back
to the summit of the table-land. They then circled round
the edge at a gallop, and finally broke madly by me, jostling
one another in their frantic haste and crossed by a small
ridge into the next plateau beyond ; as they went by I
shot a yearling.

I now had all the venison I wished, and would shoot
no more, but I was curious to see how the antelope would
act, and so walked after them. They ran about half a mile,
and then the whole herd, of several hundred individuals,
wheeled into line fronting me, like so many cavalry, and
stood motionless, the white and brown bands on their necks
looking like the facings on a uniform. As I walked near
they again broke and rushed to the end of the valley.
Evidently they feared to leave the flats for the broken
country beyond, where the rugged hills were riven by
gorges, in some of which snow lay deep even thus early in
the season. Accordingly, after galloping a couple of times
round the valley, they once more broke by me, at short
range, and tore back along the plateaus to that on which
I had first found them. Their evident and extreme re-
luctance to venture into the broken country round about
made me readily understand the tales I had heard of game
butchers killing over a hundred individuals at a time out
of a herd so situated.

82 The Wilderness Hunter.

I walked back to my game, dressed it, and lashed the
saddles and hams behind me on my horse ; I had chosen
old Sorrel Joe for the trip because he was strong, tough,
and quiet. Then I started for the ranch, keeping to the
prairie as long as I could, because there the going was
easier ; sometimes I rode, sometimes I ran on foot leading
Sorrel Joe.

Late in the afternoon, as I rode over a roll in the
prairie I saw ahead of me a sight very unusual at that
season ; a small emigrant train going westward. There
were three white-topped prairie schooners, containing the
household goods, the tow-headed children, and the hard-
faced, bony women ; the tired horses were straining
wearily in the traces ; the bearded, moody men walked
alongside. They had been belated by sickness, and the
others of their company had gone ahead to take up claims
along the Yellowstone ; now they themselves were push-
ing forward in order to reach the holdings of their friends
before the first deep snows stopped all travel. They had
no time to halt ; for there were still two or three miles to
go that evening before they could find a sheltered resting-
place with fuel, grass, and water. A little while after pass-
ing them I turned in the saddle and looked back. The
lonely little train stood out sharply on the sky-line, the
wagons looming black against the cold red west as they
toiled steadily onward across the snowy plain.

Night soon fell ; but I cared little, for I was on ground
I knew. The old horse threaded his way at a lope along
the familiar game trails and cattle paths ; in a couple of
hours I caught the gleam from the firelit windows of the

Hunting the Prong-Buck. 83

ranch house. No man who, for his good-fortune, has at
times in his life endured toil and hardship, ever fails^to
appreciate the strong elemental pleasures of rest after
labor, food after hunger, warmth and shelter after bitter
cold.

So much for the winter hunting. But in the fall,
when the grass is dry as tinder, the antelope hunter, like
other plainsmen, must sometimes face fire instead of frost.
Fire is one of the most dreaded enemies of the ranchmen
on the cattle ranges ; and fighting a big prairie fire is a
work of extraordinary labor, and sometimes of danger.
The line of flame, especially when seen at night, undulat-
ing like a serpent, is very beautiful ; though it lacks the
terror and grandeur of the great forest fires.

One October, Ferguson and I, with one of the cow-
hands, and a friend from the East, took the wagon for an
antelope hunt in the broken country between the Little
Missouri and the Beaver. The cowboy drove the wagon
to a small spring, near some buttes which are well distin-
guished by a number of fossil tree-stumps ; while the rest
of us, who were mounted on good horses, made a circle
after antelope. We found none, and rode on to camp,
reaching it about the middle of the afternoon. We had
noticed several columns of smoke in the southeast, show-
ing that prairie fires were under way ; but we thought
that they were too far off to endanger our camp, and ac-
cordingly unsaddled our horses and sat down to a dinner
of bread, beans, and coffee. Before we were through the
smoke began to pour over a ridge a mile distant in
such quantities that we ran thither with our slickers,

84 The Wilderness Hunter.

hoping to find some stretch of broken ground where the
grass was sparse, and where we could fight the fire with
effect. Our hopes were vain. Before we reached the
ridge the fire came over its crest, and ran down in a long
tongue between two scoria buttes. Here the grass was
quite short and thin, and we did our best to beat out the
flames ; but they gradually gained on us, and as they
reached the thicker grass lower down the slope, they
began to roar and dart forward in a way that bade us pay
heed to our own safety. Finally they reached a winding
line of brushwood in the bottom of the coulie ; and as
this burst into a leaping blaze we saw it was high time
to look to the safety of our camp, and ran back to it at
top speed. Ferguson, who had been foremost in fighting
the fire, was already scorched and blackened.

We were camped on the wagon trail which leads along
the divide almost due south to Sentinel Butte. The line
of fire was fanned by a southeasterly breeze, and was
therefore advancing diagonally to the divide. If we could
drive the wagon southward on the trail in time to get it
past the fire before the latter reached the divide, we would
be to windward of the flames, and therefore in safety.
Accordingly, while the others were hastily harnessing the
team, and tossing the bedding and provisions into the
wagon, I threw the saddle on my horse, and galloped
down the trail, to see if there was yet time to adopt this
expedient. I soon found that there was not. Half a
mile from camp the trail dipped into a deep coulie, where
fair-sized trees and dense undergrowth made a long wind-
ing row of brush and timber. The trail led right under

Hunting the Prong-Buck. 85

the trees at the upper end of this coulie. As I galloped
by I saw that the fire had struck the trees a quarter of a
mile below me ; in the dried timber it instantly sprang
aloft like a giant, and roared in a thunderous monotone
as it swept up the coulie. I galloped to the hill ridge
ahead, saw that the fire line had already reached the
divide, and turned my horse sharp on his haunches. As I
again passed under the trees, the fire, running like a race-
horse in the brush, had reached the road ; its breath was
hot in my face ; tongues of quivering flame leaped over
my head and kindled the grass on the hillside fifty
yards away.

When I got back to camp Ferguson had taken meas-
ures for the safety of the wagon. He had moved it across
the coulie, which at this point had a wet bottom, making
a bar to the progress of the flames until they had time to
work across lower down. Meanwhile we fought to keep
the fire from entering a well-grassed space on the hither
side of the coulie, between it and a row of scoria buttes.
Favored by a streak of clay ground, where the grass was
sparse, we succeeded in beating out the flame as it reached
this clay streak, and again beating it out when it ran
round the buttes and began to back up towards us against
the wind. Then we recrossed the coulie with the wagon,
before the fire swept up the farther side ; and so, when
the flames passed by, they left us camped on a green oasis
in the midst of a charred, smoking desert. We thus
saved some good grazing for our horses.

But our fight with the fire had only begun. No stock-
man will see a fire waste the range and destroy the winter

86 The Wilderness Hunter.

feed of the stock without spending every ounce of his
strength in the effort to put a stop to its ravages — even
when, as in our case, the force of men and horses at
hand is so small as to offer only the very slenderest hope
of success.

We set about the task in the way customary in the
cattle country. It is impossible for any but a very large
force to make head against a prairie fire while there is any
wind ; but the wind usually fails after nightfall, and
accordingly the main fight is generally waged during the
hours of darkness.

Before dark we drove to camp and shot a stray steer,
and then split its carcass in two lengthwise with an axe.
After sundown the wind lulled ; and we started towards
the line of fire, which was working across a row of broken
grassy hills, three quarters of a mile distant. Two of us
were on horseback, dragging a half carcass, bloody side
down, by means of ropes leading from our saddle-horns
to the fore and hind legs ; the other two followed on foot
with slickers and wet saddle blankets. There was a red-
dish glow in the night air, and the waving, bending lines
of flame showed in great bright curves against the hill-
sides ahead of us.

When we reached them, we found the fire burning in
a long, continuous line. It was not making rapid head-
way, for the air was still, and the flames stood upright,
two or three feet high. Lengthening the ropes, one of
us spurred his horse across the fire line and then, wheel-
ing, we dragged the carcass along it ; one horseman being
on the burnt ground, and one on the unburnt grass, while

Hunting the Prong-Buck. 87

the body of the steer lay lengthwise across the line. The
weight and the blood smothered the fire as we twitched
the carcass over the burning grass ; and the two men fol-
lowing behind with their blankets and slickers readily
beat out any isolated tufts of flame.

The fire made the horses wild, and it was not always
easy to manage both them and the ropes, so as to keep
the carcass true on the line. Sometimes there would be
a slight puff of wind, and then the man on the grass side
of the line ran the risk of a scorching. We were blackened
with smoke, and the taut ropes hurt our thighs ; while at
times the plunging horses tried to buck or bolt. It was
worse when we came to some deep gully or ravine, break-
ing the line of fire. Into this we of course had to plunge,
so as to get across to the fire on the other side. After
the glare of the flame the blackness of the ravine was
Stygian ; we could see nothing, and simply spurred our
horses into it anywhere, taking our chances. Down we
would go, stumbling, sliding, and pitching, over cut banks
and into holes and bushes, while the carcass bounded
behind, now catching on a stump, and now fetching loose
with a "pluck" that brought it full on the horses'
haunches, driving them nearly crazy with fright. The pull
up the opposite bank was, if anything, worse.

By midnight the half carcass was worn through ; but
we had stifled the fire in the comparatively level country
to the eastwards. Back we went to camp, drank huge
draughts of muddy water, devoured roast ox-ribs, and
dragged out the other half carcass to fight the fire on the
west. But after hours of wearing labor we found our-

88 The Wilderness Hunter.

selves altogether baffled by the exceeding roughness of
the ground. There was some little risk to us who were on
horseback, dragging the carcass ; we had to feel our way
along knife-like ridges in the dark, one ahead and the
other behind, while the steer dangled over the precipice
on one side ; and in going down the buttes and into the
canyons only by extreme care could we avoid getting
tangled in the ropes and rolling down in a heap. More-
over the fire was in such rough places that the carcass
could not be twitched fairly over it, and so we could not
put it out. Before dawn we were obliged to abandon
our fruitless efforts and seek camp, stiffened and weary.
From a hill we looked back through the pitchy night at
the fire we had failed to conquer. It had been broken
into many lines by the roughness of the chasm-strewn and
hilly country. Of these lines of flame some were in ad-
vance, some behind, some rushing forward in full blast
and fury, some standing still ; here and there one wheel-
ing towards a flank, or burning in a semicircle, round an
isolated hill. Some of the lines were flickering out ; gaps
were showing in others. In the darkness it looked like
the rush of a mighty army, bearing triumphantly onwards,
in spite of a resistance so stubborn as to break its forma-
tion into many fragments and cause each one of them to
wage its own battle for victory or defeat.

On the wide plains where the prong-buck dwells the
hunter must sometimes face thirst, as well as fire and frost.
The only time I ever really suffered from thirst was while
hunting prong-buck.

Hunting the Prong-Buck. 89

It was late in the summer. I was with the ranch wagon
on the way to join a round-up, and as we were out of meat
I started for a day's hunt. Before leaving in the morning
I helped to haul the wagon across the river. It was for-
tunate I stayed, as it turned out. There was no regular
ford where we made the crossing ; we anticipated no
trouble, as the water was very low, the season being dry.
However, we struck a quicksand, in which the wagon
settled, while the frightened horses floundered helplessly.
All the riders at once got their ropes on the wagon, and
hauling from the saddle, finally pulled it through. This
took time ; and it was ten o'clock when I rode away from
the river, at which my horse and I had just drunk — our
last drink for over twenty-four hours as it turned out.

After two or three hours' ride, up winding coulies, and
through the scorched desolation of patches of Bad Lands,
I reached the rolling prairie. The heat and drought had
long burned the short grass dull brown ; the bottoms of
what had been pools were covered with hard, dry, cracked
earth. The day was cloudless, and the heat oppressive.
There were many antelope, but I got only one shot,
breaking a buck's leg ; and though I followed it for a
couple of hours I could not overtake it. By this time it
was late in the afternoon, and I was far away from the
river ; so I pushed for a creek, in the bed of which I had
always found pools of water, especially towards the head,
as is usual with plains watercourses. To my chagrin,
however, they all proved to be dry ; and though I rode
up the creek bed toward the head, carefully searching for

90 The Wilderness Hunter.

any sign of water, night closed on me before I found any.
For two or three hours I stumbled on, leading my horse,
in my fruitless search ; then a tumble over a cut bank in
the dark warned me that I might as well stay where I was
for the rest of the warm night. Accordingly I unsaddled
the horse, and tied him to a sage brush ; after awhile he
began to feed on the dewy grass. At first I was too
thirsty to sleep. Finally I fell into slumber, and when
I awoke at dawn I felt no thirst. For an hour or two
more I continued my search for water in the creek bed ;
then abandoned it and rode straight for the river. By
the time we reached it my thirst had come back with re-
doubled force, my mouth was parched, and the horse was
in quite as bad a plight ; we rushed down to the brink, and
it seemed as if we could neither of us ever drink our fill
of the tepid, rather muddy water. Of course this expe-
rience was merely unpleasant ; thirst is not a source of
real danger in the plains country proper, whereas in the
hideous deserts that extend from southern Idaho through
Utah and Nevada to Arizona, it ever menaces with death
the hunter and explorer.

In the plains the weather is apt to be in extremes ;
the heat is tropical, the cold arctic, and the droughts are
relieved by furious floods. These are generally most
severe and lasting in the spring, after the melting of the
snow ; and fierce local freshets follow the occasional cloud-
bursts. The large rivers then become wholly impassable,
and even the smaller are formidable obstacles. It is not
easy to get cattle across a swollen stream, where the
current runs like a turbid mill-race over the bed of shift-

Hunting the Prong-Buck. 91

ing quicksand. Once five of us took a thousand head of
trail steers across the Little Missouri when the river was
up, and it was no light task. The muddy current was
boiling past the banks, covered with driftwood and foul
yellow froth, and the frightened cattle shrank from enter-
ing it. At last, by hard riding, with much loud shouting
and swinging of ropes, we got the leaders in, and the
whole herd followed. After them we went in our turn,
the horses swimming at one moment, and the next stag-
gering and floundering through the quicksand. I was
riding my pet cutting horse, Muley, which has the pro-
voking habit of making great bounds where the water is
just not deep enough for swimming ; once he almost
unseated me. Some of the cattle were caught by the
currents and rolled over and over ; most of these we
were able, with the help of our ropes, to put on their
feet again ; only one was drowned, or rather choked in
a quicksand. Many swam down stream, and in conse-
quence struck a difficult landing, where the river ran
under a cut bank ; these we had to haul out with our
ropes. Both men and horses were well tired by the
time the whole herd was across.

Although I have often had a horse down in quick-
sand, or in crossing a swollen river, and have had
to work hard to save him, I have never myself lost
one under such circumstances. Yet once I saw the
horse of one of my men drown under him directly in
front of the ranch house, while he was trying to cross
the river. This was in early spring, soon after the ice
had broken.

92 The Wilderness Hunter.

When making long wagon trips over the great plains,
antelope often offer the only source of meat supply, save
for occasional water fowl, sage fowl, and prairie fowl —
the sharp-tailed prairie fowl, be it understood. This is
the characteristic grouse of the cattle country ; the true
prairie fowl is a bird of the farming land farther east.

Towards the end of the summer of '92 I found it
necessary to travel from my ranch to the Black Hills,
some two hundred miles south. The ranch wagon went
with me, driven by an all-round plainsman, a man of iron
nerves and varied past, the sheriff of our county. He
was an old friend of mine ; at one time I had served as
deputy-sheriff for the northern end of the county. In
the wagon we carried our food and camp kit, and our
three rolls of bedding, each wrapped in a thick, nearly
waterproof canvas sheet ; we had a tent, but we never
needed it. The load being light, the wagon was drawn
by but a span of horses, a pair of wild runaways, tough,
and good travellers. My foreman and I rode beside the
wagon on our wiry, unkempt, unshod cattle-ponies. They
carried us all day at a rack, pace, single-foot or slow lope,
varied by rapid galloping when we made long circles after
game ; the trot, the favorite gait with eastern park-riders,
is disliked by all peoples who have to do much of their
life-work in the saddle.

The first day's ride was not attractive. The heat was
intense and the dust stifling, as we had to drive some
loose horses for the first few miles, and afterwards to ride
up and down the sandy river bed, where the cattle had
gathered, to look over some young steers we had put on

Hunting the Prong-Buck. 93

the range the preceding spring. When we did camp it
was by a pool of stagnant water, in a creek bottom, and
the mosquitoes were a torment. Nevertheless, as even-
ing fell, it was pleasant to climb a little knoll nearby and
gaze at the rows of strangely colored buttes, grass-clad,
or of bare earth and scoria, their soft reds and purples
showing as through a haze, and their irregular outlines
gradually losing their sharpness in the fading twilight.

Next morning the weather changed, growing cooler,
and we left the tangle of ravines and Bad Lands, striking
out across the vast sea-like prairies. Hour after hour,
under the bright sun, the wagon drew slowly ahead, over
the immense rolling stretches of short grass, dipping
down each long slope until it reached the dry, imperfectly
outlined creek bed at the bottom, — wholly devoid of
water and without so much as a shrub of wood, — and
then ascending the gentle rise on the other side until at
last it topped the broad divide, or watershed, beyond
which lay the shallow winding coulies of another creek
system. From each rise of ground we looked far and
wide over the sunlit prairie, with its interminable undu-
lations. The sicklebill curlews which in spring, while
breeding, hover above the travelling horseman with cease-
less clamor, had for the most part gone southward. We
saw only one small party of half a dozen birds ; they paid
little heed to us, but piped to one another, making short
flights, and on alighting stood erect, first spreading and
then folding and setting their wings with a slow, graceful
motion. Little horned larks continually ran along the
ruts of the faint wagon track, just ahead of the team, and

94 The Wilderness Hunter.

twittered plaintively as they rose, while flocks of long-
spurs swept hither and thither, in fitful, irregular flight.

My foreman and I usually rode far off to one side of
the wagon, looking out for antelope. Of these we at first
saw few, but they grew more plentiful as we journeyed
onward, approaching a big scantily wooded creek, where
I had found the prong-horn abundant in previous seasons.
They were very wary and watchful whether going singly
or in small parties, and the lay of the land made it exceed-
ingly difficult to get within range. The last time I had
hunted in this neighborhood was in the fall, at the height
of the rutting season. Prong-bucks, even more than other
game, seem fairly maddened by erotic excitement. At
the time of my former hunt they were in ceaseless motion ;
each master buck being incessantly occupied in herding
his harem, and fighting would-be rivals, while single bucks
chased single does as greyhounds chase hares, or else, if
no does were in sight, from sheer excitement ran to and
fro as if crazy, racing at full speed in one direction, then
halting, wheeling, and tearing back again just as hard as
they could go.

At this time, however, the rut was still some weeks
off, and all the bucks had to do was to feed and keep a
look-out for enemies. Try my best, I could not get
within less than four or five hundred yards, and though I
took a number of shots at these, or at even longer, dis-
tances, I missed. If a man is out merely for a day's hunt,
and has all the time he wishes, he will not scare the game
and waste cartridges by shooting at such long ranges,
preferring to spend half a day or more in patient waiting

Hunting the Prong-Buck. 95

and careful stalking ; but if he is travelling, and is there-
fore cramped for time, he must take his chances, even_at
the cost of burning a good deal of powder.

I was finally helped to success by a characteristic
freak of the game I was following. No other animals are
as keen-sighted, or are normally as wary as prong-horns ;
but no others are so whimsical and odd in their behavior
at times, or so subject to fits of the most stupid curiosity
and panic. Late in the afternoon, on topping a rise I
saw two good bucks racing off about three hundred yards
to one side ; I sprang to the ground, and fired three shots
at them in vain, as they ran like quarter-horses until they
disappeared over a slight swell. In a minute, however,
back they came, suddenly appearing over the crest of the
same swell, immediately in front of me, and, as I after-
wards found by pacing, some three hundred and thirty
yards away. They stood side by side facing me, and re-
mained motionless, unheeding the crack of the Win-
chester ; I aimed at the right-hand one, but a front shot
of the kind, at such a distance, is rather difficult, and it
was not until I fired for the fourth time that he sank back
out of sight. I could not tell whether I had killed him,
and took two shots at his mate, as the latter went off, but
without effect. Running forward, I found the first one
dead, the bullet having gone through him lengthwise ; the
other did not seem satisfied even yet, and kept hanging
round in the distance for some minutes, looking at us.

I had thus bagged one prong-buck, as the net outcome
of the expenditure of fourteen cartridges. This was
certainly not good shooting ; but neither was it as bad as

96 The Wilderness Hunter.

it would seem to the man inexperienced in antelope hunt-
ing. When fresh meat is urgently needed, and when
time is too short, the hunter who is after antelope in an
open flattish country must risk many long shots. In no
other kind of hunting is there so much long-distance shoot-
ing, or so many shots fired for every head of game bagged.
Throwing the buck into the wagon we continued our
journey across the prairie, no longer following any road,
and before sunset jolted down towards the big creek for
which we had been heading. There were many water-holes
therein, and timber of considerable size ; box alder and
ash grew here and there in clumps and fringes, beside the
serpentine curves of the nearly dry torrent bed, the growth
being thickest under the shelter of the occasional low bluffs.
We drove down to a heavily grassed bottom, near a deep,
narrow pool, with, at one end, that rarest of luxuries in the
plains country, a bubbling spring of pure, cold water. With
plenty of wood, delicious water, ample feed for the horses,
and fresh meat we had every comfort and luxury incident
to camp life in good weather. The bedding was tossed
out on a smooth spot beside the wagon ; the horses were
watered and tethered to picket pins where the feed was
best ; water was fetched from the spring ; a deep hole was
dug for the fire, and the grass roundabout carefully burned
off ; and in a few moments the bread was baking in the
Dutch oven, the potatoes were boiling, antelope steaks were
sizzling in the frying-pan, and the kettle was ready for
the tea. After supper, eaten with the relish known well
to every hard-working and successful hunter, we sat for
half an hour or so round the fire, and then turned in

Hunting the Prong-Buck. 97

under the blankets, pulled the tarpaulins over us, and lis-
tened drowsily to the wailing of the coyotes until we fell
sound asleep.

We determined to stay in this camp all day, so as to
try and kill another prong-buck, as we would soon be past
the good hunting grounds. I did not have to go far
for my game next morning, for soon after breakfast, while
sitting on my canvas bag cleaning my rifle, the sheriff
suddenly called to me that a bunch of antelope were
coming towards us. Sure enough there they were, four
in number, rather over half a mile off, on the first bench
of the prairie, two or three hundred yards back from the
creek, leisurely feeding in our direction. In a minute or
two they were out of sight, and I instantly ran along the
creek towards them for a quarter of a mile, and then
crawled up a short shallow coulie, close to the head of
which they seemed likely to pass. When nearly at the
end I cautiously raised my hatless head, peered through
some straggling weeds, and at once saw the horns of the
buck. He was a big fellow, about a hundred and twenty
yards off; the others, a doe and two kids, were in front.
As I lifted myself on my elbows he halted and turned his
raised head towards me ; the sunlight shone bright on
his supple, vigorous body with its markings of sharply
contrasted brown and white. I pulled trigger, and away
he went ; but I could see that his race was nearly run,
and he fell after going a few hundred yards.

Soon after this a wind storm blew up so violent that
we could hardly face it. In the late afternoon it died
away, and I again walked out to hunt, but saw only does

98 The Wilderness Hunter.

and kids, at which I would not shoot. As the sun set,
leaving bars of amber and pale red in the western sky,
the air became absolutely calm. In the waning evening
the low, far-off ridges were touched with a violet light ;
then the hues grew sombre, and still darkness fell on the
lonely prairie.

Next morning we drove to the river, and kept near it
for several days, most of the time following the tracks
made by the heavy wagons accompanying the trail herds
— this being one of the regular routes followed by the
great throng of slow-moving cattle yearly driven from the
south. At other times we made our own road. Twice
or thrice we passed ranch houses ; the men being absent
on the round-up they were shut, save one which was
inhabited by two or three lean Texan cow-punchers, with
sun-burned faces and reckless eyes, who had come up with
a trail herd from the Cherokee strip. Once, near the old
Sioux crossing, where the Dakota war bands used to
ford the river on their forays against the Crows and the
settlers along the Yellowstone, we met a large horse
herd. The tough, shabby, tired-looking animals, one or
two of which were loaded with bedding and a scanty
supply of food, were driven by three travel-worn, hard-
faced men, with broad hats, shaps, and long pistols in
their belts. They had brought the herd over plain and
mountain pass all the way from far distant Oregon.

It was a wild, rough country, bare of trees save for
a fringe of cottonwoods along the river, and occasional
clumps of cedar on the jagged, brown buttes ; as we went
farther the hills turned the color of chalk, and were

Hunting the Prong-Buck. 99

covered with a growth of pine. We came upon acres of
sunflowers as we journeyed southward ; they are not as tall
as they are in the rich bottom lands of Kansas, where the
splendid blossoms, on their strong stalks, stand as high as
the head of a man on horseback.

Though there were many cattle here, big game was
scarce. However, I killed plenty of prairie chickens and
sage hens for the pot ; and as the sage hens were
still feeding largely on crickets and grasshoppers, and not
exclusively on sage, they were just as good eating as the
prairie chickens. I used the rifle, cutting off their heads
or necks, and, as they had to be shot on the ground, and
often while in motion, or else while some distance away,
it was more difficult than shooting off the heads of grouse
in the mountains, where the birds sit motionless in trees.
The head is a small mark, while to hit the body is usually
to spoil the bird ; so I found that I averaged three or
four cartridges for every head neatly taken off, the
remaining shots representing spoiled birds and misses.

For the last sixty or seventy miles of our trip we left
the river and struck off across a great, desolate gumbo
prairie. There was no game, no wood for fuel, and the
rare water-holes were far apart, so that we were glad
when, as we toiled across the monotonous succession of
long, swelling ridges, the dim, cloud-like mass, looming
vague and purple on the rim of the horizon ahead of us,
gradually darkened and hardened into the bold outline of
the Black Hills.

CHAPTER VI.

AMONG THE HIGH HILLS ; THE BIGHORN OR MOUNTAIN

SHEEP.

DURING the summer of 1886 I hunted chiefly to
keep the ranch in meat. It was a very pleasant
summer; although it was followed by the worst
winter we ever witnessed on the plains. I was much at
the ranch, where I had a good deal of writing to do ; but
every week or two I left, to ride among the line camps, or
spend a few days on any round-up which happened to be
in the neighborhood.

These days of vigorous work among the cattle were
themselves full of pleasure. At dawn we were in the
saddle, the morning air cool in our faces ; the red sunrise
saw us loping across the grassy reaches of prairie land, or
climbing in single file among the rugged buttes. All the
forenoon we spent riding the long circle with the cow-
punchers of the round-up ; in the afternoon we worked the
herd, cutting the cattle, with much breakneck galloping
and dextrous halting and wheeling. Then came the ex-
citement and hard labor of roping, throwing, and branding
the wild and vigorous range calves ; in a corral, if one was
handy, otherwise in a ring of horsemen. Soon after night-

100

Among the High Hills. ior

fall we lay down, in a log hut or tent, if at a line camp ;
under the open sky, if with the round-up wagon.

After ten days or so of such work, in which every
man had to do his full share — for laggards and idlers, no
matter who, get no mercy in the real and healthy democ-
racy of the round-up — I would go back to the ranch to
turn to my books with added zest for a fortnight. Yet
even during these weeks at the ranch there was some
out-door work ; for I was breaking two or three colts. I
took my time, breaking them gradually and gently, not,
after the usual cowboy fashion, in a hurry, by sheer main
strength and rough riding, with the attendant danger to
the limbs of the man and very probable ruin to the man-
ners of the horse. We rose early ; each morning I stood
on the low-roofed verandah, looking out under the line of
murmuring, glossy-leaved cottonwoods, across the shallow
river, to see the sun flame above the line of bluffs opposite.
In the evening I strolled off for an hour or two's walk, rifle
in hand. The roomy, homelike ranch house, with its log
walls, shingled roof, and big chimneys and fireplaces, stands
in a glade, in the midst of the thick forest, which covers
half the bottom ; behind rises, bare and steep, the wall of
peaks, ridges, and table-lands.

During the summer in question, I once or twice shot a
whitetail buck right on this large bottom ; once or twice I
killed a blacktail in the hills behind, not a mile from the
ranch house. Several times I killed and brought in prong-
bucks, rising before dawn, and riding off on a good horse
for an all day's hunt in the rolling prairie country twelve
or fifteen miles away. Occasionally I took the wagon and

Vo2 The Wilderness Hunter.

one of the men, driving to some good hunting ground and
spending a night or two ; usually returning with two or
three prong-bucks, and once with an elk — but this was
later in the fall. Not infrequently I went away by myself
on horseback for a couple of days, when all the men were
on the round-up, and when I wished to hunt thoroughly
some country quite a distance from the ranch. I made
one such hunt in late August, because I happened to hear
that a small bunch of mountain sheep were haunting a
tract of very broken ground, with high hills, about fifteen
miles away.

I left the ranch early in the morning, riding my favorite
hunting horse, old Manitou. The blanket and oilskin
slicker were rolled and strapped behind the saddle ; for
provisions I carried salt, a small bag of hard tack, and a
little tea and sugar, with a metal cup in which to boil my
water. The rifle and a score of cartridges in my woven
belt completed my outfit. On my journey I shot two
prairie chickens from a covey in the bottom of a brush
coulie.

I rode more than six hours before reaching a good spot
to camp. At first my route lay across grassy plateaus,
and along smooth, wooded coulies ; but after a few miles
the ground became very rugged and difficult. At last I
got into the heart of the Bad Lands proper, where the
hard, wrinkled earth was torn into shapes as sullen and
grotesque as those of dreamland. The hills rose high,
their barren flanks carved and channelled, their tops mere
needles and knife crests. Bands of black, red, and purple
varied the gray and yellow-brown of their sides ; the tuixtt

Among the High Hills. 103

of scanty vegetation were dull green. Sometimes I rode
my horse at the bottom of narrow washouts, between
straight walls of clay, but a few feet apart ; sometimes I
had to lead him as he scrambled up, down, and across the
sheer faces of the buttes. The glare from the bare clay
walls dazzled the eye ; the air was burning under the hot
August sun. I saw nothing living except the rattlesnakes,
of which there were very many.

At last, in the midst of this devil's wilderness, I came
on a lovely valley. A spring trickled out of a cedar
canyon, and below this spring the narrow, deep ravine was
green with luscious grass and was smooth for some hun-
dred of yards. Here I unsaddled, and turned old Manitou
loose to drink and feed at his leisure. At the edge of the
dark cedar wood I cleared a spot for my bed, and drew a
few dead sticks for the fire. Then I lay down and watched
drowsily until the afternoon shadows filled the wild and
beautiful gorge in which I was camped. This happened
early, for the valley was very narrow and the hills on
either hand were steep and high.

Springing to my feet, I climbed the nearest ridge,
and then made my way, by hard clambering, from peak
to peak and from crest to crest, sometimes crossing and
sometimes skirting the deep washouts and canyons.
When possible I avoided appearing on the sky line, and
I moved with the utmost caution, walking in a wide sweep
so as to hunt across and up wind. There was much
sheep sign, some of it fresh, though I saw none of the
animals themselves ; the square slots, with the indented
marks of the toe points wide apart, contrasting strongly

104 The Wilderness Hunter.

with the heart-shaped and delicate footprints of deer.
The animals had, according to their habit, beaten trails
along the summits of the higher crests ; little side trails
leading to any spur, peak, or other vantage-point from
which there was a wide outlook over the country round
about.

The bighorns of the Bad Lands, unlike those of the
mountains, shift their range but little, winter or summer.
Save in the breeding season, when each master ram gets
together his own herd, the ewes, lambs, and yearlings are
apt to go in bands by themselves, while the males wan-
der in small parties ; now and then a very morose old
fellow lives by himself, in some precipitous, out-of-the-
way retreat. The rut begins with them much later than
with deer ; the exact time varies with the locality, but it
is always after the bitter winter weather has set in. Then
the old rams fight fiercely together, and on rare occasions
utter a long grunting bleat or call. They are marvellous
climbers, and dwell by choice always among cliffs and
jagged, broken ground, whether wooded or not. An old
bighorn ram is heavier than the largest buck ; his huge,
curved horns, massive yet supple build, and proud bear-
ing mark him as one of the noblest beasts of the chase.
He is wary ; great skill and caution must be shown in
approaching him ; and no one but a good climber, with
a steady head, sound lungs, and trained muscles, can suc-
cessfully hunt him in his own rugged fastnesses. The
chase of no other kind of American big game ranks higher,
or more thoroughly tests the manliest qualities of the
hunter.

Among the High Hills. 105

1 walked back to camp in the gloaming, taking care
to reach it before it grew really dark ; for in the Bad
Lands it is entirely impossible to travel, or to find any
given locality, after nightfall. Old Manitou had eaten
his fill, and looked up at me with pricked ears, and wise,
friendly face as I climbed down the side of the cedar
canyon ; then he came slowly towards me to see if I had
not something for him. I rubbed his soft nose and gave
him a cracker ; then I picketed him to a solitary cedar,
where the feed was good. Afterwards I kindled a small
fire, roasted both prairie fowl, ate one, and put the other
by for breakfast ; and soon rolled myself in my blanket,
with the saddle for a pillow, and the oilskin beneath.
Manitou was munching the grass nearby. I lay just out-
side the line of stiff black cedars ; the night air was soft
in my face ; I gazed at the shining and brilliant multitude
of stars until my eyelids closed.

The chill breath which comes before dawn awakened
me. It was still and dark. Through the gloom I could
indistinctly make out the loom of the old horse, lying
down. I was speedily ready, and groped and stumbled
slowly up the hill, and then along its crest to a peak.
Here I sat down and waited a quarter of an hour or so,
until gray appeared in the east, and the dim light-streaks
enabled me to walk farther. Before sunrise I was two
miles from camp ; then I crawled cautiously to a high
ridge and crouching behind it scanned all the landscape
eagerly. In a few minutes a movement about a third of
a mile to the right, midway down a hill, caught my eye.
Another glance showed me three white specks moving

io6 The Wilderness Hunter.

along the hillside. They were the white rumps of three
fine mountain sheep, on their way to drink at a little al-
kaline pool in the bottom of a deep, narrow valley. In a
moment they went out of sight round a bend of the val-
ley ; and I rose and trotted briskly towards them, along
the ridge. There were two or three deep gullies to cross,
and a high shoulder over which to clamber ; so I was out
of breath when I reached the bend beyond which they
had disappeared. Taking advantage of a scrawny sage
brush as cover I peeped over the edge, and at once saw
the sheep, three big young rams. They had finished
drinking and were standing beside the little mirey pool,
about three hundred yards distant. Slipping back I
dropped down into the bottom of the valley, where a nar-
row washout zigzagged from side to side, between straight
walls of clay. The pool was in the upper end of this
washout, under a cut bank.

An indistinct game trail, evidently sometimes used by
both bighorn and blacktail, ran up this washout ; the
bottom was of clay so that I walked noiselessly ; and the
crookedness of the washout's course afforded ample secu-
rity against discovery by the sharp eyes of the quarry. In
a couple of minutes I stalked stealthily round the last
bend, my rifle cocked and at the ready, expecting to
see the rams by the pool. However, they had gone, and
the muddy water was settling in their deep hoof marks.
Running on I looked over the edge of the cut bank and
saw them slowly quartering up the hillside, cropping the
sparse tufts of coarse grass. I whistled, and as they
stood at gaze I put a bullet into the biggest, a little too

Among the High Hills. 107

far aft of the shoulder, but ranging forward. He raced
after the others, but soon fell behind, and turned off1 on
his own line, at a walk, with drooping head. As he bled
freely I followed his tracks, found him, very sick, in a
washout a quarter of a mile beyond, and finished him with
another shot. After dressing him, and cutting off the
saddle and hams, as well as the head, I walked back to
camp, breakfasted, and rode Manitou to where the sheep
lay. Packing it securely behind the saddle, and shifting
the blanket roll to in front of the saddle-horn, I led
the horse until we were clear of the Bad Lands ; then
mounted him, and was back at the ranch soon after mid-
day. The mutton of a fat young mountain ram, at this
season of the year, is delicious.

Such quick success is rare in hunting sheep. Gen-
erally each head has cost me several days of hard, faithful
work ; and more than once I have hunted over a week
without any reward whatsoever. But the quarry is so
noble that the ultimate triumph — sure to come, if the
hunter will but persevere long enough — atones for all
previous toil and failure.

Once a lucky stalk and shot at a bighorn was almost
all that redeemed a hunt in the Rockies from failure. I
was high among the mountains at the time, but was dogged
by ill luck ; I had seen but little, and I had not shot very
well. One morning I rose early, and hunted steadily un-
til midday without seeing anything. A mountain hunter
was with me. At noon we sat down to rest, and look
over the country, from behind a shield of dwarf evergreens,
on the brink of a mighty chasm. The rocks fell down-

io8 The Wilderness Hunter.

wards in huge cliffs, stern and barren ; from far below rose
the strangled roaring of the torrent, as the foaming masses
of green and white water churned round the boulders in
the stream bed. Except this humming of the wild water,
and the soughing of the pines, there was no sound. We
were sitting on a kind of jutting promontory of rock so
that we could scan the cliffs far and near. First I took
the glasses and scrutinized the ground almost rod by rod,
for nearly half an hour ; then my companion took them
in turn. It is very hard to make out game, especially
when lying down, and still ; and it is curious to notice
how, after fruitlessly scanning a country through the
glasses for a considerable period, a herd of animals will
suddenly appear in the field of vision as if by magic. In
this case, while my companion held the glasses for the
second time, a slight motion caught his eye ; and looking
attentively he made out, five or six hundred yards distant,
a mountain ram lying among some loose rocks and small
bushes at the head of a little grassy cove or nook, in a
shallow break between two walls of the cliff. So well did
the bluish gray of its body harmonize in tint with the
rocks and shrubbery that it was some time before I could
see it, even when pointed out to me.

The wind was favorable, and we at once drew back and
began a cautious stalk. It was impossible, owing to the
nature of the cliffs above and below the bighorn's resting-
place, to get a shot save by creeping along nearly on a
level with him. Accordingly we worked our way down
through a big cleft in the rocks, being forced to go very
slowly and carefully lest we should start a loose stone ;

HEAD OF MOUNTAIN RAM.

SHOT NOVEMBER, 188*

Among the High Hills. 109

and at last reached a narrow terrace of rock and grass
along which we walked comparatively at our ease. Soon
it dwindled away, and we then had to do our only difficult
piece of climbing — a clamber for fifty or sixty feet across
c, steep cliff shoulder. Some little niches and cracks in
the rock and a few projections and diminutive ledges on
its surface, barely enabled us to swarm across, with pains-
taking care — not merely to avoid alarming the game this
time, but also to avoid a slip which would have proved
fatal. Once across we came on a long, grassy shelf, lead-
ing round a shoulder into the cleft where the ram lay. As
I neared the end I crept forward on hands and knees, and
then crawled flat, shoving the rifle ahead of me, until I
rounded the shoulder and peered into the rift. As my
eyes fell on the ram he sprang to his feet, with a clatter
of loose stones, and stood facing me, some sixty yards off,
his dark face and white muzzle brought out finely by the
battered, curved horns. I shot into his chest, hitting him
in the sticking place ; and after a few mad bounds he
tumbled headlong, and fell a very great distance, unfor-
tunately injuring one horn.

When much hunted, bighorn become the wariest of
all American game, and their chase is then peculiarly
laborious and exciting. But where they have known
nothing of men, not having been molested by hunters,
they are exceedingly tame. Professor John Bache Mc-
Master informs me that in 1877 he penetrated to the
Uintah Mountains of Wyoming, which were then almost
unknown to hunters ; he found all the game very bold,
and the wild sheep in particular so unsuspicious that he

i io The Wilderness Hunter.

could walk up to within short rifle range of them in the
open.

On the high mountains bighorn occasionally get killed
by a snow-slide. My old friend, the hunter Woody, once
saw a band which started such an avalanche by running
along a steep sloping snow field, it being in the spring ;
for several hundred yards it thundered at their heels, but
by desperate racing they just managed to get clear.
Woody was also once an eye-witness to the ravages the
cougar commits among these wild sheep. He was stalk-
ing a band in the snow when he saw them suddenly scat-
ter at a run in every direction. Coming up he found the
traces of a struggle, and the track of a body being
dragged through the snow, together with the round foot-
marks of the cougar ; a little farther on lay a dead ewe,
the blood flowing from the fang wounds in her throat

CHAPTER VII.

MOUNTAIN GAME ; THE WHITE GOAT.

LATE one August I started on a trip to the Big
Hole Basin, in Western Montana, to hunt white
goats. With me went a friend of many hunts,
John Willis, a tried mountain man.

We left the railroad at the squalid little hamlet of
Divide, where we hired a team and wagon from a
" busted " granger, suspected of being a Mormon, who
had failed, even with the help of irrigation, in raising a
crop. The wagon was in fairly good order ; the harness
was rotten, and needed patching with ropes ; while the
team consisted of two spoiled horses, overworked and
thin, but full of the devil the minute they began to pick
up condition. However, on the frontier one soon grows
to accept little facts of this kind with bland indifference ;
and Willis was not only an expert teamster, but possessed
that inexhaustible fertility of resource and unfailing readi-
ness in an emergency so characteristic of the veteran of
the border. Through hard experience he had become
master of plainscraft and woodcraft, skilled in all frontier

lore.

in

H2 The Wilderness Hunter.

For a couple of days we jogged up the valley of the
Big Hole River, along the mail road. At night we camped
under our wagon. At the mouth of the stream the valley
was a mere gorge, but it broadened steadily the farther
up we went, till the rapid river wound through a wide
expanse of hilly, treeless prairie. On each side the moun-
tains rose, their lower flanks and the foot-hills covered
with the evergreen forest. We got milk and bread at the
scattered log-houses of the few settlers ; and for meat we
shot sage fowl, which abounded. They were feeding on
grasshoppers at this time, and the flesh, especially of the
young birds, was as tender and well tasting as possible ;
whereas, when we again passed through the valley in
September, we found the birds almost uneatable, being
fairly bitter with sage. Like all grouse they are far tamer
earlier in the season than later, being very wild in winter ;
and, of course, they are boldest where they are least
hunted ; but for some unexplained reason they are always
tamer than the sharp-tail prairie fowl which are to be
found in the same locality.

Finally we reached the neighborhood of the Battle
Ground, where a rude stone monument commemorates the
bloody drawn fight between General Gibbons' soldiers and
the Nez Percys warriors of Chief Joseph. Here, on the
third day of our journey, we left the beaten road and
turned towards the mountains, following an indistinct trail
made by wood-choppers. We met with our full share of
the usual mishaps incident to prairie travel ; and towards
evening our team got mired in crossing a slough. We
attempted the crossing with some misgivings, which were

Mountain Game. 113

warranted by the result ; for the second plunge of the
horses brought them up to their bellies in the morass^
where they stuck. It was freezing cold, with a bitter
wind blowing, and the bog holes were skimmed with ice ;
so that we passed a thoroughly wretched two hours while
freeing the horses and unloading the wagon. However,
we eventually got across ; my companion preserving an
absolutely unruffled temper throughout, perseveringly
whistling the " Arkansas Traveller." At one period,
when we were up to our waists in the icy mud, it began
to sleet and hail, and I muttered that I would " rather it
did n't storm " ; whereat he stopped whistling for a moment
to make the laconic rejoinder, " We 're not having our
rathers this trip."

At nightfall we camped among the willow bushes by a
little brook. For firewood we had only dead willow sticks ;
they made a hot blaze which soon died out ; and as the
cold grew intense, we rolled up in our blankets as soon as
we had eaten our supper. The climate of the Big Hole
Basin is alpine ; that night, though it was the 2Oth of
August, the thermometer sank to 10° F.

Early next morning we struck camp, shivering with
cold as we threw the stiff, frozen harness on the horses.
We soon got among the foot-hills, where the forest was
open and broken by large glades, forming what is called a
park country. The higher we went the smaller grew the
glades and the denser the woodland ; and it began to be
very difficult to get the wagon forward. In many places
one man had to go ahead to pick out the way, and if
necessary do a little chopping and lopping with the axe,

The Wilderness Hunter.

while the other followed driving the team. At last we
were brought to a standstill, and pitched camp beside a
rapid, alder-choked brook in the uppermost of a series of
rolling glades, hemmed in by mountains and the dense
coniferous forest. Our tent stood under a grove of pines,
close to the brook ; at night we built in front of it a big
fire of crackling, resinous logs. Our goods were sheltered
by the wagon, or covered with a tarpaulin ; we threw down
sprays of odorous evergreens to make a resting-place for
our bedding ; we built small scaffolds on which to dry the
flesh of elk and deer. In an hour or two we had round us
all the many real comforts of such a little wilderness home.

Whoever has long roamed and hunted in the wilderness
always cherishes with wistful pleasure the memory of
some among the countless camps he has made. The
camp by the margin of the clear, mountain-hemmed lake ;
the camp in the dark and melancholy forest, where the
gusty wind booms through the tall pine tops ; the camp
under gnarled cottonwoods, on the bank of a shrunken
river, in the midst of endless grassy prairies, — of these,
and many like them, each has had its own charm. Of
course in hunting one must expect much hardship and
repeated disappointment ; and in many a camp, bad
weather, lack of shelter, hunger, thirst, or ill success with
game, renders the days and nights irksome and trying.
Yet the hunter worthy of the name always willingly takes
the bitter if by so doing he can get the sweet, and gladly
balances failure and success, spurning the poorer souls
who know neither.

We turned our horses loose, hobbling one ; and as we
did not look after them for several days, nothing but my

Mountain Game. 115

companion's skill as a tracker enabled us to find them
again. There was a spell of warm weather which brought
out a few of the big bull-dog flies, which drive a horse —
or indeed a man — nearly frantic ; we were in the haunts
of these dreaded and terrible scourges, which up to the
beginning of August render it impossible to keep stock
of any description unprotected where they abound, but
which are never formidable after the first frost. In many
parts of the wilderness these pests, or else the incredible
swarms of mosquitoes, blackflies, and buffalo gnats, render
life not worth living during the last weeks of spring and
the early months of summer.

There were elk and deer in the neighborhood ; also
ruffed, blue, and spruce grouse ; so that our camp was soon
stocked with meat. Early one morning while Willis was
washing in the brook, a little black bear thrust its sharp
nose through the alders a few feet from him, and then
hastily withdrew and was seen no more. The smaller
wild-folk were more familiar. As usual in the northern
mountains, the gray moose-birds and voluble, nervous little
chipmunks made themselves at home in the camp. Parties
of chickadees visited us occasionally. A family of flying
squirrels lived overhead in the grove ; and at nightfall
they swept noiselessly from tree to tree, in long graceful
curves. There were sparrows of several kinds moping
about in the alders ; and now and then one of them would
sing a few sweet, rather mournful bars.

After several days' preliminary exploration we started
on foot for white goat. We took no packs with us, each
carrying merely his jacket, with a loaf of bread and a
paper of salt thrust into the pockets. Our aim was to get

n6 The Wilderness Hunter.

well to one side of a cluster of high, bare peaks, and then
to cross them and come back to camp ; we reckoned that
the trip would take three days.

All the first day we tramped through dense woods and
across and around steep mountain spurs. We caught
glimpses of two or three deer and a couple of elk, all does
or fawns, however, which we made no effort to molest.
Late in the afternoon we stumbled across a family of
spruce grouse, which furnished us material for both sup-
per and breakfast. The mountain men call this bird the
fool-hen ; and most certainly it deserves the name. The
members of this particular flock, consisting of a hen and
her three-parts grown chickens, acted with a stupidity
unwonted even for their kind. They were feeding on the
ground among some young spruce, and on our approach
flew up and perched in the branches four or five feet above
our heads. There they stayed, uttering a low, complaining
whistle, and showed not the slightest suspicion when we
came underneath them with long sticks and knocked four
off their perches — for we did not wish to alarm any large
game that might be in the neighborhood by firing. One
particular bird was partially saved from my first blow by
the intervening twigs ; however, it merely flew a few yards,
and then sat with its bill open, — having evidently been a
little hurt, — until I came up and knocked it over with a
better directed stroke.

Spruce grouse are plentiful in the mountain forests of
the northern Rockies, and, owing to the ease with which
they are killed, they have furnished me my usual provender
when off on trips of this kind, where I carried no pack.

Mountain Game. 117

They are marvellously tame and stupid. The young birds
are the only ones I have ever killed in this manner with a
stick ; but even a full plumaged old cock in September is
easily slain with a stone by any one who is at all a good
thrower. A man who has played much base-ball need
never use a gun when after spruce grouse. They are the
smallest of the grouse kind ; the cock is very handsome,
with red eyebrows and dark, glossy plumage. Moreover,
he is as brave as he is stupid and good-looking, and in the
love season becomes fairly crazy : at such time he will
occasionally make a feint of attacking a man, strutting, flut-
tering, and ruffling his feathers. The flesh of the spruce
grouse is not so good as that of his ruffed and blue
kinsfolk ; and in winter, when he feeds on spruce buds, it
is ill tasting. I have never been able to understand why
closely allied species, under apparently the same surround-
ings, should differ so radically in such important traits
as wariness and capacity to escape from foes. Yet the
spruce grouse in this respect shows the most marked con-
trast to the blue grouse and the ruffed grouse. Of course
all three kinds vary greatly in their behavior accordingly
as they do or do not live in localities where they have
been free from man's persecutions. The ruffed grouse, a
very wary game bird in all old-settled regions, is often
absurdly tame in the wilderness ; and under persecution,
even the spruce grouse gains some little wisdom ; but the
latter never becomes as wary as the former, and under no
circumstances is it possible to outwit the ruffed grouse by
such clumsy means as serve for his simple-minded brother.
There is a similar difference between the sage fowl and

"8 The Wilderness Hunter.

prairie fowl, in favor of the latter. It is odd that the largest
and the smallest kinds of grouse found in the United
States should be the tamest ; and also the least savory.

After tramping all day through the forest, at nightfall
we camped in its upper edge, just at the foot of the steep
rock walls of the mountain. We chose a sheltered spot,
where the small spruce grew thick, and there was much
dead timber ; and as the logs, though long, were of little
girth, we speedily dragged together a number sufficient to
keep the fire blazing all night. Having drunk our full at
a brook we cut two forked willow sticks, and then each
plucked a grouse, split it, thrust the willow-fork into it, and
roasted it before the fire. Besides this we had salt, and
bread ; moreover we were hungry and healthily tired ; so
the supper seemed, and was, delicious. Then we turned
up the collars of our jackets, and lay down, to pass the
night in broken slumber ; each time the fire died down the
chill waked us, and we rose to feed it with fresh logs.

At dawn we rose, and cooked and ate the two remain-
ing grouse. Then we turned our faces upwards, and
passed a day of severe toil in climbing over, the crags.
Mountaineering is very hard work ; and when we got
high among the peaks, where snow filled the rifts, the
thinness of the air forced me to stop for breath every few
hundred yards of the ascent. We found much sign of
white goats, but in spite of steady work and incessant
careful scanning of the rocks, we did not see our quarry
until early in the afternoon.

We had clambered up one side of a steep saddle of
naked rock, some of the scarped ledges being difficult,

Mountain Game. 119

and indeed dangerous, of ascent. From the top of the
saddle a careful scrutiny of the neighboring peaks failed
to reveal any game, and we began to go down the other
side. The mountain fell away in a succession of low
cliffs, and we had to move with the utmost caution. In
letting ourselves down from ledge to ledge one would
hold the guns until the other got safe footing, and then
pass them down to him. In many places we had to work
our way along the cracks in the faces of the frost-riven
rocks. At last, just as we reached a little smooth shoulder,
my companion said, pointing down beneath us, " Look at
the white goat ! "

A moment or two passed before I got my eyes on it.
We were looking down into a basin-like valley, surrounded
by high mountain chains. At one end of the basin was a
low pass, where the ridge was cut up with the zigzag trails
made by the countless herds of game which had travelled
it for many generations. At the other end was a dark
gorge, through which a stream foamed. The floor of the
basin was bright emerald green, dotted with darker bands
where belts of fir trees grew ; and in its middle lay a
little lake.

At last I caught sight of the goat, feeding on a terrace
rather over a hundred and twenty-five yards below me.
I promptly fired, but overshot. The goat merely gave a
few jumps and stopped. My second bullet went through
its lungs ; but fearful lest it might escape to some inac-
cessible cleft or ledge I fired again, missing ; and yet
again, breaking its back. Down it went, and the next
moment began to roll over and over, from ledge to ledge.

120 The Wilderness Hunter.

I greatly feared it would break its horns ; an annoying
and oft-recurring incident of white-goat shooting, where
the nature of the ground is such that the dead quarry
often falls hundreds of feet, its body being torn to ribbons
by the sharp crags. However in this case the goat
speedily lodged unharmed in a little dwarf evergreen.

Hardly had I fired my fourth shot when my companion
again exclaimed, " Look at the white goats ! look at the
white goats ! " Glancing in the direction in which he
pointed I speedily made out four more goats standing in
a bunch rather less than a hundred yards off, to one side
of my former line of fire. They were all looking up at
me. They stood on a slab of white rock, with which the
color of their fleece harmonized well ; and their black
horns, muzzles, eyes, and hoofs looked like dark dots on
a light-colored surface, so that it took me more than one
glance to determine what they were. White goat invari-
ably run up hill when alarmed, their one idea seeming to
be to escape danger by getting above it ; for their brute
foes are able to overmatch them on anything like level
ground, but are helpless against them among the crags.
Almost as soon as I saw them these four started up the
mountain, nearly in my direction, while I clambered down
and across to meet them. They halted at the foot of a
cliff, and I at the top, being unable to see them ; but in
another moment they came bounding and cantering up
the sheer rocks, not moving quickly, but traversing the
most seemingly impossible places by main strength and
sure-footedness. As they broke by me, some thirty yards
off, I fired two shots at the rearmost, an old buck,

Mountain Game.

somewhat smaller than the one I had just killed ; and he
rolled down the mountain dead. Two of the others, a
yearling and a kid, showed more alarm than their elders,
and ran off at a brisk pace. The remaining one, an old
she, went off a hundred yards, and then deliberately
stopped and turned round to gaze at us for a couple of
minutes ! Verily the white goat is the fool-hen among
beasts of the chase.

Having skinned and cut off the heads we walked
rapidly onwards, slanting down the mountain side, and
then over and down the pass of the game trails ; for it
was growing late and we wished to get well down among
the timber before nightfall. On the way an eagle came
soaring over head, and I shot at it twice without success.
Having once killed an eagle on the wing with a rifle, I
always have a lurking hope that sometime I may be able
to repeat the feat. I revenged myself for the miss by
knocking a large blue goshawk out of the top of a blasted
spruce, where it was sitting in lazy confidence, its crop
stuffed with rabbit and grouse.

A couple of hours' hard walking brought us down to
timber ; just before dusk we reached a favorable camping
spot in the forest, beside a brook, with plenty of dead
trees for the night-fire. Moreover, the spot fortunately
yielded us our supper too, in the shape of a flock of young
spruce grouse, of which we shot off the heads of a couple.
Immediately afterwards I ought to have procured our
breakfast, for a cock of the same kind suddenly flew down
nearby ; but it was getting dark, I missed with the first
shot, and with the second must have merely creased the

122

The Wilderness Hunter.

neck, for though the tough old bird dropped, it fluttered
and ran off among the underbrush and escaped.

We broiled our two grouse before our fire, dragged
plenty of logs into a heap beside it, and then lay down to
sleep fitfully, an hour or so at a time, throughout the
night. We were continually wakened by the cold, when
we had to rise and feed the flames. In the early morning
we again started, walking for some time along the fresh
trail made by a large band of elk, cows and calves. We
thought we knew exactly the trend and outlet of the
valley in which we were, and that therefore we could tell
where the camp was ; but, as so often happens in the
wilderness, we had not reckoned aright, having passed
over one mountain spur too many, and entered the
ravines of an entirely different watercourse-system. In
consequence we became entangled in a network of hills
and valleys, making circle after circle to find our bear-
ings ; and we only reached camp after twelve hours' tire-
some tramp without food.

On another occasion I shot a white goat while it was
in a very curious and characteristic attitude. I was
hunting, again with an old mountain man as my sole
companion, among the high mountains of the Kootenai
country, near the border of Montana and British Colum-
bia. We had left our main camp, pitched by the brink
of the river, and were struggling wearily on foot through
the tangled forest and over the precipitous mountains,
carrying on our backs light packs, consisting of a little
food and two or three indispensable utensils, wrapped in
our blankets. One day we came to the foot of a great

Mountain Game. 123

chain of bare rocks, and climbed laboriously to its crest,
up cliff after cliff, some of which were almost perpendi£i>
lar. Swarming round certain of the rock shoulders,
crossing an occasional sheer chasm, and in many places
clinging to steep, smooth walls by but slight holds, we
reached the top. The climbing at such a height was
excessively fatiguing ; moreover, it was in places difficult
and even dangerous. Of course it was not to be com-
pared to the ascent of towering, glacier-bearing peaks,
such as those of the Selkirks and Alaska, where climbers
must be roped to one another and carry ice axes.

Once at the top we walked very cautiously, being
careful not to show ourselves against the sky line, and
scanning the mountain sides through our glasses. At last
we made out three goats, grazing unconcernedly on a
narrow grassy terrace, which sloped abruptly to the brink
of a high precipice. They were not very far off, and
there was a little rock spur above them which offered good
cover for a stalk ; but we had to crawl so slowly, partly
to avoid falling, and partly to avoid detaching loose rocks,
that it was nearly an hour before we got in a favorable
position above them, and some seventy yards off. The
frost-disintegrated mountains in which they live are
always sending down showers of detached stones, so that
the goats are not very sensitive to this noise ; still, they
sometimes pay instantaneous heed to it, especially if the
sound is repeated.

When I peeped over the little ridge of rock, shoving
my rifle carefully ahead of me, I found that the goats had
finished feeding and were preparing to leave the slope.

124 The Wilderness Hunter.

The old billy saw me at once, but evidently could not
quite make me out. Thereupon, gazing intently at me,
he rose gravely on his haunches, sitting up almost in the
attitude of a dog when begging. I know no other horned
animal that ever takes this position.

As I fired he rolled backwards, slipped down the
grassy slope, and tumbled over the brink of the cliff,
while the other two, a she and a kid, after a moment's
panic-struck pause, and a bewildered rush in the wrong
direction, made off up a little rocky gully, and were
out of sight in a moment. To my chagrin when I
finally reached the carcass, after a tedious and circu-
itous climb to the foot of the cliff, I found both horns
broken off.

It was late in the afternoon, and we clambered down
to the border of a little marshy alpine lake, which we
reached in an hour or so. Here we made our camp
about sunset, in a grove of stunted spruces, which fur-
nished plenty of dead timber for the fire. There were
many white-goat trails leading to this lake, and from the
slide rock roundabout we heard the shrill whistling of
hoary rock-woodchucks, and the querulous notes of the
little conies — two of the sounds most familiar to the
white-goat hunter. These conies had gathered heaps of
dried plants, and had stowed them carefully away for
winter use in the cracks between the rocks.

While descending the mountain we came on a little
pack of snow grouse or mountain ptarmigan, birds which,
save in winter, are always found above timber line. They
were tame and fearless, though hard to make out as they

HEAD OF WHITE GOAT.

SHOT AUGUST, 1889.

Mountain Game. 125

ran among the rocks, cackling noisily, with their tails
cocked aloft ; and we had no difficulty in killing four,
which gave us a good breakfast and supper. Old white
goats are intolerably musky in flavor, there being a very
large musk-pod between the horn and ear. The kids are
eatable, but of course are rarely killed ; the shot being
usually taken at the animal with best horns — and the shes
and young of any game should only be killed when there
is a real necessity.

These two hunts may be taken as samples of most
expeditions after white goat. There are places where the
goats live in mountains close to bodies of water, either
ocean fiords or large lakes ; and in such places canoes can
be used, to the greatly increased comfort and lessened
labor of the hunters. In other places, where the moun-
tains are low and the goats spend all the year in the
timber, a pack-train can be taken right up to the hunting
grounds. But generally one must go on foot, carrying
everything on one's back, and at night lying out in the
open or under a brush lean-to ; meanwhile living on spruce
grouse and ptarmigan, with an occasional meal of trout,
and in times of scarcity squirrels, or anything else. Such
a trip entails severe fatigue and not a little hardship. The
actual hunting, also, implies difficult and laborious climb-
ing, for the goats live by choice among the highest and
most inaccessible mountains ; though where they are found,
as they sometimes are, in comparatively low forest-clad
ranges, I have occasionally killed them with little trouble
by lying in wait beside the well-trodden game trails they
make in the timber.

The Wilderness Hunter.

In any event the hard work is to get up to the grounds
where the game is found. Once the animals are spied
there is but little call for the craft of the still-hunter in
approaching them. Of all American game the white goat
is the least wary and most stupid. In places where it is
much hunted it of course gradually grows wilder and
becomes difficult to approach and kill ; and much of its
silly tameness is doubtless due to the inaccessible nature
of its haunts, which renders it ordinarily free from molesta-
tion ; but aside from this it certainly seems as if it was
naturally less wary than either deer or mountain sheep.
The great point is to get above it. All its foes live in the
valleys, and while it is in the mountains, if they strive to
approach it at all, they must do so from below. It is in
consequence always on the watch for danger from beneath ;
but it is easily approached from above, and then, as it
generally tries to escape by running up hill, the hunter is
very apt to get a shot.

Its chase is thus laborious rather than exciting ; and to
my mind it is less attractive than is the pursuit of most of
our other game. Yet it has an attraction of its own after
all ; while the grandeur of the scenery amid which it must
be carried on, the freedom and hardihood of the life and
the pleasure of watching the queer habits of the game, all
combine to add to the hunter's enjoyment.

White goats are self-confident, pugnacious beings. An
old billy, if he discovers the presence of a foe without being
quite sure what it is, often refuses to take flight, but
walks around, stamping, and shaking his head. The
needle-pointed black horns are alike in both sexes, save

Mountain Game. 127

that the males' are a trifle thicker ; and they are most
effective weapons when wielded by the muscular neck__of
a resolute and wicked old goat. They wound like stilettos
and their bearer is in consequence a much more formidable
foe in a hand-to-hand struggle than either a branching-
antlered deer or a mountain ram, with his great battering
head. The goat does not butt ; he thrusts. If he can
cover his back by a tree trunk or boulder he can stand off
most carnivorous animals, no larger than he is.

Though awkward in movement, and lacking all sem-
blance of lightness or agility, goats are excellent climbers.
One of their queer traits is their way of getting their fore-
hoofs on a slight ledge, and then drawing or lifting their
bodies up by simple muscular exertion, stretching out
their elbows, much as a man would. They do a good deal
of their climbing by strength and command over their
muscles ; although they are also capable of making aston-
ishing bounds. If a cliff surface has the least slope, and
shows any inequalities or roughness whatever, goats can go
up and down it with ease. With their short, stout legs,
and large, sharp-edged hoofs they clamber well over ice,
passing and repassing the mountains at a time when no man
would so much as crawl over them. They bear extreme
cold with indifference, but are intolerant of much heat ;
even when the weather is cool they are apt to take their
noontide rest in caves ; I have seen them solemnly retiring,
for this purpose, to great rents in the rocks, at a time when
my own teeth chattered because of the icy wind.

They go in small flocks ; sometimes in pairs or little
family parties. After the rut the bucks often herd by

The Wilderness Hunter.

themselves, or go off alone, while the young and the shes
keep together throughout the winter and the spring. The
young are generally brought forth above timber line, or at
its uppermost edge, save of course in those places where
the goats live among mountains wooded to the top.
Throughout the summer they graze on the short mountain
plants which in many places form regular mats above tim-
ber line ; the deep winter snows drive them low down in
the wooded valleys, and force them to subsist by browsing.
They are so strong that they plough their way readily
through deep drifts ; and a flock of goats at this season,
when their white coat is very long and thick, if seen wad-
dling off through the snow, have a comical likeness to so
many diminutive polar bears. Of course they could easily
be run down in the snow by a man on snowshoes, in the
plain ; but on a mountain side there are always bare rocks
and cliff shoulders, glassy with winter ice, which give either
goats or sheep an advantage over their snowshoe-bearing
foes that deer and elk lack. Whenever the goats pass
the winter in woodland they leave plenty of sign in the
shape of patches of wool clinging to all the sharp twigs and
branches against which they have brushed. In the spring
they often form the habit of drinking at certain low pools,
to which they beat deep paths ; and at this season, and to
a less extent in the summer and fall, they are very fond of
frequenting mineral licks. At any such lick the ground is
tramped bare of vegetation, and is filled with pits and hol-
lows, actually dug by the tongues of innumerable genera-
tions of animals ; while the game paths lead from them in
a dozen directions.

Mountain Game. 129

In spite of the white goat's pugnacity, its clumsiness
renders it no very difficult prey when taken unawares by,
either wolf or cougar, its two chief enemies. They cannot
often catch it when it is above timber line ; but it is always
in sore peril from them when it ventures into the forest.
Bears, also, prey upon it in the early spring ; and one mid-
winter my friend Willis found a wolverine eating a goat
which it had killed in a snowdrift at the foot of a cliff.
The savage little beast growled and showed fight when
he came near the body. Eagles are great enemies of
the young kids, as they are of the young lambs of the
bighorn.

The white goat is the only game beast of America
which has not decreased in numbers since the arrival of the
white man. Although in certain localities it is now decreas-
ing, yet, taken as a whole, it is probably quite as plentiful
now as it was fifty years back ; for in the early part of the
present century there were Indian tribes who hunted it
perseveringly to make the skins into robes, whereas now
they get blankets from the traders and no longer persecute
the goats. The early trappers and mountain-men knew
but little of the animal. Whether they were after beaver,
or were hunting big game, or were merely exploring, they
kept to the valleys ; there was no inducement for them to
climb to the tops of the mountains ; so it resulted that there
was no animal with which the old hunters were so un-
familiar as with the white goat. The professional hunters
of to-day likewise bother it but little ; they do not care
to undergo severe toil for an animal with worthless flesh
and a hide of little value — for it is only in the late fall and

The Wilderness Hunter.

winter that the long hair and fine wool give the robe any
beauty.

So the quaint, sturdy, musky beasts, with their queer
and awkward ways, their boldness and their stupidity, with
their white coats and big black hoofs, black muzzles, and
sharp, gently-curved span-long black horns, have held
their own well among the high mountains that they love.
In the Rockies and the Coast ranges they abound from
Alaska south to Montana, Idaho, and Washington ; and
here and there isolated colonies are found among the high
mountains to the southward, in Wyoming, Colorado,
even in New Mexico, and, strangest of all, in one or two
spots among the barren coast mountains of southern Cal-
ifornia. Long after the elk has followed the buffalo to
the happy hunting grounds the white goat will flourish
among the towering and glacier-riven peaks, and, grown
wary with succeeding generations, will furnish splendid
sport to those hunters who are both good riflemen and
hardy cragsmen.

CHAPTER VIII.

HUNTING IN THE SELKIRKS ; THE CARIBOU.

IN September, 1888, I was camped on the shores of
Kootenai Lake, having with me as companions,
John Willis and an impassive-looking Indian named
Ammal. Coming across through the dense coniferous for-
ests of northern Idaho we had struck the Kootenai River.
Then we went down with the current as it wound in half
circles through a long alluvial valley of mixed marsh and
woodland, hemmed in by lofty mountains. The lake it-
self, when we reached it, stretched straight away like a
great fiord, a hundred miles long and about three in
breadth. The frowning and rugged Selkirks came down
sheer to the water's edge. So straight were the rock
walls that it was difficult for us to land with our batteau,
save at the places where the rapid mountain torrents
entered the lake. As these streams of swift water broke
from their narrow gorges they made little deltas of level
ground, with beaches of fine white sand ; and the stream-
banks were edged with cottonwood and poplar, their
shimmering foliage relieving the sombre coloring of the
evergreen forest.

131

i32 The Wilderness Hunter.

Close to such a brook, from which we drew strings of
large silver trout, our tent was pitched, just within the
forest. From between the trunks of two gnarled, wind-
beaten trees, a pine and a cottonwood, we looked out
across the lake. The little bay in our front, in which we
bathed and swam, was sometimes glassily calm ; and again
heavy wind squalls arose, and the surf beat strongly on
the beach where our boat was drawn up. Now and then
great checker-back loons drifted buoyantly by, stopping
with bold curiosity to peer at the white tent gleaming
between the tree-trunks, and at the smoke curling above
their tops ; and they called to one another, both at dawn
and in the daytime, with shrieks of unearthly laughter.
Troops of noisy, parti-colored Clark's crows circled over
the tree-tops or hung from among the pine cones ; jays
and chickadees came round camp, and woodpeckers ham-
mered lustily in the dead timber. Two or three times
parties of Indians passed down the lake, in strangely shaped
bark canoes, with peaked, projecting prows and sterns;
craft utterly unlike the graceful, feather-floating birches so
beloved by both the red and the white woodsmen of the
northeast. Once a couple of white men, in a dugout
or pirogue made out of a cottonwood log, stopped to get
lunch. They were mining prospectors, French Canadians
by birth, but beaten into the usual frontier-mining stamp ;
doomed to wander their lives long, ever hoping, in the
quest for metal wealth.

With these exceptions there was nothing to break the
silent loneliness of the great lake. Shrouded as we were
in the dense forest, and at the foot of the first steep hills,

Hunting in the Selkirks. 133

we could see nothing of the country on the side where
we were camped ; but across the water the immense moun-
tain masses stretched away from our vision, range upon
range, until they turned to a glittering throng of ice peaks
and snow fields, the feeding beds of glaciers. Between
the lake and the snow range were chains of gray rock
peaks, and the mountain sides and valleys were covered
by the primeval forest. The woods were on fire across
the lake from our camp, burning steadily. At night the
scene was very grand, as the fire worked slowly across the
mountain sides in immense zigzags of quivering red ;
while at times isolated pines of unusual size kindled, and
flamed for hours, like the torches of a giant. Finally the
smoke grew so thick as to screen from our views the grand
landscape opposite.

We had come down from a week's fruitless hunting in
the mountains ; a week of excessive toil, in a country
where we saw no game — for in our ignorance we had
wasted time, not going straight back to the high ranges,
from which the game had not yet descended. After three
or four days of rest, and of feasting on trout — a welcome
relief to the monotony of frying-pan bread and coarse salt
pork — we were ready for another trial ; and early one
morning we made the start. Having to pack everything
for a fortnight's use on our backs, through an excessively
rough country, we of course travelled as light as possible,
leaving almost all we had with the tent and boat. Each
took his own blanket ; and among us we carried a frying-
pan, a teapot, flour, pork, salt, tea, and matches. I also
took a jacket, a spare pair of socks, some handkerchiefs,

134 The Wilderness Hunter.

and my washing kit. Fifty cartridges in my belt completed
my outfit.

We walked in single file, as is necessary in thick
woods. The white hunter led and I followed, each with
rifle on shoulder and pack on back. Ammal, the Indian,
pigeon-toed along behind, carrying his pack, not as we did
ours, but by help of a forehead-band, which he sometimes
shifted across his breast. The travelling through the
tangled, brush-choked forest, and along the boulder-strewn
and precipitous mountain sides, was inconceivably rough
and difficult. In places we followed the valley, and when
this became impossible we struck across the spurs. Every
step was severe toil. Now we walked through deep moss
and rotting mould, every few feet clambering over huge
trunks ; again we pushed through a stiff jungle of bushes
and tall, prickly plants — called " devil's clubs," — which
stung our hands and faces. Up the almost perpendicular
hill-sides we in many places went practically on all fours,
forcing our way over the rocks and through the dense
thickets of laurels or young spruce. Where there were
windfalls or great stretches of burnt forest, black and
barren wastes, we balanced and leaped from log to log,
sometimes twenty or thirty feet above the ground ; and
when such a stretch was on a steep hill-side, and especially
if the logs were enveloped in a thick second growth of
small evergreens, the footing was very insecure, and the
danger from a fall considerable. Our packs added greatly
to our labor, catching on the snags and stubs ; and where
a grove of thick-growing young spruces or balsams had
been burned, the stiff and brittle twigs pricked like so

Hunting in the S el kirks. 135

much coral. Most difficult of all were the dry water-
courses, choked with alders, where the intertwined tangle
of tough stems formed an almost literally impenetrable
barrier to our progress. Nearly every movement — leap-
ing, climbing, swinging one's self up with one's hands,
bursting through stiff bushes, plunging into and out of
bogs — was one of strain and exertion ; the fatigue was
tremendous, and steadily continued, so that in an hour
every particle of clothing I had on was wringing wet with
sweat.

At noon we halted beside a little brook for a bite of
lunch — a chunk of cold frying-pan bread, which was all
we had.

While at lunch I made a capture. I was sitting on a
great stone by the edge of the brook, idly gazing at a
water-wren which had come up from a short flight — I can
call it nothing else — underneath the water, and was sing-
ing sweetly from a spray-splashed log. Suddenly a small
animal swam across the little pool at my feet. It was
less in size than a mouse, and as it paddled rapidly
underneath the water its body seemed flattened like a
disc and was spangled with tiny bubbles, like specks of
silver. It was a water-shrew, a rare little beast. I sat
motionless and watched both the shrew and the water-
wren — water-ousel, as it should rightly be named. The
latter, emboldened by my quiet, presently flew by me to a
little rapids close at hand, lighting on a round stone, and
then slipping unconcernedly into the swift water. Anon
he emerged, stood on another stone, and trilled a few bars,
though it was late in the season for singing ; and then

The Wilderness Hunter.

dove again into the stream. I gazed at him eagerly ; for
this strange, pretty water-thrush is to me one of the most
attractive and interesting birds to be found in the gorges
of the great Rockies. Its haunts are romantically beautiful,
for it always dwells beside and in the swift-flowing moun-
tain brooks ; it has a singularly sweet song ; and its ways
render it a marked bird at once, for though looking much
like a sober-colored, ordinary woodland thrush, it spends
half its time under the water, walking along the bottom,
swimming and diving, and flitting through as well as over
the cataracts.

In a minute or two the shrew caught my eye again.
It got into a little shallow eddy and caught a minute fish,
which it carried to a half-sunken stone and greedily
devoured, tugging voraciously at it as it held it down with
its paws. Then its evil genius drove it into a small puddle
alongside the brook, where I instantly pounced on and
slew it ; for I knew a friend in the Smithsonian at Wash-
ington who would have coveted it greatly. It was a soft,
pretty creature, dark above, snow-white below, with a very
long tail. I turned the skin inside out and put a bent
twig in, that it might dry ; while Ammal, who had been
intensely interested in the chase and capture, meditatively
shook his head and said " wagh," unable to fathom the
white man's medicine. However, my labor came to
nought, for that evening I laid the skin out on a log,
Ammal threw the log into the fire, and that was the end
of the shrew.

When this interlude was over we resumed our march,
toiling silently onwards through the wild and rugged

Hunting in the Selkirks. 137

country. Towards evening the valley widened a little,
and we were able to walk in the bottoms, which much
lightened our labor. The hunter, for greater ease, had
tied the thongs of his heavy pack across his breast, so
that he could not use his rifle ; but my pack was lighter,
and I carried it in a manner that would not interfere with
my shooting, lest we should come unawares on game.

It was well that I did so. An hour or two before
sunset we were travelling, as usual, in Indian file, beside
the stream, through an open wood of great hemlock trees.
There was no breeze, and we made no sound as we
marched, for our feet sunk noiselessly into the deep
sponge of moss, while the incessant dashing of the tor-
rent, churning among the stones, would have drowned a
far louder advance.

Suddenly the hunter, who was leading, dropped down
in his tracks, pointing forward ; and some fifty feet be-
yond I saw the head and shoulders of a bear as he rose
to make a sweep at some berries. He was in a hollow
where a tall, rank, prickly plant, with broad leaves, grew
luxuriantly ; and he was gathering its red berries, rising
on his hind legs and sweeping them down into his mouth
with his paw, and was much too intent on his work to
notice us, for his head was pointed the other way. The
moment he rose again I fired, meaning to shoot through
the shoulders, but instead, in the hurry, taking him in the
neck. Down he went, but whether hurt or not we could
not see, for the second he was on all fours he was no
longer visible. Rather to my surprise he uttered no
sound — for bear when hit or when charging often make

138 The Wilderness Hunter.

a great noise — so I raced forward to the edge of the hol-
low, the hunter close behind me, while Ammal danced about
in the rear, very much excited, as Indians always are in
the presence of big game. The instant we reached the
hollow and looked down into it from the low bank on
which we stood we saw by the swaying of the tall plants
that the bear was coming our way. The hunter was
standing some ten feet distant, a hemlock trunk being
between us ; and the next moment the bear sprang clean
up the bank the other side of the hemlock, and almost
within arm's length of my companion. I do not think he
had intended to charge ; he was probably confused by
the bullet through his neck, and had by chance blundered
out of the hollow in our direction ; but when he saw the
hunter so close he turned for him, his hair bristling and
his teeth showing. The man had no cartridge in his
weapon, and with his pack on could not have used it
anyhow ; and for a moment it looked as if he stood a fair
chance of being hurt, though it is not likely that the bear
would have done more than knock him down with his
powerful forepaw, or perchance give him a single bite in
passing. However, as the beast sprang out of the hol-
low he poised for a second on the edge of the bank to
recover his balance, giving me a beautiful shot, as he
stood sideways to me ; the bullet struck between the eye
and ear, and he fell as if hit with a pole axe.

Immediately the Indian began jumping about the
body, uttering wild yells, his usually impassive face lit up
with excitement, while the hunter and I stood at rest,
leaning on our rifles and laughing. It was a strange

Hunting in the Selkirks. 139

scene, the dead bear lying in the shade of the giant hem-
locks, while the fantastic-looking savage danced round
him with shrill whoops, and the tall frontiersman looked
quietly on.

Our prize was a large black bear, with two curious
brown streaks down his back, one on each side the spine.
We skinned him and camped by the carcass, as it was
growing late. To take the chill off the evening air we
built a huge fire, the logs roaring and crackling. To one
side of it we made our beds — of balsam and hemlock
boughs ; we did not build a brush lean-to, because the
night seemed likely to be clear. Then we supped on
sugarless tea, frying-pan bread, and quantities of bear
meat, fried or roasted — and how very good it tasted only
those know who have gone through much hardship and
some little hunger, and have worked violently for several
days without flesh food. After eating our fill we stretched
ourselves around the fire ; the leaping sheets of flame lit
the tree-trunks round about, causing them to start out
against the cavernous blackness beyond, and reddened
the interlacing branches that formed a canopy overhead.
The Indian sat on his haunches, gazing steadily and
silently into the pile of blazing logs, while the white
hunter and I talked together.

The morning after killing Bruin, we again took up
our march, heading up stream, that we might go to its
sources amidst the mountains, where the snow fields fed
its springs. It was two full days' journey thither, but we
took much longer to make it, as we kept halting to hunt
the adjoining mountains. On such occasions Ammal was

140 The Wilderness Hunter.

left as camp guard, while the white hunter and I would
start by daybreak and return at dark utterly worn out by
the excessive fatigue. We knew nothing of caribou, nor
where to hunt for them ; and we had been told that thus
early in the season they were above tree limit on the
mountain sides. Accordingly we would climb up to the
limits of the forests, but never found a caribou trail ; and
once or twice we went on to the summits of the crag-
peaks, and across the deep snow fields in the passes.
There were plenty of white goats, however, their trails
being broad paths, especially at one spot where they led
down to a lick in the valley ; round the lick, for a space
of many yards, the ground was trampled as if in a
sheepfold.

The mountains were very steep, and the climbing was
in places dangerous, when we were above the timber and
had to make our way along the jagged knife-crests and
across the faces of the cliffs ; while our hearts beat as if
about to burst in the high, thin air. In walking over
rough but not dangerous ground — across slides or in
thick timber — my companion was far more skilful than I
was ; but rather to my surprise I proved to be nearly as
good as he when we came to the really dangerous places,
where we had to go slowly, and let one another down
from ledge to ledge, or crawl by narrow cracks across the
rock walls.

The view from the summits was magnificent, and I
never tired of gazing at it. Sometimes the sky was a
dome of blue crystal, and mountain, lake, and valley lay
spread in startling clearness at our very feet; and again

CAMP IN THE FOREST.

Hunting in the Selkirk*.

snow-peak and rock-peak were thrust up like islands
through a sea of billowy clouds. At the feet of the-top-
most peaks, just above the edge of the forest, were marshy
alpine valleys, the boggy ground soaked with water, and
small bushes or stunted trees fringing the icy lakes. In
the stony mountain sides surrounding these lakes there
were hoary woodchucks, and conies. The former resem-
bled in their habits the alpine marmot, rather than our
own common eastern woodchuck. They lived alone or
in couples among the rocks, their gray color often mak-
ing them difficult to see as they crouched at the mouths
of their burrows, or sat bolt upright ; and as an alarm
note they uttered a loud piercing whistle, a strong con-
trast to the querulous, plaintive "p-a-a-y" of the timid
conies. These likewise loved to dwell where the stones
and slabs of rock were heaped on one another ; though so
timid, they were not nearly as wary as the woodchucks.
If we stood quite still the little brown creatures would
venture away from their holes and hop softly over the
rocks as if we were not present.

The white goats were too musky to eat, and we saw
nothing else to shoot ; so we speedily became reduced to
tea, and to bread baked in the frying-pan, save every now
and then for a feast on the luscious mountain blueberries.
This rather meagre diet, coupled with incessant fatigue
and exertion, made us fairly long for meat food ; and we
fell off in flesh, though of course in so short a time we
did not suffer in either health or strength. Fortunately
the nights were too cool for mosquitoes ; but once or
twice in the afternoons, while descending the lower slopes

The Wilderness Hunter.

of the mountains, we were much bothered by swarms of
gnats ; they worried us greatly, usually attacking us at a
time when we had to go fast in order to reach camp before
dark, while the roughness of the ground forced us to use
both hands in climbing, and thus forbade us to shield our
faces from our tiny tormentors. Our chief luxury was, at
the end of the day, when footsore and weary, to cast aside
our sweat-drenched clothes and plunge into the icy moun-
tain torrent for a moment's bath that freshened us as if by
magic. The nights were generally pleasant, and we slept
soundly on our beds of balsam boughs, but once or twice
there were sharp frosts, and it was so cold that the hunter
and I huddled together for warmth and kept the fires
going till morning. One day, when we were on the
march, it rained heavily, and we were soaked through, and
stiff and chilly when we pitched camp ; but we speedily
built a great brush lean-to, made a roaring fire in front,
and grew once more to warmth and comfort as we sat
under our steaming shelter. The only discomfort we
really minded was an occasional night in wet blankets.

In the evening the Indian and the white hunter played
interminable games of seven-up with a greasy pack of
cards. In the course of his varied life the hunter had
been a professional gambler ; and he could have easily
won all the Indian's money, the more speedily inasmuch
as the untutored red man was always attempting to cheat,
and was thus giving his far more skilful opponent a cer-
tain right to try some similar deviltry in return. How-
ever, it was distinctly understood that there should be no
gambling, for I did not wish Ammal to lose all his wages

Hunting in the Selkirks. 143

while in my employ ; and the white man stood loyally by
his agreement. AmmaTs people, just before I engaged
him, had been visited by their brethren, the Upper Koote-
nais, and in a series of gambling matches had lost about
all their belongings.

Ammal himself was one of the Lower Kootenais ; I had
hired him for the trip, as the Indians west of the Rockies,
unlike their kinsman of the plains, often prove hard and
willing workers. His knowledge of English was almost
nil ; and our very scanty conversation was carried on in
the Chinook jargon, universally employed between the
mountains and the Pacific. Apparently he had three
names : for he assured us that his " Boston " (i. <?., Ameri-
can) name was Ammal ; his " Siwash " (i. e.> Indian) name
was Appak ; and that the priest called him Abel — for
the Lower Kootenais are nominally Catholics. Whatever
his name he was a good Indian, as Indians go. I often
tried to talk with him about game and hunting, but we
understood each other too little to exchange more than
the most rudimentary ideas. His face brightened one
night when I happened to tell him of my baby boys at
home ; he must have been an affectionate father in his
way, this dark Ammal, for he at once proceeded to tell
me about his own papoose, who had also seen one snow,
and to describe how the little fellow was old enough to
take one step and then fall down. But he never displayed
so much vivacity as on one occasion when the white
hunter happened to relate to him a rather gruesome feat
of one of their mutual acquaintances, an Upper Kootenai
Indian named Three Coyotes. The latter was a quarrel-

144 The Wilderness H^lnter.

some, adventurous Indian, with whom the hunter had
once had a difficulty — " I had to beat the cuss over the
head with my gun a little," he remarked parenthetically.
His last feat had been done in connection with a number
of Chinamen who had been working among some placer
mines, where the Indians came to visit them. Now the
astute Chinese are as fond of gambling as any of the bor-
derers, white or red, and are very successful, generally
fleecing the Indians unmercifully. Three Coyotes lost
all he possessed to one of the pigtailed gentry ; but he
apparently took his losses philosophically, and pleasantly
followed the victor round, until the latter had won all the
cash and goods of several other Indians. Then he sud-
denly fell on the exile from the Celestial Empire, slew
him and took all his plunder, retiring unmolested, as it did
not seem any one's business to avenge a mere Chinaman.
Ammal was immensely interested in the tale, and kept
recurring to it again and again, taking two little sticks and
making the hunter act out the whole story. The Koote-
nais were then only just beginning to consider the Chinese
as human. They knew they must not kill white people,
and they had their own code of morality among them-
selves ; but when the Chinese first appeared they evi-
dently thought that there could not be any especial
objection to killing them, if any reason arose for doing so.
I think the hunter himself sympathized somewhat with
this view.

Ammal objected strongly to leaving the neighborhood
of the lake. He went the first day's journey willingly
enough, but after that it was increasingly difficult to get

Hunting in the Selkirks. 145

him along, and he gradually grew sulky. For some time
we could not find out the reason ; but finally he gave-us
to understand that he was afraid because up in the high
mountains there were "little bad Indians" who would
kill him if they caught him alone, especially at night. At
first we thought he was speaking of stray warriors of the
Blackfeet tribe ; but it turned out that he was not thinking
of human beings at all, but of hobgoblins.

Indeed the night sounds of these great stretches of
mountain woodland were very weird and strange. Though
I have often and for long periods dwelt and hunted in the
wilderness, yet I never before so well understood why
the people who live in lonely forest regions are prone to
believe in elves, wood spirits, and other beings of an
unseen world. Our last camp, whereat we spent several
days, was pitched in a deep valley nearly at the head of
the stream. Our brush shelter stood among the tall
coniferous trees that covered the valley bottom ; but the
altitude was so great that the forest extended only a very
short distance up the steep mountain slopes. Beyond,
on either hand, rose walls of gray rock, with snow beds in
their rifts, and, high above, toward the snow peaks, the
great white fields dazzled the eyes. The torrent foamed
swiftly by but a short distance below the mossy level
space on which we had built our slight weather-shield of
pine boughs ; other streams poured into it, from ravines
through which they leaped down the mountain sides.

After nightfall, round the camp fire, or if I awakened
after sleeping a little while, I would often lie silently for
many minutes together, listening to the noises of the

146 The Wilderness Hunter.

wilderness. At times the wind moaned harshly through
the tops of the tall pines and hemlocks ; at times the
branches were still ; but the splashing murmur of the
torrent never ceased, and through it came other sounds
— the clatter of huge rocks falling down the cliffs, the
dashing of cataracts in far-off ravines, the hooting of owls.
Again, the breeze would shift, and bring to my ears the
ringing of other brooks and cataracts and wind-stirred
forests, and perhaps at long intervals the cry of some
wild beast, the crash of a falling tree, or the faint rumble
of a snow avalanche. If I listened long enough, it would
almost seem that I heard thunderous voices laughing and
calling to one another, and as if at any moment some
shape might stalk out of the darkness into the dim light
of the embers.

Until within a couple of days of turning our faces
back towards the lake we did not come across any caribou,
and saw but a few old signs ; and we began to be fearful
lest we should have to return without getting any, for our
shoes had been cut to ribbons by the sharp rocks, we were
almost out of flour, and therefore had but little to eat.
However, our perseverance was destined to be rewarded.

The first day after reaching our final camp, we hunted
across a set of spurs and hollows but saw nothing living ;
yet we came across several bear tracks, and in a deep,
mossy quagmire, by a spring, found where a huge silver-
tip had wallowed only the night before.

Next day we started early, determined to take a long
walk and follow the main stream up to its head, or at
least above timber line. The hunter struck so brisk a

Hunting in the Selkirks. 147

pace, plunging through thickets and leaping from log to
log in the slashes of fallen timber, and from boulder- te
boulder in crossing the rock-slides, that I could hardly
keep up to him, struggle as I would, and we each of us
got several ugly tumbles, saving our rifles at the expense
of scraped hands and bruised bodies. We went up one
side of the stream, intending to come down the other ;
for the forest belt was narrow enough to hunt thoroughly.
For two or three hours we toiled thrpugh dense growth,
varied by rock-slides, and once or twice by marshy tracts,
where water oozed and soaked through the mossy hill*
sides, studded rather sparsely with evergreens. In one
of these places we caught a glimpse of an animal which
the track showed to be a wolverine.

Then we came to a spur of open hemlock forest ; and
no sooner had we entered it than the hunter stopped and
pointed exultingly to a well-marked game trail, in which
it was easy at a glance to discern the great round foot-
prints of our quarry. We hunted carefully over the spur
and found several trails, generally leading down along the
ridge ; we also found a number of beds, some old and
some recent, usually placed where the animal could keep
a lookout for any foe coming up from the valley. They
were merely slight hollows or indentations in the pine-
needles ; and, like the game trails, were placed in locali-
ties similar to those that would be chosen by blacktail
deer. The caribou droppings were also very plentiful ;
and there were signs of where they had browsed on the
blueberry bushes, cropping off the berries, and also ap-
parently of where they had here and there plucked a

148 The Wilderness Hunter.

mouthful of a peculiar kind of moss, or cropped off some
little mushrooms. But the beasts themselves had evi-
dently left the hemlock ridge, and we went on.

We were much pleased at finding the sign in open
timber, where the ground was excellent for still-hunting ;
for in such thick forest as we had passed through, it
would have been by mere luck only that we could have
approached game.

After a little while the valley became so high that the
large timber ceased, and there were only occasional groves
of spindling evergreens. Beyond the edge of the big tim-
ber was a large boggy tract, studded with little pools ; and
here again we found plenty of caribou tracks. A caribou
has an enormous foot, bigger than a cow's, and admirably
adapted for travelling over snow or bogs ; hence they can
pass through places where the long slender hoofs of
moose or deer, or the rounded hoofs of elk, would let
their owners sink at once ; and they are very difficult to
kill by following on snow-shoes — a method much in vogue
among the brutal game butchers for slaughtering the
more helpless animals. Spreading out his great hoofs,
and bending his legs till he walks almost on the joints, a
caribou will travel swiftly over a crust through which
a moose breaks at every stride, or through deep snow
in which a deer cannot flounder fifty yards. Usually he
trots ; but when pressed he will spring awkwardly along,
leaving tracks in the snow almost exactly like magnified
imprints of those of a great rabbit, the long marks of the
two hind legs forming an angle with each other, while the
forefeet make a large point almost between.

Hunting in the Selkirk**, 149

The caribou had wandered all over the bogs and
through the shallow pools, but evidently only at nighr or
in the dusk, when feeding or in coming to drink ; and we
again went on. Soon the timber disappeared almost en-
tirely, and thick brushwood took its place ; we were in a
high, bare alpine valley, the snow lying in drifts along the
sides. In places there had been enormous rock-slides,
entirely filling up the bottom, so that for a quarter of a
mile at a stretch the stream ran underground. In the
rock masses of this alpine valley we, as usual, saw many
conies and hoary woodchucks.

The caribou trails had ceased, and it was evident that
the beasts were not ahead of us in the barren, treeless
recesses between the mountains of rock and snow ; and
we turned back down the valley, crossing over to the
opposite or south side of the stream. We had already
eaten our scanty lunch, for it was afternoon. For several
miles of hard walking, through thicket, marsh, and rock-
slide, we saw no traces of the game. Then we reached
the forest, which soon widened out, and crept up the
mountain sides ; and we came to where another stream
entered the one we were following. A high, steep shoul-
der between the two valleys was covered with an open
growth of great hemlock timber, and in this we again
found the trails and beds plentiful. There was no breeze,
and after beating through the forest nearly to its upper
edge, we began to go down the ridge, or point of the
shoulder. The comparative freedom from brushwood
made it easy to walk without noise, and we descended
the steep incline with the utmost care, scanning every

150 The Wilderness Hunter.

object, and using every caution not to slip on the hem-
lock needles, nor to strike a stone or break a stick with our
feet. The sign was very fresh, and when still half a mile or
so from the bottom we at last came on three bull caribou.
Instantly the hunter crouched down, while I ran noise-
lessly forward behind the shelter of a big hemlock trunk
until within fifty yards of the grazing and unconscious
quarry. They were feeding with their heads up-hill, but so
greedily that they had not seen us ; and they were rather
difficult to see themselves, for their bodies harmonized
well in color with the brown tree-trunks and lichen-cov-
ered boulders. The largest, a big bull with a good but
by no means extraordinary head, was nearest. As he
stood fronting me with his head down I fired into his neck,
breaking the bone, and he turned a tremendous back
somersault. The other two halted a second in stunned
terror ; then one, a yearling, rushed past us up the valley
down which we had come, while the other, a large bull
with small antlers, crossed right in front of me, at a canter,
his neck thrust out, and his head — so coarse-looking com-
pared to the delicate outlines of an elk's — turned towards
me. His movements seemed clumsy and awkward, utterly
unlike those of a deer ; but he handled his great hoofs
cleverly enough, and broke into a headlong, rattling gal-
lop as he went down the hillside, crashing through the
saplings and leaping over the fallen logs. There was a
spur a little beyond, and up this he went at a swinging
trot, halting when he reached the top, and turning to look
at me once more. He was only a hundred yards away ;
and though I had not intended to shoot him (for his head

Hunting in the Selkirks.

was not good), the temptation was sore ; and I was glad
when, in another second, the stupid beast turned again
and went off up the valley at a slashing run.

Then we hurried down to examine with pride and
pleasure the dead bull — his massive form, sleek coat, and
fine antlers. It was one of those moments that repay the
hunter for days of toil and hardship ; that is if he needs
repayment, and does not find life in the wilderness pleasure
enough in itself.

It was getting late, and if we expected to reach camp
that night it behooved us not to delay ; so we merely
halted long enough to dress the caribou, and take a steak
with us — which we did not need, by the way, for almost
immediately we came on a band of spruce grouse and
knocked off the heads of five with our rifles. The caribou's
stomach was filled with blueberries, and with their leaves,
and with a few small mushrooms also, and some mouth-
fuls of moss. We went home very fast, too much elated
to heed scratches and tumbles ; and just as it was growing
so dark that further travelling was impossible we came
opposite our camp, crossed the river on a fallen hemlock,
and walked up to the moody Indian, as he sat crouched
by the fire.

He lost his sullenness when he heard what we had
done ; and next day we all went up and skinned and
butchered the caribou, returning to camp and making
ready to start back to the lake the following morning ; and
that night we feasted royally.

We were off by dawn, the Indian joyfully leading.
Coming up into the mountains he had always been the

The Wilderness Hunter.

rear man of the file ; but now he went first and struck a
pace that, continued all day long, gave me a little trouble
to follow. Each of us carried his pack ; to the Indians'
share fell the caribou skull and antlers, which he bore on
his head. At the end of the day he confessed to me that
it had made his head " heap sick " — as well it might. We
had made four short days*, or parts of days', march coming
up ; for we had stopped to hunt, and moreover we knew
nothing of the country, being probably the first white men
in it, while none of the Indians had ever ventured a long
distance from the lake. Returning we knew how to take
the shortest route, we were going down hill, and we walked
or trotted very fast ; and so we made the whole distance
in twelve hours' travel. At sunset we came out on the
last range of steep foot-hills, overlooking the cove where
we had pitched our permanent camp ; and from a bare
cliff shoulder we saw our boat on the beach, and our white
tent among the trees, just as we had left them, while the
glassy mirror of the lake reflected the outlines of the
mountains opposite.

Though this was the first caribou I had ever killed, it
was by no means the first I had ever hunted. Among
my earliest hunting experiences, when a lad, were two
fruitless and toilsome expeditions after caribou in the
Maine woods. One I made in the fall, going to the head
of the Munsungin River in a pirogue, with one companion.
The water was low, and all the way up we had to drag the
pirogue, wet to our middles, our ankles sore from slipping
on the round stones under the rushing water, and our
muscles aching with fatigue. When we reached the head-

Hunting in the Selkirks. 153

waters we found no caribou sign, and came back without
slaying anything larger than an infrequent duck or grouse.
The following February I made a trip on snow-shoes
after the same game, and with the same result. How-
ever, I enjoyed the trip, for the northland woods are
very beautiful and strange in winter, as indeed they are
at all other times — and it was my first experience on snow-
shoes. I used the ordinary webbed racquets, and as the
snow, though very deep, was only imperfectly crusted, I
found that for a beginner the exercise was laborious in
the extreme, speedily discovering that, no matter how
cold it was, while walking through the windless woods I
stood in no need of warm clothing. But at night, espe-
cially when lying out, the cold was bitter. Our plan was
to drive in a sleigh to some logging camp, where we were
always received with hearty hospitality, and thence make
hunting trips, in very light marching order, through the
heart of the surrounding forest. The woods, wrapped in
their heavy white mantle, were still and lifeless. There
were a few chickadees and woodpeckers ; now and then
we saw flocks of red-polls, pine linnets, and large, rosy
grossbeaks ; and once or twice I came across a grouse or
white rabbit, and killed it for supper ; but this was nearly
all. Yet, though bird life was scarce, and though we saw
few beasts beyond an occasional porcupine or squirrel,
every morning the snow was dotted with a network
of trails made during the hours of darkness ; the fine
tracery of the footprints of the little red wood-mouse, the
marks which showed the loping progress of the sable, the
V and dot of the rabbit, the round pads of the lucivee, and

154 The Wilderness Hunter.

many others. The snow reveals, as nothing else does,
the presence in the forest of the many shy woodland
creatures which lead their lives abroad only after nightfall.
Once we saw a coon, out early after its winter nap, and
following I shot it in a hollow tree. Another time we
came on a deer and the frightened beast left its "yard,"
a tangle of beaten paths, or deep furrows. The poor
animal made but slow headway through the powdery
snow ; after going thirty or forty rods it sank exhausted
in a deep drift, and lay there in helpless panic as we
walked close by. Very different were the actions of the only
caribou we saw — a fine beast which had shed its antlers.
I merely caught a glimpse of it as it leaped over a breast-
work of down timbers ; and we never saw it again.
Alternately trotting and making a succession of long
jumps, it speedily left us far behind ; with its great splay-
hoofs it could snow-shoe better than we could. It is
among deer the true denizen of the regions of heavy
snowfall ; far more so than the moose. Only under
exceptional conditions of crust-formation is it in any
danger from a man on snow-shoes.

In other ways it is no better able to take care of itself
than moose and deer ; in fact I doubt whether its senses
are quite as acute, or at least whether it is as wary and
knowing, for under like conditions it is rather easier to
still-hunt. In the fall caribou wander long distances, and
are fond of frequenting the wet barrens which break the
expanse of the northern forest in tracts of ever increasing
size as the subarctic regions are neared. At this time
they go in bands, each under the control of a master bull,

Hunting in the Selkirks. 155

which wages repeated and furious battles for his harem ;
and in their ways of life they resemble the wapiti more
than they do the moose or deer. They sometimes display
a curious boldness, the bulls especially showing both
stupidity and pugnacity when in districts to which men
rarely penetrate.

On our way out of the woods, after this hunt, there
was a slight warm spell, followed by rain and then by
freezing weather, so as to bring about what is known as a
silver thaw. Every twig was sheathed in glittering ice,
and in the moonlight the forest gleamed as if carved out
of frosted silver.

CHAPTER IX.

THE WAPITI OR ROUND-HORNED ELK.

ONCE, while on another hunt with John Willis,
I spent a week in a vain effort to kill moose
among the outlying mountains at the southern
end of the Bitter Root range. Then, as we had no meat,
we determined to try for elk, of which we had seen much
sign.

We were camped with a wagon, as high among the
foot-hills as wheels could go, but several hours' walk from
the range of the game ; for it was still early in the season,
and they had riot yet come down from the upper slopes.
Accordingly we made a practice of leaving the wagon for
two or three days at a time to hunt ; returning to get a
night's rest in the tent, preparatory to a fresh start. On
these trips we carried neither blankets nor packs, as the
walking was difficult and we had much ground to cover.
Each merely put on his jacket with a loaf of frying-pan
bread and a paper of salt stuffed into the pockets. We were
cumbered with nothing save our rifles and cartridges.

On the morning in question we left camp at sunrise.
For two or three hours we walked up-hill through a rather

156

The Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk. i5;

open growth of small pines and spruces, the travelling
being easy. Then we came to the edge of a deep valley,
a couple of miles across. Into this we scrambled, down a
steep slide, where the forest had grown up among the
immense boulder masses. The going here was difficult to
a degree ; the great rocks, dead timber, slippery pine
needles, and loose gravel entailing caution at every step,
while we had to guard our rifles carefully from the conse-
quences of a slip. It was not much better at the bottom,
which was covered by a tangled mass of swampy forest
Through this we hunted carefully, but with no success, in
spite of our toil ; for the only tracks we saw that were at
all fresh were those of a cow and calf moose. Finally, in
the afternoon, we left the valley and began to climb a
steep gorge, down which a mountain torrent roared and
foamed in a succession of cataracts.

Three hours* hard climbing brought us to another
valley, but of an entirely different character. It was sev-
eral miles long, but less than a mile broad. Save at the
mouth, it was walled in completely by chains of high rock-
peaks, their summits snow-capped ; the forest extended a
short distance up their sides. The bottom of the valley
was in places covered by open woodland, elsewhere by
marshy meadows, dotted with dense groves of spruce.

Hardly had we entered this valley before we caught a
glimpse of a yearling elk walking rapidly along a game
path some distance ahead. We followed as quickly as
we could without making a noise, but after the first
glimpse never saw it again ; for it is astonishing how fast
an elk travels, with its ground-covering walk. We went

is8 The Wilderness Hunter.

up the valley until we were well past its middle, and saw
abundance of fresh elk sign. Evidently two or three
bands had made the neighborhood their headquarters.
Among them were some large bulls, which had been try-
ing their horns not only on the quaking-asp and willow
saplings, but also on one another, though the rut had
barely begun. By one pool they had scooped out a kind
of wallow or bare spot in the grass, and had torn and
tramped the ground with their hoofs. The place smelt
strongly of their urine.

By the time the sun set we were sure the elk were
towards the head of the valley. We utilized the short
twilight in arranging our sleeping place for the night,
choosing a thick grove of spruce beside a small mountain
tarn, at the foot of a great cliff. We were chiefly influ-
enced in our choice by the abundance of dead timber of a
size easy to handle ; the fuel question being all-important
on such a trip, where one has to lie out without bedding,
and to keep up a fire, with no axe to cut wood.

Having selected a smooth spot, where some low-growing
firs made a wind break, we dragged up enough logs to feed
the fire throughout the night. Then we drank our fill at
the icy pool, and ate a few mouthfuls of bread. While it
was still light we heard the querulous bleat of the conies,
from among the slide rocks at the foot of the mountain ;
and the chipmunks and chickarees scolded at us. As
dark came on, and we sat silently gazing into the flickering
blaze, the owls began muttering and hooting.

Clearing the ground of stones and sticks, we lay down
beside the fire, pulled our soft felt hats over our ears,

The Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk. 159

buttoned our jackets, and went to sleep. Of course our
slumbers were fitful and broken, for every hour or two the
fire got low and had to be replenished. We wakened
shivering out of each spell of restless sleep to find the logs
smouldering ; we were alternately scorched and frozen.

As the first faint streak of dawn appeared in the dark
sky my companion touched me lightly on the arm. The
fire was nearly out ; we felt numbed by the chill air. At
once we sprang up, stretched our arms, shook ourselves,
examined our rifles, swallowed a mouthful or two of bread,
and walked off through the gloomy forest.

At first we could scarcely see our way, but it grew
rapidly lighter. The gray mist rose and wavered over the
pools and wet places ; the morning voices of the wilderness
began to break the death-like stillness. After we had
walked a couple of miles the mountain tops on our right
hand reddened in the sun-rays.

Then, as we trod noiselessly over the dense moss, and
on the pine needles under the scattered trees, we heard a
sharp clang and clatter up the valley ahead of us. We
knew this meant game of some sort ; and stealing lightly
and cautiously forward we soon saw before us the cause
of the noise.

In a little glade, a hundred and twenty-five yards from
us, two bull elk were engaged in deadly combat, while two
others were looking on. It was a splendid sight. The
great beasts faced each other with lowered horns, the manes
that covered their thick necks, and the hair on their
shoulders, bristling and erect. Then they charged furiously,
the crash of the meeting antlers resounding through the

The Wilderness Hunter.

valley. The shock threw them both on their haunches ,
with locked horns and glaring eyes they strove against
each other, getting their hind legs well under them, strain-
ing every muscle in their huge bodies, and squealing
savagely. They were evenly matched in weight, strength,
and courage ; and push as they might, neither got the
upper hand, first one yielding a few inches, then the other,
while they swayed to and fro in their struggles, smashing
the bushes and ploughing up the soil.

Finally they separated and stood some little distance
apart, under the great pines ; their sides heaving, and
columns of steam rising from their nostrils through the
frosty air of the brightening morning. Again they rushed
together with a crash, and each strove mightily to overthrow
the other, or get past his guard ; but the branching antlers
caught every vicious lunge and thrust. This set-to was
stopped rather curiously. One of the onlooking elk was
a yearling ; the other, though scarcely as heavy-bodied as
either of the fighters, had a finer head. He was evidently
much excited by the battle, and he now began to walk
towards the two combatants, nodding his head and uttering
a queer, whistling noise. They dared not leave their flanks
uncovered to his assault ; and as he approached they
promptly separated, and walked off side by side a few yards
apart. In a moment, however, one spun round and jumped
at his old adversary, seeking to stab him in his unprotected
flank ; but the latter was just as quick, and as before caught
the rush on his horns. They closed as furiously as ever ;
but the utmost either could do was to inflict one or two
punches on the neck and shoulders of his foe, where the

The Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk.

thick hide served as a shield. Again the peace-maker ap-
proached, nodding his head, whistling, and threatening ; and
again they separated.

This was repeated once or twice ; and I began to be
afraid lest the breeze which was very light and puffy
should shift and give them my wind. So, resting my rifle
on my knee I fired twice, putting one bullet behind the
shoulder of the peace-maker, and the other behind the
shoulder of one of the combatants. Both were deadly
shots, but, as so often with wapiti, neither of the wounded
animals at the moment showed any signs of being hit.
The yearling ran off unscathed. The other three crowded
together and trotted behind some spruce on the left, while
we ran forward for another shot. In a moment one fell ;
whereupon the remaining two turned and came back across
the glade, trotting to the right. As we opened fire they
broke into a lumbering gallop, but were both downed before
they got out of sight in the timber.

As soon as the three bulls were down we busied our-
selves taking off their heads and hides, and cutting off the
best portions of the meat — from the saddles and hams — to
take back to camp, where we smoked it. But first we had
breakfast. We kindled a fire beside a little spring of clear
water and raked out the coals. Then we cut two willow
twigs as spits, ran on each a number of small pieces of elk
loin, and roasted them over the fire. We had salt ; we
were very hungry ; and I never ate anything that tasted
better.

The wapiti is, next to the moose, the most quarrelsome
and pugnacious of American deer. It cannot be said that

1 62 The Wilderness Hunter.

it is ordinarily a dangerous beast to hunt ; yet there are
instances in which wounded wapiti, incautiously approached
to within striking distance, have severely misused their
assailants, both with their antlers and their forefeet. I
myself knew one man who had been badly mauled in this
fashion. When tamed the bulls are dangerous to human
life in the rutting season. In a grapple they are of course
infinitely more to be dreaded than ordinary deer, because
of their great strength.

However, the fiercest wapiti bull, when in a wild state,
flees the neighborhood of man with the same panic terror
shown by the cows ; and he makes no stand against a
grisly, though when his horns are grown he has little fear
of either wolf or cougar if on his guard and attacked fairly.
The chief battles of the bulls are of course waged with one
another. Before the beginning of the rut they keep by
themselves : singly, while the sprouting horns are still very
young, at which time they lie in secluded spots and move
about as little as possible ; in large bands, later in the
season. At the beginning of the fall these bands join with
one another and with the bands of cows and calves, which
have likewise been keeping to themselves during the late
winter, the spring, and the summer. Vast herds are thus
sometimes formed, containing, in the old days when wapiti
were plenty, thousands of head. The bulls now begin to
fight furiously with one another, and the great herd be-
comes split into smaller ones. Each of these has one
master bull, who has won his position by savage battle,
and keeps it by overcoming every rival, whether a solitary
bull, or the lord of another harem, who challenges him.

7^ he Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk. 163

When not fighting or love-making he is kept on the run,
chasing away the young bulls who venture to pay court to
the cows. He has hardly time to eat or sleep, and soon
becomes gaunt and worn to a degree. At the close of the
rut many of the bulls become so emaciated that they retire
to some secluded spot to recuperate. They are so weak
that they readily succumb to the elements, or to their
brute foes ; many die from sheer exhaustion.

The battles between the bulls rarely result fatally.
After a longer or shorter period of charging, pushing, and
struggling the heavier or more enduring of the two begins
to shove his weaker antagonist back and round ; and the
latter then watches his chance and bolts, hotly, but as a
rule harmlessly, pursued for a few hundred yards. The
massive branching antlers serve as effective guards against
the most wicked thrusts. While the antagonists are head
on, the worst that can happen is a punch on the shoulder
which will not break the thick hide, though it may bruise
the flesh underneath. It is only when a beast is caught
while turning that there is a chance to deliver a possibly
deadly stab in the flank, with the brow prongs, the " dog-
killers " as they are called in bucks. Sometimes, but
rarely, fighting wapiti get their antlers interlocked and
perish miserably ; my own ranch, the Elkhorn, was named
from finding on the spot where the ranch house now
stands two splendid pairs of elk antlers thus interlocked.

Wapiti keep their antlers until the spring, whereas
deer and moose lose theirs by midwinter. The bull's be-
havior in relation to the cow is merely that of a vicious
and brutal coward. He bullies her continually, and in

1 64 The Wilderness Hunter.

times of danger his one thought is for sneaking off to
secure his own safety. For all his noble looks he is a
very unamiable beast, who behaves with brutal ferocity to
the weak, and shows abject terror of the strong. Accord-
ing to his powers, he is guilty of rape, robbery, and even
murder. I never felt the least compunction at shooting a
bull, but I hate to shoot a cow, even when forced by neces-
sity. Maternity must always appeal to any one. A cow
has more courage than a bull. She will fight valiantly for
her young calf, striking such blows with her forefeet that
most beasts of prey at once slink away from the combat.
Cougars and wolves commit great ravages among the
bands ; but they often secure their quarry only at the cost
of sharp preliminary tussles — and in tussles of this kind
they do not always prove victors or escape scathless.

During the rut the bulls are very noisy ; and their notes
of amorous challenge are called " whistling " by the fron-
tiersmen,— very inappropriately. They begin to whistle
about ten days before they begin to run ; and they have
in addition an odd kind of bark, which is only heard occa-
sionally. The whistling is a most curious, and to me a
most attractive sound, when heard in the great lonely
mountains. As with so many other things, much depends
upon the surroundings. When listened to nearby and
under unfavorable circumstances, the sound resembles a
succession of hoarse whistling roars, ending with two or
three gasping grunts.

But heard at a little distance, and in its proper place,
the call of the wapiti is one of the grandest and most
beautiful sounds in nature. Especially is this the case

The Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk. 165

when several rivals are answering one another, on some
frosty moonlight night in the mountains. The wild melody
rings from chasm to chasm under the giant pines, sustained
and modulated, through bar after bar, filled with challenge
and proud anger. It thrills the soul of the listening hunter.

Once, while in the mountains, I listened to a peculiarly
grand chorus of this kind. We were travelling with pack
ponies at the time, and our tent was pitched in a grove of
yellow pine, by a brook in the bottom of a valley. On
either hand rose the mountains, covered with spruce forest.
It was in September, and the first snow had just fallen.

The day before we had walked long and hard ; and
during the night I slept the heavy sleep of the weary.
Early in the morning, just as the east began to grow gray,
I waked ; and as I did so, the sounds that smote on my
ear, caused me to sit up and throw off the warm blankets.
Bull elk were challenging among the mountains on both
sides of the valley, a little way from us, their notes echo-
ing like the calling of silver bugles. Groping about in the
dark, I drew on my trousers, an extra pair of thick socks,
and my moccasins, donned a warm jacket, found my fur
cap and gloves, and stole out of the tent with my rifle.

The air was very cold ; the stars were beginning to
pale in the dawn ; on the ground the snow glimmered
white, and lay in feathery masses on the branches of the
balsams and young pines. The air rang with the chal-
lenges of many wapiti ; their incessant calling came peal-
ing down through the still, snow-laden woods. First one
bull challenged ; then another answered ; then another
and another. Two herds were approaching one another

166 The Wilderness Hunter.

from opposite sides of the valley, a short distance above
our camp ; and the master bulls were roaring defiance as
they mustered their harems.

I walked stealthily up the valley, until I felt that I
was nearly between the two herds ; and then stood motion-
less under a tall pine. The ground was quite open at this
point, the pines, though large, being scattered ; the little
brook ran with a strangled murmur between its rows of
willows and alders, for the ice along its edges nearly
skimmed its breadth. The stars paled rapidly, the gray dawn
brightened, and in the sky overhead faint rose-colored
streaks were turning blood-red. What little wind there
was breathed in my face and kept me from discovery.

I made up my mind, from the sound of the challenging,
now very near me, that one bull on my right was advancing
towards a rival on my left, who was answering every call.
Soon the former approached so near that I could hear him
crack the branches, and beat the bushes with his horns ;
and I slipped quietly from tree to tree, so as to meet him
when he came out into the more open woodland. Day
broke, and crimson gleams played across the snow-clad
mountains beyond.

At last, just as the sun flamed red above the hill-tops,
I heard the roar of the wapiti's challenge not fifty yards
away ; and I cocked and half raised my rifle, and stood
motionless. In a moment more, the belt of spruces in
front of me swayed and opened, and the lordly bull stepped
out. He bore his massive antlers aloft ; the snow lay thick
on his mane ; he snuffed the air and stamped on the ground
as he walked. As I drew a bead, the motion caught his

The Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk. 167

eye ; and instantly his bearing of haughty and warlike
self-confidence changed to one of alarm. My bullet smote
through his shoulder-blades, and he plunged wildly for-
ward, and fell full length on the blood-stained snow.

Nothing can be finer than a wapiti bull's carriage when
excited or alarmed ; he then seems the embodiment of
strength and stately grace. But at ordinary times his
looks are less attractive, as he walks with his neck level
with his body and his head outstretched, his horns lying
almost on his shoulders. The favorite gait of the wapiti
is the trot, which is very fast, and which they can keep up
for countless miles ; when suddenly and greatly alarmed,
they break into an awkward gallop, which is faster, but
which speedily tires them.

I have occasionally killed elk in the neighborhood of
my ranch on the Little Missouri. They were very plentiful
along this river until 1881, but the last of the big bands
were slaughtered or scattered about that time. Smaller
bunches were found for two or three years longer ; and to
this day, scattered individuals, singly or in parties of two
or three, linger here and there in the most remote and
inaccessible parts of the broken country. In the old
times they were often found on the open prairie, and were
fond of sunning themselves on the sand bars by the river,
even at midday, while they often fed by daylight (as they
do still in remote mountain fastnesses). Nowadays the
few survivors dwell in the timber of the roughest ravines,
and only venture abroad at dusk or even after nightfall.
Thanks to their wariness and seclusiveness, their presence
is often not even suspected by the cowboys or others who

1 68 The Wilderness Hunter.

occasionally ride through their haunts ; and so the hunters
only know vaguely of their existence. It thus happens
that the last individuals of a species may linger in a
locality for many years after the rest of their kind have
vanished ; on the Little Missouri to-day every elk (as in
the Rockies every buffalo) killed is at once set down as
" the last of its race." For several years in succession I
myself kept killing one or two such " last survivors."

A yearling bull which I thus obtained was killed while in
company with my staunch friend Will Dow, on one of the
first trips which I took with that prince of drivers, old man
Tompkins. We were laying in our stock of winter meat ;
and had taken the wagon to go to a knot of high and
very rugged hills where we knew there were deer, and
thought there might be elk. Old Tompkins drove the
wagon with unmoved composure up, down, and across
frightful-looking hills, and when they became wholly
impassable, steered the team over a cut bank and up a
kind of winding ravine or wooded washout, until it became
too rough and narrow for farther progress. There was
good grass for the horses on a hill off to one side of us ;
and stunted cottonwood trees grew between the straight
white walls of clay and sandstone which hemmed in the
washout. We pitched our tent by a little trickling spring
and kindled a great fire, the fitful glare lighting the bare
cliffs and the queer, sprawling tops of the cottonwoods;
and after a dinner of fried prairie-chicken went to bed.
At dawn we were off, and hunted till nearly noon ; when
Dow, who had been walking to one side, beckoned to me
and remarked, " There 's something mighty big in the timber

The Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk. 169

down under the cliff ; I guess it 's an elk " (he had never
seen one before) ; and the next moment, as old Tompkins
expressed it, " the elk came bilin' out of thecoulie." Old
Tompkins had a rifle on this occasion and the sight of
game always drove him crazy ; as I aimed I heard Dow
telling him " to let the boss do the shooting " ; and I killed
the elk to a savage interjectional accompaniment of threats
delivered at old man Tompkins between the shots.

Elk are sooner killed off than any other game save
buffalo, but this is due to their size and the nature of the
ground they frequent rather than to their lack of shyness.
They like open woodland, or mountainous park country,
or hills riven by timber coulies ; and such ground is the
most favorable to the hunter, and the most attractive in
which to hunt. On the other hand moose, for instance,
live in such dense cover that it is very difficult to get at
them ; when elk are driven by incessant persecution to take
refuge in similar fastnesses they become almost as hard to
kill. In fact, in this respect the elk stands to the moose
much as the blacktail stands to the whitetail. The moose
and whitetail are somewhat warier than the elk and black-
tail ; but it is the nature of the ground which they inhabit
that tells most in their favor. On the other hand, as com-
pared to the blacktail, it is only the elk's size which puts it
at a disadvantage in the struggle for life when the rifle-
bearing hunter appears on the scene. It is quite as shy
and difficult to approach as the deer ; but its bulk renders
it much more eagerly hunted, more readily seen, and more
easily hit. Occasionally elk suffer from fits of stupid tame-
ness or equally stupid panic ; but the same is true of

1 70 The Wilderness Hunter.

blacktail. In two or three instances, I have seen elk show
silly ignorance of danger ; but half a dozen times I have
known blacktail behave with an even greater degree of
stupid familiarity.

There is another point in which the wapiti and black-
tail agree in contrast to the moose and whitetail. Both
the latter delight in water-lilies, entering the ponds to find
them, and feeding on them greedily. The wapiti is very
fond of wallowing in the mud, and of bathing in pools
and lakes ; but as a rule it shows as little fondness as
the blacktail for feeding on water-lilies or other aquatic
plants.

In reading of the European red deer, which is nothing
but a diminutive wapiti, we often see a " stag of ten "
alluded to as if a full-grown monarch. A full-grown wapiti
bull, however, always has twelve, and may have fourteen,
regular normal points on his antlers, besides irregular ad-
ditional prongs ; and he occasionally has ten points when
a two-year-old, as I have myself seen with calves captured
young and tamed. The calf has no horns. The yearling
carries two foot-long spikes, sometimes bifurcated, so as to
make four points. The two-year-old often has six or
eight points on his antlers ; but sometimes ten, although
they are always small. The three-year-old has eight or ten
points, while his body may be nearly as large as that of a
full-grown animal. The four-year-old is normally a ten or
twelve pointer, but as yet with much smaller antlers than
those so proudly borne by the old bulls.

Frontiersmen only occasionally distinguish the prongs
by name. The brow and bay points are called dog-killers

The Wapiti or Round-Horned Rlk.

or war-tines ; the tray is known simply as the third point ;
and the most characteristic prong, the long and massive
fourth, is now and then called the dagger-point ; the others
being known as the fifth and sixth.

In the high mountain forest into which the wapiti has
been driven, the large, heavily furred northern lynx, the
lucivee, takes the place of the smaller, thinner-haired lynx
of the plains and of the more southern districts, the bob-
cat or wildcat. On the Little Missouri the latter is the
common form ; yet I have seen a lucivee which was killed
there. On Clarke's Fork of the Columbia both occur, the
lucivee being the most common. They feed chiefly on
hares, squirrels, grouse, fawns, etc. ; and the lucivee, at
least, also occasionally kills foxes and coons, and has in its
turn to dread the pounce of the big timber wolf. Both
kinds of lynx can most easily be killed with dogs, as they
tree quite readily when thus pursued. The wildcat is often
followed on horseback, with a pack of hounds, when the
country is favorable ; and when chased in this fashion
yields excellent sport. The skin of both these lynxes is
tender. They often maul an inexperienced pack quite
badly, inflicting severe scratches and bites on any hound
which has just resolution enough to come to close quarters,
but not to rush in furiously ; but a big fighting dog will
readily kill either. At Thompson's Falls two of Willis1
hounds killed a lucivee unaided, though one got torn.
Archibald Rogers' dog Sly, a cross between a greyhound
and a bull mastiff, killed a bobcat single-handed. He
bayed the cat and then began to threaten it, leaping from
side to side ; suddenly he broke the motion, and rushing

The Wilderness Hunter.

in got his foe by the small of the back and killed it with-
out receiving a scratch.

The porcupine is sure to attract the notice of any one
going through the mountains. It is also found in the
timber belts fringing the streams of the great plains,
where it lives for a week at a time in a single tree or
clump of trees, peeling the bark from the limbs. But it
is the easiest of all animals to exterminate, and is now
abundant only in deep mountain forests. It is very tame
and stupid ; it goes on the ground, but its fastest pace is
a clumsy waddle, and on trees, but is the poorest of tree-
climbers, — grasping the trunk like a small, slow bear. It
can neither escape nor hide. It trusts to its quills for
protection, as the skunk does to its odor ; but it is far less
astute and more helpless than the skunk. It is readily
made into a very unsuspicious and familiar, but uninter-
esting, pet. I have known it come into camp in the day-
time, and forage round the fire by which I was sitting.
Its coat protects it against most foes. Bears sometimes
eat it when very hungry, as they will eat anything ; and I
think that elk occasionally destroy it in sheer wantonness.
One of its most resolute foes is the fisher, that big sable
— almost a wolverine — which preys on everything, from
a coon to a fawn, or even a small fox.

The noisy, active little chickarees and chipmunks,
however, are by far the most numerous and lively deni-
zens of these deep forests. They are very abundant and
very noisy ; scolding the travellers exactly as they do the
bears when the latter dig up the caches of ants. The
chipmunks soon grow tame and visit camp to pick up the

The Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk. 173

crusts. The chickarees often ascend to the highest pine
tops, where they cut off the cones, dropping them to the
ground with a noise which often for a moment puzzles
the still-hunter.

Two of the most striking and characteristic birds to be
seen by him who hunts and camps among the pine-clad
and spruce-clad slopes of the northern Rockies are a small
crow and a rather large woodpecker. The former is
called Clarke's crow, and the latter Lewis' woodpecker.
Their names commemorate their discoverers, the explorers
Lewis and Clarke, the first white men who crossed the
United States to the Pacific, the pioneers of that great
army of adventurers who since then have roamed and
hunted over the Great Plains and among the Rocky
Mountains.

These birds are nearly of a size, being about as large
as a flicker. The Clarke's crow, an ash-colored bird with
black wings and white tail and forehead, is as common as
it is characteristic, and is sure to attract attention. It is
as knowing as the rest of its race, and very noisy and
active. It flies sometimes in a straight line, with regular
wing-beats, sometimes in a succession of loops like a
woodpecker, and often lights on rough bark or a dead
stump in an attitude like the latter ; and it is very fond of
scrambling and clinging, often head downwards, among
the outermost cones on the top of a pine, chattering loudly
all the while. One of the noticeable features of its flight
is the hollow, beating sound of the wings. It is restless
and fond of company, going by preference in small parties.
These little parties often indulge in regular plays, assem-

The Wilderness Hunter.

bling in some tall tree-top and sailing round and round it,
in noisy pursuit of one another, lighting continually among
the branches.

The Lewis' woodpecker, a handsome, dark-green bird,
with white breast and red belly, is much rarer, quite as
shy, and generally less noisy and conspicuous. Its flight
is usually strong and steady, like a jay's, and it perches
upright among the twigs, or takes short flights after pass-
ing insects, as often as it scrambles over the twigs in the
ordinary woodpecker fashion. Like its companion, the
Clarke's crow, it is ordinarily a bird of the high tree-tops,
and around these it indulges in curious aerial games, again
like those of the little crow. It is fond of going in troops,
and such a troop frequently choose some tall pine and
soar round and above it in irregular spirals.

The remarkable and almost amphibious little water
wren, with its sweet song, its familiarity, and its very
curious habit of running on the bottom of the stream, sev-
eral feet beneath the surface of the race of rapid water,
is the most noticeable of the small birds of the Rocky
Mountains. It sometimes sings loudly while floating with
half-spread wings on the surface of a little pool. Taken
as a whole, small birds are far less numerous and notice-
able in the wilderness, especially in the deep forests, than
in the groves and farmland of the settled country. The
hunter and trapper are less familiar with small-bird music
than with the screaming of the eagle and the large hawks,
the croaking bark of the raven, the loon's cry, the crane's
guttural clangor, and the unearthly yelling and hooting of
the big owls.

The Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk. 175

No bird is so common around camp, so familiar, so
amusing on some occasions, and so annoying on others,
as that drab-colored imp of iniquity, the whisky-jack — also
known as the moose bird and camp robber. The familiarity
of these birds is astonishing, and the variety of their cries,
—generally harsh, but rarely musical — extraordinary. They
snatch scraps of food from the entrances of the tents, and
from beside the camp fire ; and they shred the venison hung
in the trees unless closely watched. I have seen an irate
cook of accurate aim knock one off an elk-haunch, with a
club seized at random ; and I have known another to be
killed with a switch, and yet another to be caught alive in
the hand. When game is killed they are the first birds to
come to the carcass. Following them come the big jays,
of a uniform dark-blue color, who bully them, and are bullied
in turn by the next arrivals, the magpies ; while when the
big ravens come, they keep all the others in the back-
ground, with the exception of an occasional wide-awake
magpie.

For a steady diet no meat tastes better or is more
nourishing than elk venison ; moreover the different kinds
of grouse give variety to the fare, and delicious trout swarm
throughout the haunts of the elk in the Rockies. I have
never seen them more numerous than in the wonderful and
beautiful Yellowstone Canyon, a couple of miles below
where the river pitches over the Great Falls, in wind-
swayed cataracts of snowy foam. At this point it runs like
a mill-race, in its narrow winding bed, between immense
walls of queerly carved and colored rock which tower aloft
in almost perpendicular cliffs. Late one afternoon in the fall

The Wilderness Hunter.

of '90 Ferguson and I clambered down into the canyon,
with a couple of rods, and in an hour caught all the fish we
could carry. It then lacked much less than an hour of
nightfall, and we had a hard climb to get out of the canyon
before darkness overtook us ; as there was not a vestige of
a path, and as the climbing was exceedingly laborious and
at one or two points not entirely without danger, the rocks
being practicable in very few places, we could hardly have
made much progress after it became too dark to see. Each
of us carried the bag of trout in turn, and I personally was
nearly done out when we reached the top ; and then had
to trot three miles to the horses.

THE YELLOWSTONE CANYON.

CHAPTER X.

AN ELK-HUNT AT TWO-OCEAN PASS.

IN September, 1891, with my ranch-partner, Ferguson,
I made an elk-hunt in northwestern Wyoming among
the Shoshone Mountains, where they join the Hoodoo
and Absoraka ranges. There is no more beautiful game-
country in the U nited States. 1 1 is a park land, where glades,
meadows, and high mountain pastures break the evergreen
forest ; a forest which is open compared to the tangled
density of the woodland farther north. It is a high, cold
region of many lakes and clear rushing streams. The
steep mountains are generally of the rounded form so often
seen in the ranges of the Cordilleras of the United States ;
but the Koodoos, or Goblins, are carved in fantastic and
extraordinary shapes ; while the Tetons, a group of isolated
rock-peaks, show a striking boldness in their lofty out-
lines.

This was one of the pleasantest hunts I ever made.
As always in the mountains, save where the country is so
rough and so densely wooded that one must go a-foot, we
had a pack-train ; and we took a more complete outfit than
we had ever before taken on such a hunt, and so travelled

177

The Wilderness Hunter.

in much comfort. Usually when in the mountains I have
merely had one companion, or at most a couple, and two
or three pack-ponies ; each of us doing his share of the
packing, cooking, fetching water, and pitching the small
square of canvas which served as tent. In itself packing
is both an art and a mystery, and a skilful professional
packer, versed in the intricacies of the " diamond
hitch," packs with a speed which no non-professional
can hope to rival, and fixes the side packs and top packs
with such scientific nicety, and adjusts the doubles and
turns of the lash-rope so accurately, that everything stays
in place under any but the most adverse conditions. Of
course, like most hunters, I can myself in case of need
throw the diamond hitch after a fashion, and pack on
either the off or near side. Indeed, unless a man can pack
it is not possible to make a really hard hunt in the moun-
tains, if alone, or with only a single companion. The mere
fair-weather hunter, who trusts entirely to the exertions of
others, and does nothing more than ride or walk about
under favorable circumstances, and shoot at what somebody
else shows him, is a hunter in name only. Whoever would
really deserve the title must be able at a pinch to shift for
himself, to grapple with the difficulties and hardships of
wilderness life unaided, and not only to hunt, but at times
to travel for days, whether on foot or on horseback, alone.
However, after one has passed one's novitiate, it is pleasant
to be comfortable when the comfort does not interfere with
the sport ; and although a man sometimes likes to hunt
alone, yet often it is well to be with some old mountain
hunter, a master of woodcraft, who is a first-rate hand at

An Rlk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass. 179

finding game, creeping upon it, and tracking it when
wounded. With such a companion one gets much more
game, and learns many things by observation instead of by
painful experience.

On this trip we had with us two hunters, Tazewel1
Woody and Elwood Hofer, a packer who acted as cook,
and a boy to herd the horses. Of the latter, there were
twenty ; six saddle-animals and fourteen for the packs — two
or three being spare horses, to be used later in carrying the
elk-antlers, sheep-horns, and other trophies. Like most
hunters' pack-animals, they were either half broken, or else
broken down ; tough, unkempt, jaded-looking beasts of
every color — sorrel, buckskin, pinto, white, bay, roan.
After the day's work was over, they were turned loose to
shift for themselves ; and about once a week they strayed,
and all hands had to spend the better part of the day hunt-
ing for them. The worst ones for straying, curiously
enough, were three broken-down old " bear-baits," which
went by themselves, as is generally the case with the cast-
off horses of a herd. There were two sleeping-tents,
another for the provisions, — in which we ate during bad
weather, — and a canvas tepee, which was put up with
lodge-poles, Indian fashion, like a wigwam. A tepee is
more difficult to put up than an ordinary tent ; but it is very
convenient when there is rain or snow. A small fire kindled
in the middle keeps it warm, the smoke escaping through
the open top — that is, when it escapes at all ; strings are
passed from one pole to another, on which to hang wet
clothes and shoes, and the beds are made around the
edges. As an offset to the warmth and shelter, the smoke

i8o The Wilderness Hunter.

often renders it impossible even to sit upright. We had a
very good camp-kit, including plenty of cooking- and eat-
ing-utensils ; and among our provisions were some canned
goods and sweetmeats, to give a relish to our meals of meat
and bread. We had fur coats and warm clothes, — which
are chiefly needed at night, — and plenty of bedding, includ-
ing water-proof canvas sheeting and a couple of caribou-
hide sleeping-bags, procured from the survivors of a party
of arctic explorers. Except on rainy days I used my buck-
skin hunting-shirt or tunic ; in dry weather I deem it,
because of its color, texture, and durability, the best
possible garb for the still-hunter, especially in the woods.

Starting a day's journey south of Heart Lake, we
travelled and hunted on the eastern edge of the great basin,
wooded and mountainous, wherein rise the head-waters of
the mighty Snake River. There was not so much as a
spotted line — that series of blazes made with the axe, man's
first highway through the hoary forest, — but this we did
not mind, as for most of the distance we followed well-worn
elk-trails. The train travelled in Indian file. At the head,
to pick the path, rode tall, silent old Woody, a true type
of the fast-vanishing race of game hunters and Indian
fighters, a man who had been one of the California forty-
niners, and who ever since had lived the restless, reckless
life of the wilderness. Then came Ferguson and myself ;
then the pack-animals, strung out in line ; while from the
rear rose the varied oaths of our three companions, whose
miserable duty it was to urge forward the beasts of burden.

It is heart-breaking work to drive a pack-train through
thick timber and over mountains, where there is either a

An Elk- Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass. 181

dim trail or none. The animals have a perverse faculty
for choosing the wrong turn at critical moments; and they
are continually scraping under branches and squeezing be-
tween tree-trunks, to the jeopardy or destruction of their
burdens. After having been laboriously driven up a very
steep incline, at the cost of severe exertion both to them
and to the men, the foolish creatures turn and run down
to the bottom, so that all the work has to be done over
again. Some travel too slow ; others travel too fast. Yet
one cannot but admire the toughness of the animals, and
the surefootedness with which they pick their way along
the sheer mountain sides, or among boulders and over
fallen logs.

As our way was so rough, we found that we had to halt
at least once every hour to fix the packs. Moreover, we at
the head of the column were continually being appealed to
for help by the unfortunates in the rear. First it would
be " that white-eyed cayuse ; one side of its pack 's down ! "
then we would be notified that the saddle-blanket of the
"lop-eared Indian buckskin" had slipped back; then a
shout " Look out for the pinto ! " would be followed by
that pleasing beast's appearance, bucking and squealing,
smashing dead timber, and scattering its load to the four
winds. It was no easy task to get the horses across some
of the boggy places without miring ; or to force them
through the denser portions of the forest, where there was
much down timber. Riding with a pack-train, day in and
day out, becomes both monotonous and irritating, unless
one is upheld by the hope of a game-country ahead, or by
the delight of exploration of the unknown. Yet when

1 82 The Wilderness Hunter.

buoyed by such a hope, there is pleasure in taking a train
across so beautiful and wild a country as that which lay on
the threshold of our hunting grounds in the Shoshones.
We went over mountain passes, with ranges of scalped
peaks on either hand ; we skirted the edges of lovely lakes,
and of streams with boulder-strewn beds ; we plunged into
depths of sombre woodland, broken by wet prairies. It
was a picturesque sight to see the loaded pack-train string-
ing across one of these high mountain meadows, the motley
colored line of ponies winding round the marshy spots
through the bright green grass, while beyond rose the dark
line of frowning forest, with lofty peaks towering in the
background. Some of the meadows were beautiful with
many flowers — goldenrod, purple aster, bluebells, white
immortelles, and here and there masses of blood-red Indian
pinks. In the park-country, on the edges of the evergreen
forest, were groves of delicate quaking-aspen, the trees
often growing to quite a height ; their tremulous leaves
were already changing to bright green and yellow, occa-
sionally with a reddish blush. In the Rocky Mountains
the aspens are almost the only deciduous trees, their foliage
offering a pleasant relief to the eye after the monotony
of the unending pine and spruce woods, which afford so
striking a contrast to the hardwood forest east of the
Mississippi.

For two days our journey was uneventful, save that we
came on the camp of a squawman — one Beaver Dick, an
old mountain hunter, living in a skin tepee, where dwelt
his comely Indian wife and half-breed children. He had
quite a herd of horses, many of them mares and colts ;

An Elk- Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass. 183

they had evidently been well treated, and came up to us
fearlessly.

The morning of the third day of our journey was gray
and lowering. Gusts of rain blew in my face as I rode at
the head of the train. It still lacked an hour of noon, as
we were plodding up a valley beside a rapid brook running
through narrow willow-flats, the dark forest crowding down
on either hand from the low foot-hills of the mountains.
Suddenly the call of a bull elk came echoing down through
the wet woodland on our right, beyond the brook, seem-
ingly less than half a mile off ; and was answered by a faint,
far-off call from a rival on the mountain beyond. Instantly
halting the train, Woody and I slipped off our horses,
crossed the brook, and started to still-hunt the first bull.

In this place the forest was composed of the western
tamarack ; the large, tall trees stood well apart, and there
was much down timber, but the ground was covered with
deep wet moss, over which we trod silently. The elk was
travelling up-wind, but slowly, stopping continually to paw
the ground and thresh the bushes with his antlers. He
was very noisy, challenging every minute or two, being
doubtless much excited by the neighborhood of his rival
on the mountain. We followed, Woody leading, guided
by the incessant calling.

It was very exciting as we crept toward the great bull,
and the challenge sounded nearer and nearer. While we
were still at some distance the pealing notes were like those
of a bugle, delivered in two bars, first rising, then abruptly
falling ; as we drew nearer they took on a harsh squealing
sound. Each call made our veins thrill ; it sounded like

1 84 The Wilderness Hunter.

the cry of some huge beast of prey. At last we heard the
roar of the challenge not eighty yards off. Stealing for-
ward three or four yards, I saw the tips of the horns through
a mass of dead timber and young growth, and I slipped to
one side to get a clean shot. Seeing us, but not making
out what we were, and full of fierce and insolent excite-
ment, the wapiti bull stepped boldly toward us with a stately
swinging gait. Then he stood motionless, facing us, barely
fifty yards away, his handsome twelve-tined antlers tossed
aloft, as he held his head with the lordly grace of his kind.
I fired into his chest, and as he turned I raced forward and
shot him in the flank ; but the second bullet was not needed,
for the first wound was mortal, and he fell before going
fifty yards.

The dead elk lay among the young evergreens. The
huge, shapely body was set on legs that were as strong
as steel rods, and yet slender, clean, and smooth ; they were
in color a beautiful dark brown, contrasting well with the
yellowish of the body. The neck and throat were garnished
with a mane of long hair ; the symmetry of the great horns
set off the fine, delicate lines of the noble head. He had
been wallowing, as elk are fond of doing, and the dried
mud clung in patches to his flank ; a stab in the haunch
showed that he had been overcome in battle by some
master bull who had turned him out of the herd.

We cut off the head, and bore it down to the train.
The horses crowded together, snorting, with their ears
pricked forward, as they smelt the blood. We also took
the loins with us, as we were out of meat, though bull elk
in the rutting season is not very good. The rain had

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass. 185

changed to a steady downpour when we again got under
way. Two or three miles farther we pitched camp, in a
clump of pines on a hillock in the bottom of the valley,
starting hot fires of pitchy stumps before the tents, to dry
our wet things.

Next day opened with fog and cold rain. The drenched
pack-animals, when driven into camp, stood mopingly, with
drooping heads and arched backs ; they groaned and
grunted as the loads were placed on their backs and the
cinches tightened, the packers bracing one foot against the
pack to get a purchase as they hauled in on the lash-rope.
A stormy morning is a trial to temper ; the packs are wet
and heavy, and the cold makes the work even more than
usually hard on the hands. By ten we broke camp. It
needs between two and three hours to break camp and get
such a train properly packed ; once started, our day's
journey was six to eight hours, making no halt. We started
up a steep, pine-clad mountain side, broken by cliffs. My
hunting-shoes, though comfortable, were old and thin, and
let the water through like a sieve. On the top of the first
plateau, where black spruce groves were strewn across the
grassy surface, we saw a band of elk, cows and calves, trot-
ting off through the rain. Then we plunged down into a
deep valley, and, crossing it, a hard climb took us to the
top of a great bare table-land, bleak and wind-swept. We
passed little alpine lakes, fringed with scattering "warf
evergreens. Snow lay in drifts on the north sides of the
gullies ; a cutting wind blew the icy rain in our faces.
For two or three hours we travelled toward the farther
edge of the table-land. In one place a spike bull elk

1 86 The Wilderness Hunter.

stood half a mile off, in the open ; he travelled to and fro,
watching us.

As we neared the edge the storm lulled, and pale,
watery sunshine gleamed through the rifts in the low-
scudding clouds. At last our horses stood on the brink
of a bold cliff. Deep down beneath our feet lay the wild
and lonely valley of Two-Ocean Pass, walled in on either
hand by rugged mountain chains, their flanks scarred and
gashed by precipice and chasm. Beyond, in a wilderness
of jagged and barren peaks, stretched the Shoshones. At
the middle point of the pass, two streams welled down
from either side. At first each flowed in but one bed, but
soon divided into two ; each of the twin branches then
joined the like branch of the brook opposite, and swept one
to the east and one to the west, on their long journey to
the two great oceans. They ran as rapid brooks, through
wet meadows and willow-flats, the eastern to the Yellow-
stone, the western to the Snake. The dark pine forests
swept down from the flanks and lower ridges of the moun-
tains to the edges of the marshy valley. Above them jutted
gray rock peaks,snow-drifts lying in the rents that seamed
their northern faces. Far below us, from a great basin at
the foot of the cliff, filled with the pine forest, rose the
musical challenge of a bull elk ; and we saw a band of cows
and calves looking like mice as they ran among the trees.

'* was getting late, and after some search we failed to
find any trail leading down ; so at last we plunged over
the brink at a venture. It was very rough scrambling,
dropping from bench to bench, and in places it was not
only difficult but dangerous for the loaded pack-animals.

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass. 187

Here and there we were helped by well-beaten elk-trails,
which we could follow for several hundred yards at a time.
On one narrow pine-clad ledge, we met a spike bull face
to face ; and in scrambling down a very steep, bare, rock-
strewn shoulder the loose stones started by the horses'
hoofs, bounding in great leaps to the forest below, dis-
lodged two cows.

As evening fell, we reached the bottom, and pitched
camp in a beautiful point of open pine forest, thrust out
into the meadow. There was good shelter, and plenty
of wood, water, and grass ; we built a huge fire and put
up our tents, scattering them in likely places among the
pines, which grew far apart and without undergrowth.
We dried our steaming clothes, and ate a hearty supper
of elk-meat ; then we turned into our beds, warm and
dry, and slept soundly under the canvas, while all night
long the storm roared without Next morning it still
stormed fitfully ; the high peaks and ridges round about
were all capped with snow. Woody and I started on foot
for an all-day tramp ; the amount of game seen the day
before showed that we were in a good elk-country, where
the elk had been so little disturbed that they were travel-
ling, feeding, and whistling in daylight. For three hours
we walked across the forest-clad spurs of the foot-hills.
We roused a small band of elk in thick timber ; but they
rushed off before we saw them, with much smashing of
dead branches. Then we climbed to the summit of the
range. The wind was light and baffling ; it blew from
all points, veering every few minutes. There were oc-
casional rain-squalls ; our feet and legs were well soaked ;

1 88 The Wilderness Hunter.

and we became chilled through whenever we sat down to
listen. We caught a glimpse of a big bull feeding up-hill,
and followed him ; it needed smart running to overtake
him, for an elk, even while feeding, has a ground-covering
gait. Finally we got within a hundred and twenty-five
yards, but in very thick timber, and all I could see plainly
was the hip and the after-part of the flank. I waited for
a chance at the shoulder, but the bull got my wind and
was off before I could pull trigger. It was just one of
those occasions when there are two courses to pursue,
neither very good, and when one is apt to regret which-
ever decision is made.

At noon we came to the edge of a deep and wide
gorge, and sat down shivering to await what might turn
up, our fingers numb, and our wet feet icy. Suddenly the
love-challenge of an elk came pealing across the gorge,
through the fine, cold rain, from the heart of the forest
opposite. An hour's stiff climb, down and up, brought
us nearly to him ; but the wind forced us to advance from
below through a series of open glades. He was lying on
a point of the cliff-shoulder, surrounded by his cows ; and
he saw us and made off. An hour afterward, as we were
trudging up a steep hill-side dotted with groves of fir and
spruce, a young bull of ten points, roused from his day-
bed by our approach, galloped across us some sixty yards
off. We were in need of better venison than can be fur-
nished by an old rutting bull ; so I instantly took a shot
at the fat and tender young ten-pointer. I aimed well
ahead and pulled trigger just as he came to a small
gully ; and he fell into it in a heap with a resounding

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass. 189

crash. This was on the birthday of my eldest small son ;
so I took him home the horns, "for his very own." On:
the way back that afternoon I shot off the heads of two
blue grouse, as they perched in the pines.

That evening the storm broke, and the weather be-
came clear and very cold, so that the snow made the
frosty mountains gleam like silver. The moon was full,
and in the flood of light the wild scenery round our camp
was very beautiful. As always where we camped for sev-
eral days, we had fixed long tables and settles, and were
most comfortable ; and when we came in at nightfall, or
sometimes long afterward, cold, tired, and hungry, it was
sheer physical delight to get warm before the roaring fire
of pitchy stumps, and then to feast ravenously on bread
and beans, on stewed or roasted elk venison, on grouse
and sometimes trout, and flapjacks with maple syrup.

Next morning dawned clear and cold, the sky a glori-
ous blue. Woody and I started to hunt over the great
table-land, and led our stout horses up the mountain-side,
by elk-trails so bad that they had to climb like goats. All
these elk-trails have one striking peculiarity. They lead
through thick timber, but every now and then send off
short, well-worn branches to some cliff-edge or jutting
crag, commanding a view far and wide over the country
beneath. Elk Jove to stand on these lookout points, and
scan the valleys and mountains round about.

Blue grouse rose from beside our path ; Clarke's crows
flew past us, with a hollow, flapping sound, or lit in the
pine-tops, calling and flirting their tails ; the gray-clad
whisky-jacks, with multitudinous cries, hopped and flut-

The Wilderness Hunter.

tered near us. Snow-shoe rabbits scuttled away, the
big furry feet which give them their name already turn-
ing white. At last we came out on the great plateau,
seamed with deep, narrow ravines. Reaches of pasture
alternated with groves and open forests of varying size.
Almost immediately we heard the bugle of a bull elk, and
saw a big band of cows and calves on the other side of a
valley. There were three bulls with them, one very large,
and we tried to creep up on them ; but the wind was baf-
fling and spoiled our stalk. So we returned to our horses,
mounted them, and rode a mile farther, toward a large
open wood on a hill-side. When within two hundred
yards we heard directly ahead the bugle of a bull, and
pulled up short. In a moment I saw him walking through
an open glade ; he had not seen us. The slight breeze
brought us down his scent. Elk have a strong character-
istic smell ; it is usually sweet, like that of a herd of Al-
derney cows ; but in old bulls, while rutting, it is rank,
pungent, and lasting. We stood motionless till the bull
was out of sight, then stole to the wood, tied our horses,
and trotted after him. He was travelling fast, occasion-
ally calling ; whereupon others in the neighborhood would
answer. Evidently he had been driven out of some herd
by the master bull.

He went faster than we did, and while we were vainly
trying to overtake him we heard another very loud and
sonorous challenge to our left. It came from a ridge-
crest at the edge of the woods, among some scattered
clumps of the northern nut-pine or pinyon — a queer coni-
fer, growing very high on the mountains, its multiforked

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass.

trunk and wide-spreading branches giving it the rounded
top, and, at a distance, the general look of an oak rather
than a pine. We at once walked toward the ridge, up-
wind. In a minute or two, to our chagrin, we stumbled
on an outlying spike bull, evidently kept on the outskirts
of the herd by the master bull. I thought he would alarm
all the rest ; but, as we stood motionless, he could not see
clearly what we were. He stood, ran, stood again, gazed
at us, and trotted slowly off. We hurried forward as fast
as we dared, and with too little care ; for we suddenly
came in view of two cows. As they raised their heads to
look, Woody squatted down where he was, to keep their
attention fixed, while I cautiously tried to slip off to one
side unobserved. Favored by the neutral tint of my
buckskin hunting-shirt, with which my shoes, leggins, and
soft hat matched, I succeeded. As soon as I was out of
sight I ran hard and came up to a hillock crested with
pinyons, behind which I judged I should find the herd.
As I approached the crest, their strong, sweet smell smote
my nostrils. In another moment I saw the tips of a pair
of mighty antlers, and I peered over the crest with my
rifle at the ready. Thirty yards off, behind a clump of
pinyons, stood a huge bull, his head thrown back as he
rubbed his shoulders with his horns. There were several
cows around him, and one saw me immediately, and took
alarm. I fired into the bull's shoulder, inflicting a mortal
wound ; but he went off, and I raced after him at top
speed, firing twice into his flank ; then he stopped, very
sick, and I broke his neck with a fourth bullet. An elk
often hesitates in the first moments of surprise and fright,

The Wilderness Hunter.

and does not get really under way for two or three
hundred yards ; but, when once fairly started, he may go
several miles, even though mortally wounded ; therefore,
the hunter, after his first shot, should run forward as fast
as he can, and shoot again and again until the quarry
drops. In this way many animals that would otherwise
be lost are obtained, especially by the man who has a
repeating-rifle. Nevertheless the hunter should beware
of being led astray by the ease with which he can fire half
a dozen shots from his repeater ; and he should aim as
carefully with each shot as if it were his last. No possible
rapidity of fire can atone for habitual carelessness of aim
with the first shot.

The elk I thus slew was a giant. His body was the size
of a steer's, and his antlers, though not unusually long,
were very massive and heavy. He lay in a glade, on the
edge of a great cliff. Standing on its brink we over-
looked a most beautiful country, the home of all homes
for the elk : a wilderness of mountains, the immense ever-
green forest broken by park and glade, by meadow and
pasture, by bare hill-side and barren table-land. Some
five miles off lay the sheet of water known to the old
hunters as Spotted Lake ; two or three shallow, sedgy
places, and spots of geyser formation, made pale green
blotches on its wind-rippled surface. Far to the south-
west, in daring beauty and majesty, the grand domes and
lofty spires of the Tetons shot into the blue sky. Too
sheer for the snow to rest on their sides, it yet filled the
rents in their rough flanks, and lay deep between the
towering pinnacles of dark rock.

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass. 193

That night, as on more than one night afterward, a
bull elk came down whistling to within two or three
hundred yards of the tents, and tried to join the horse
herd. The moon had set, so I could not go after it. Elk
are very restless and active throughout the night in the
rutting season ; but where undisturbed they feed freely
in the daytime, resting for two or three hours about noon.

Next day, which was rainy, we spent in getting in the
antlers and meat of the two dead elk ; and I shot off the
heads of two or three blue grouse on the way home.
The following day I killed another bull elk, following him
by the strong, not unpleasing, smell, and hitting him
twice as he ran, at about eighty yards. So far I had had
good luck, killing everything I had shot at ; but now the
luck changed, through no fault of mine, as far as I could
see, and Ferguson had his innings. The day after I
killed this bull he shot two fine mountain rams ; and
during the remainder of our hunt he killed five elk, — one
cow, for meat, and four good bulls. The two rams were
with three others, all old and with fine horns ; Ferguson
peeped over a lofty precipice and saw them coming up it
only fifty yards below him. His two first and finest bulls
were obtained by hard running and good shooting ; the
herds were on the move at the time, and only his speed
of foot and soundness of wind enabled him to get near
enough for a shot. One herd started before he got close,
and he killed the master bull by a shot right through the
heart, as it trotted past, a hundred and fifty yards distant.

As for me, during the next ten days I killed nothing
save one cow for meat ; and this though I hunted hard

194 The Wilderness Hunter.

every day from morning till night, no matter what the
weather. It was stormy, with hail and snow almost every
day ; and after working hard from dawn until nightfall,
laboriously climbing the slippery mountain-sides, walking
through the wet woods, and struggling across the bare
plateaus and cliff-shoulders, while the violent blasts of
wind drove the frozen rain in our faces, we would come
in after dusk wet through and chilled to the marrow.
Even when it rained in the valleys it snowed on the
mountain-tops, and there was no use trying to keep our
leet dry. I got three shots at bull elk, two being very
hurried snap-shots at animals running in thick timber, the
other a running-shot in the open, at over two hundred
yards ; and I missed all three. On most days I saw no
bull worth shooting ; the two or three I did see or hear
we failed to stalk, the light, shifty wind baffling us, or else
an outlying cow which we had not seen giving the alarm.
There were many blue and a few ruffed grouse in the
woods, and I occasionally shot off the heads of a couple
on my way homeward in the evening. In racing after
one elk, I leaped across a gully and so bruised and twisted
my heel on a rock that, for the remainder of my stay in
the mountains, I had to walk on the fore part of that
foot. This did not interfere much with my walking,
however, except in going down-hill.

Our ill success was in part due to sheer bad luck ; but
the chief element therein was the presence of a great
hunting-party of Shoshone Indians. Split into bands of
eight or ten each, they scoured the whole country on
their tough, sure-footed ponies. They always hunted on

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass. 195

horseback, and followed the elk at full speed wherever
they went. Their method of hunting was to organize
great drives, the riders strung in lines far apart ; they
signalled to one another by means of willow whistles, with
which they also imitated the calling of the bull elk, thus
tolling the animals to them, or making them betray their
whereabouts. As they slew whatever they could, but by
preference cows and calves, and as they were very perse-
vering, but also very excitable and generally poor shots,
so that they wasted much powder, they not only wrought
havoc among the elk, but also scared the survivors out of
all the country over which they hunted.

Day in and day out we plodded on. In a hunting-
trip the days of long monotony in getting to the ground,
and the days of unrequited toil after it has been reached,
always far outnumber the red-letter days of success. But
it is just these times of failure that really test the hunter.
In the long run, common-sense and dogged perseverance
avail him more than any other qualities. The man who does
not give up, but hunts steadily and resolutely through the
spells of bad luck until the luck turns, is the man who
wins success in the end.

After a week at Two-Ocean Pass, we gathered our
pack-animals one frosty morning, and again set off across
the mountains. A two-days' jaunt took us to the summit
of Wolverine Pass, near Pinyon Peak, beside a little
mountain tarn ; each morning we found its surface
skimmed with black ice, for the nights were cold. After
three or four days, we shifted camp to the mouth of
Wolverine Creek, to get off the hunting grounds of the

i96 The Wilderness Hunter.

Indians. We had used up our last elk-meat that morn-
ing, and when we were within a couple of hours' journey
of our intended halting-place, Woody and I struck off on
foot for a hunt. Just before sunset we came on three or
four elk ; a spike bull stood for a moment behind some
thick evergreens a hundred yards off. Guessing at his
shoulder, I fired, and he fell dead after running a few
rods. I had broken the luck, after ten days of ill success.
Next morning Woody and I, with the packer, rode to
where this elk lay. We loaded the meat on a pack-horse,
and let the packer take both the loaded animal and our
own saddle-horses back to camp, while we made a hunt on
foot. We went up the steep, forest-clad mountain-side, and
before we had walked an hour heard two elk whistling
ahead of us. The woods were open, and quite free from
undergrowth, and we were able to advance noiselessly;
there was no wind, for the weather was still, clear, and
cold. Both of the elk were evidently very much excited,
answering each other continually ; they had probably been
master bulls, but had become so exhausted that their rivals
had driven them from the herds, forcing them to remain
in seclusion until they regained their lost strength. As
we crept stealthily forward, the calling grew louder and
louder, until we could hear the grunting sounds with
which the challenge of the nearest ended. He was in a
large wallow, which was also a lick. When we were still
sixty yards off, he heard us, and rushed out, but wheeled
and stood a moment to gaze, puzzled by my buckskin
suit. I fired into his throat, breaking his neck, and down
he went in a heap. Rushing in and turning, I called to

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass. 197

Woody, " He's a twelve-pointer, but the horns are small ! "
As I spoke I heard the roar of the challenge of the other
bull not two hundred yards ahead, as if in defiant answer
to my shot.

Running quietly forward, I speedily caught a glimpse
of his body. He was behind some fir-trees about seventy
yards off, and I could not see which way he was standing,
and so fired into the patch of flank which was visible, aim-
ing high, to break the back. My aim was true, and the
huge beast crashed down-hill through the evergreens, pulK
ing himself on his fore legs for fifteen or twenty rods, his
hind quarters trailing. Racing forward, I broke his neck.
His antlers were the finest I ever got. A couple of whisky-
jacks appeared at the first crack of the rifle with their
customary astonishing familiarity and heedlessness of the
hunter; they followed the wounded bull as he dragged
his great carcass down the hill, and pounced with ghoulish
bloodthirstiness on the gouts of blood that were sprinkled
over the green herbage.

These two bulls lay only a couple of hundred yards
apart, on a broad game-trail, which was as well beaten
as a good bridle-path. We began to skin out the heads ;
and as we were finishing we heard another bull challenging
far up the mountain. He came nearer and nearer, and as
soon as we had ended our work we grasped our rifles and
trotted toward him along the game-trail. He was very
noisy, uttering his loud, singing challenge every minute
or two. The trail was so broad and firm that we walked
in perfect silence. After going only five or six hundred
yards, we got very close indeed, and stole forward on tip-

The Wilderness Hunter.

toe, listening to the roaring music. The sound came from
a steep, narrow ravine, to one side of the trail, and I walked
toward it with my rifle at the ready. A slight puff gave
the elk my wind, and he dashed out of the ravine like a
deer; but he was only thirty yards off, and my bullet
went into his shoulder as he passed behind a clump of
young spruce. I plunged into the ravine, scrambled out
of it, and raced after him. In a minute I saw him stand-
ing with drooping head, and two more shots finished him.
He also bore fine antlers. It was a great piece of luck to
get three such fine bulls at the cost of half a day's light
work ; but we had fairly earned them, having worked hard
for ten days, through rain, cold, hunger, and fatigue, to no
purpose. That evening my home-coming to camp, with
three elk-tongues and a brace of ruffed grouse hung at my
belt, was most happy.

Next day it snowed, but we brought a pack-pony to
where the three great bulls lay, and took their heads to
camp ; the flesh was far too strong to be worth taking,
for it was just the height of the rut.

This was the end of my hunt ; and a day later Hofer
and I, with two pack-ponies, made a rapid push for the
Upper Geyser Basin. We travelled fast. The first day
was gray and overcast, a cold wind blowing strong in our
faces. Toward evening we came on a bull elk in a willow
thicket ; he was on his knees in a hollow, thrashing and
beating the willows with his antlers. At dusk we halted
and went into camp, by some small pools on the summit
of the pass north of Red Mountain. The elk were calling
all around us. We pitched our cozy tent, dragged great

HEAD OF ELK.

SHOT SEPTEMBER, l8gi.

An Elk- Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass. 199

stumps for the fire, cut evergreen boughs for our beds,
watered the horses, tethered them to improvised picket-
pins in a grassy glade, and then set about getting supper
ready. The wind had gone down, and snow was falling
thick in large, soft flakes ; we were evidently at the be-
ginning of a heavy snowstorm. All night we slept soundly
in our snug tent. When we arose at dawn there was a
foot and a half of snow on the ground, and the flakes were
falling as fast as ever. There is no more tedious work than
striking camp in bad weather ; and it was over two hours
from the time we rose to the time we started. It is sheer
misery to untangle picket-lines and to pack animals when
the ropes are frozen ; and by the time we had loaded
the two shivering, wincing pack-ponies, and had bridled
and saddled our own riding-animals, our hands and feet
were numb and stiff with cold, though we were really
hampered by our warm clothing. My horse was a wild,
nervous roan, and as I swung carelessly into the saddle,
he suddenly began to buck before I got my right leg over,
and threw me off. My thumb was put out of joint. I
pulled it in again, and speedily caught my horse in the
dead timber. Then I treated him as what the cowboys
call a " mean horse," and mounted him carefully, so as not
to let him either buck or go over backward. However,
his preliminary success had inspirited him, and a dozen
times that day he began to buck, usually choosing a down
grade, where the snow was deep, and there was much
fallen timber.

All day long we pushed steadily through the cold,
blinding snowstorm. Neither squirrels nor rabbits were

200 The Wilderness Hunter.

abroad ; and a few Clarke's crows, whisky-jacks, and chick-
adees were the only living things we saw. At nightfall,
chilled through, we reached the Upper Geyser Basin.
Here I met a party of railroad surveyors and engineers,
coming in from their summer's field-work. One of them
lent me a saddle-horse and a pack-pony, and we went on
together, breaking our way through the snow-choked
roads to the Mammoth Hot Springs, while Hofer took
my own horses back to Ferguson.

I have described this hunt at length because, though
I enjoyed it particularly on account of the comfort in
which we travelled and the beauty of the land, yet, in
point of success in finding and killing game, in value of
trophies procured, and in its alternations of good and bad
luck, it may fairly stand as the type of a dozen such hunts
I have made. Twice I have been much more successful ;
the difference being due to sheer luck, as I hunted equally
hard in all three instances. Thus on this trip I killed
and saw nothing but elk ; yet the other members of the
party either saw, or saw fresh signs of, not only blacktail
deer, but sheep, bear, bison, moose, cougar, and wolf.
Now in 1889 I hunted over almost precisely similar
country, only farther to the northwest, on the boundary
between Idaho and Montana, and, with the exception of
sheep, I stumbled on all the animals mentioned, and
white goat in addition, so that my bag of twelve head
actually included eight species — much the best bag I ever
made, and the only one that could really be called out of
the common. In 1884, on a trip to the Bighorn Moun-
tains, I killed three bear, six elk and six deer. In laying

An R Ik- Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass. 201

in the winter stock of meat for my ranch I often far
excelled these figures as far as mere numbers went ; but
on no other regular hunting trip, where the quality and
not the quantity of the game was the prime consideration,
have I ever equalled them ; and on several where- I
worked hardest I hardly averaged a head a week. The
occasional days or weeks of phenomenal luck, are more
than earned by the many others where no luck whatever
follows the very hardest work. Yet, if a man hunts with
steady resolution he is apt to strike enough lucky days
amply to repay him.

On this Shoshone trip I fired fifty-eight shots. In
preference to using the knife I generally break the neck
of an elk which is still struggling ; and I fire at one as
long as it can stand, preferring to waste a few extra
bullets, rather than see an occasional head of game
escape. In consequence of these two traits the nine elk
I got (two running at sixty and eighty yards, the others
standing, at from thirty to a hundred) cost me twenty-
three bullets ; and I missed three shots — all three, it is
but fair to say, difficult ones. I also cut off the heads of
seventeen grouse, with twenty-two shots ; and killed two
ducks with ten shots — fifty-eight in all. On the Bighorn
trip I used a hundred and two cartridges. On no other
trip did I use fifty.

To me still-hunting elk in the mountains, when they
are calling, is one of the most attractive of sports, not
only because of the size and stately beauty of the quarry
and the grand nature of the trophy, but because of the
magnificence of the scenery, and the stirring, manly,

202 The Wilderness Hunter.

exciting nature of the chase itself. It yields more vigor-
ous enjoyment than does lurking stealthily through the
grand but gloomy monotony of the marshy woodland
where dwells the moose. The climbing among the steep
forest-clad and glade-strewn mountains is just difficult
enough thoroughly to test soundness in wind and limb,
while without the heart-breaking fatigue of white goat
hunting. The actual grapple with an angry grisly is of
course far more full of strong, eager pleasure ; but bear
hunting is the most uncertain, and usually the least pro-
ductive, of sports.

As regards strenuous, vigorous work, and pleasurable
excitement the chase of the bighorn alone stands higher.
But the bighorn, grand beast of the chase though he be,
is surpassed in size, both of body and of horns, by certain
of the giant sheep of Central Asia ; whereas the wapiti is
not only the most stately and beautiful of American game
— far more so than the bison and moose, his only rivals
in size — but is also the noblest of the stag kind through-
out the world. Whoever kills him has killed the chief of
his race ; for he stands far above his brethren of Asia and
Europe.

CHAPTER XL

THE MOOSE ; THE BEAST OF THE WOODLAND.

THE moose is the giant of all deer ; and many hun»
ters esteem it the noblest of American game. Be-
yond question there are few trophies more prized
than the huge shovel horns of this strange dweller in the
cold northland forests.

I shot my first moose after making several fruitless
hunting trips with this special game in view. The season
I finally succeeded it was only after having hunted two
or three weeks in vain, among the Bitter Root Mountains,
and the ranges lying southeast of them.

I began about the first of September by making a trial
with my old hunting friend Willis. We speedily found
a country where there were moose, but of the animals
themselves we never caught a glimpse. We tried to kill
them by hunting in the same manner that we hunted elk ;
that is, by choosing a place where there was sign, and
going carefully through it against or across the wind.
However, this plan failed ; though at that very time we
succeeded in killing elk in this way, devoting one or two
days to their pursuit. There were both elk and moose

203

204 The Wilderness Hunter.

in the country, but they were usually found in different
kinds of ground, though often close alongside one another.
The former went in herds, the cows, calves, and yearlings
by themselves, and they roamed through the higher and
more open forests, well up towards timber line. The
moose, on the contrary, were found singly or in small parties
composed at the outside of a bull, a cow, and her young of
two years ; for the moose is practically monogamous, in
strong contrast to the highly polygamous wapiti and
caribou.

The moose did not seem to care much whether they
lived among the summits of the mountains or not, so long
as they got the right kind of country ; for they were much
more local in their distribution, and at this season less
given to wandering than their kin with round horns.
What they wished was a cool, swampy region of very
dense growth ; in the main chains of the northern Rock-
ies even the valleys are high enough to be cold. Of
course many of the moose lived on the wooded summits
of the lower ranges ; and most of them came down lower
in winter than in summer, following about a fortnight
after the elk ; but if in a large tract of woods the cover
was dense and the ground marshy, though it was in a val-
ley no higher than the herds of the ranchmen grazed, or
perchance even in the immediate neighborhood of a small
frontier hamlet, then it might be chosen by some old bull
who wished to lie in seclusion till his horns were grown,
or by some cow with a calf to raise. Before settlers came
to this high mountain region of Western Montana, a
moose would often thus live in an isolated marshy tract

The Moose. 205

surrounded by open country. They grazed throughout
the summer on marsh plants, notably lily stems, and nib-
bled at the tops of the very tall natural hay of the mead-
ows. The legs of the beast are too long and the neck too
short to allow it to graze habitually on short grass ; "yet
in the early spring when greedy for the tender blades of
young, green marsh grass, the moose will often shuffle
down on its knees to get at them, and it will occasionally
perform the same feat to get a mouthful or two of snow
in winter.

The moose which lived in isolated, exposed localities
were speedily killed or driven away after the incoming of
settlers ; and at the time that we hunted we found no sign
of them until we reached the region of continuous forest
Here, in a fortnight's hunting, we found as much sign as
we wished, and plenty of it fresh ; but the animals them-
selves we not only never saw but we never so much as
heard. Often after hours of careful still-hunting or cau-
tious tracking, we found the footprints deep in the soft
earth, showing where our quarry had winded or heard
us, and had noiselessly slipped away from the danger. It
is astonishing how quietly a moose can steal through the
woods if it wishes : and it has what is to the hunter a very
provoking habit of making a half or three quarters circle
before lying down, and then crouching with its head so
turned that it can surely perceive any pursuer who may
follow its trail. We tried every method to outwit the
beasts. We attempted to track them ; we beat through
likely spots ; sometimes we merely "sat on a log" and
awaited events, by a drinking hole, meadow, mud wallow

The Wilderness Hunter.

or other such place (a course of procedure which often
works well in still-hunting); but all in vain.

Our main difficulty lay in the character of the woods
which the moose haunted. They were choked and tangled
to the last degree, consisting of a mass of thick-growing
conifers, with dead timber strewn in every direction, and
young growth filling the spaces between the trunks. We
could not see twenty yards ahead of us, and it was almost
impossible to walk without making a noise. Elk were
occasionally found in these same places ; but usually they
frequented more open timber, where the hunting was
beyond comparison easier. Perhaps more experienced
hunters would have killed their game ; though in such
cover the best tracker and still-hunter alive cannot always
reckon on success with really wary animals. But, be this
as it may, we, at any rate, were completely baffled, and I
began to think that this moose-hunt, like all my former
ones, was doomed to end in failure.

However, a few days later I met a crabbed old trap-
per named Hank Griffin, who was going after beaver in the
mountains, and who told me that if I would come with
him he would show me moose. I jumped at the chance,
and he proved as good as his word ; though for the first
two trials my ill luck did not change.

At the time that it finally did change we had at last
reached a place where the moose were on favorable ground.
A high, marshy valley stretched for several miles between
two rows of stony mountains, clad with a forest of rather
small fir-trees. This valley was covered with reeds, alders,
and rank grass, and studded with little willow-bordered

The Moose. 207

ponds and island-like clumps of spruce and graceful
tamaracks.

Having surveyed the ground and found moose sign the
preceding afternoon, we were up betimes in the cool
morning to begin our hunt. Before sunrise we were
posted on a rocky spur of the foot-hills, behind a mask of
evergreens ; ourselves unseen we overlooked all the valley,
and we knew we could see any animal which might be
either feeding away from cover or on its journey home-
ward from its feeding ground to its day-bed.

As it grew lighter we scanned the valley with increas-
ing care and eagerness. The sun rose behind us ; and
almost as soon as it was up we made out some large beast
moving among the dwarf willows beside a little lake half
a mile in our front. In a few minutes the thing walked
out where the bushes were thinner, and we saw that it was
a young bull moose browsing on the willow tops. He had
evidently nearly finished his breakfast, and he stood idly
for some moments, now and then lazily cropping a mouth-
ful of twig tips. Then he walked off with great strides in
a straight line across the marsh, splashing among the wet
water-plants, and ploughing through boggy spaces with the
indifference begotten of vast strength and legs longer than
those of any other animal on this continent. At times he
entered beds of reeds which hid him from view, though
their surging and bending showed the wake of his passage ;
at other times he walked through meadows of tall grass,
the withered yellow stalks rising to his flanks, while his
body loomed above them, glistening black and wet in the
level sunbeams. Once lie stopped for a few moments on

208 The Wilderness Hunter.

a rise of dry ground, seemingly to enjoy the heat of the
young sun ; he stood motionless, save that his ears were
continually pricked, and his head sometimes slightly
turned, showing that even in this remote land he was on
the alert. Once, with a somewhat awkward motion, he
reached his hind leg forward to scratch his neck. Then
he walked forward again into the marsh ; where the
water was quite deep he broke into the long, stretching,
springy trot, which forms the characteristic gait of his
kind, churning the marsh water into foam. He held his
head straight forwards, the antlers resting on his shoulders.

After awhile he reached a spruce island, through which
he walked to and fro ; but evidently could find therein no
resting-place quite to his mind, for he soon left and went
on to another. Here after a little wandering he chose a
point where there was some thick young growth, which
hid him from view when he lay down, though not when he
stood. After some turning he settled himself in his bed
just as a steer would.

He could not have chosen a spot better suited for us.
He was nearly at the edge of the morass, the open space
between the spruce clump where he was lying and the
rocky foot-hills being comparatively dry and not much
over a couple of hundred yards broad ; while some sixty
yards from it, and between it and the hills, was a little
hummock, tufted with firs, so as to afford us just the
cover we needed. Keeping back from the edge of the
morass we were able to walk upright through the for-
est, until we got the point where he was lying in a

The Moose. 209

line with this little hummock. We then dropped on our
hands and knees, and crept over the soft, wet sward, where
there was nothing to make a noise. Wherever the ground
rose at all we crawled flat on our bellies. The air was still,
for it was a very calm morning.

At last we reached the hummock, and I got into po-
sition for a shot, taking a final look at my faithful 45-90
Winchester to see that all was in order. Peering cau-
tiously through the shielding evergreens, I at first could
not make out where the moose was lying, until my eye
was caught by the motion of his big ears, as he occa-
sionally flapped them lazily forward. Even then I could
not see his outline ; but I knew where he was, and having
pushed my rifle forward on the moss, I snapped a dry twig
to make him rise. My veins were thrilling and my heart
beating with that eager, fierce excitement, known only to
the hunter of big game, and forming one of the keenest
and strongest of the many pleasures which with him go to
make up "the wild joy of living."

As the sound of the snapping twig smote his ears the
moose rose nimbly to his feet, with a lightness on which
one would not have reckoned in a beast so heavy of body.
He stood broadside to me for a moment, his ungainly
head slightly turned, while his ears twitched and his
nostrils snuffed the air. Drawing a fine bead against
his black hide, behind his shoulder and two thirds of
his body's depth below his shaggy withers, I pressed
the trigger. He neither flinched nor reeled, but started
with his regular ground-covering trot through the spruces ;

210 The Wilderness Hunter.

yet I knew he was mine, for the light blood sprang from
both of his nostrils, and he fell dying on his side before he
had gone thirty rods.

Later in the fall I was again hunting among the lofty
ranges which continue towards the southeast the chain
of the Bitter Root, between Idaho and Montana. There
were but two of us, and we were travelling very light,
each having but one pack-pony and the saddle animal he
bestrode. We were high among the mountains, and fol-
lowed no regular trail. Hence our course was often one
of extreme difficulty. Occasionally, we took our animals
through the forest near timber line, where the slopes were
not too steep ; again we threaded our way through a line
of glades, or skirted the foot-hills, in an open, park coun-
try ; and now and then we had to cross stretches of tan-
gled mountain forest, making but a few miles a day, at the
cost of incredible toil, and accomplishing even this solely
by virtue of the wonderful docility and sure-footedness of
the ponies, and of my companion's skill with the axe and
thorough knowledge of woodcraft.

Late one cold afternoon we came out in a high alpine
valley in which there was no sign of any man's having ever
been before us. Down its middle ran a clear brook. On
each side was a belt of thick spruce forest, covering the
lower flanks of the mountains. The trees came down in
points and isolated clumps to the brook, the banks of which
were thus bordered with open glades, rendering the travel-
ling easy and rapid.

Soon after starting up this valley we entered a beaver
meadow of considerable size, it was covered with lush,

The Moose. 211

rank grass, and the stream wound through it rather slug-
gishly in long curves, which were fringed by a thick growth
of dwarfed willows. In one or two places it broadened
into small ponds, bearing a few lily-pads. This meadow
had been all tramped up by moose. Trails led hither and
thither through the grass, the willow twigs were cropped
off, and the muddy banks of the little black ponds were
indented by hoof-marks. Evidently most of the lilies had
been plucked. The footprints were unmistakable ; a
moose's foot is longer and slimmer than a caribou's, while
on the other hand it is much larger than an elk's, and a
longer oval in shape.

Most of the sign was old, this high alpine meadow, sur-
rounded by snow mountains, having clearly been a favorite
resort for moose in the summer ; but some enormous, fresh
tracks told that one or more old bulls were still frequent-
ing the place.

The light was already fading, and, of course, we did
not wish to camp where we were, because we would then
certainly scare the moose. Accordingly we pushed up
the valley for another mile, through an open forest, the
ground being quite free from underbrush and dead timber,
and covered with a carpet of thick moss, in which the feet
sank noiselessly. Then we came to another beaver-meadow,
which offered fine feed for the ponies. On its edge we
hastily pitched camp, just at dusk. We tossed down the
packs in a dry grove, close to the brook, and turned the
tired ponies loose in the meadow, hobbling the little mare
that carried the bell. The ground was smooth. We threw
a cross-pole from one to the other of two young spruces,

212 The Wilderness Hunter.

which happened to stand handily, and from it stretched
and pegged out a piece of canvas, which we were using as
a shelter tent. Beneath this we spread our bedding, laying
under it the canvas sheets in which it had been wrapped.
There was still bread left over from yesterday's baking,
and in a few moments the kettle was boiling and the frying-
pan sizzling, while one of us skinned and cut into suitable
pieces two grouse we had knocked over on our march.
For fear of frightening the moose we built but a small
fire, and went to bed soon after supper, being both tired
and cold. Fortunately, what little breeze there was blew
up the valley.

At dawn I was awake, and crawled out of my buffalo
bag, shivering and yawning. My companion still slum-
bered heavily. White frost covered whatever had been
left outside. The cold was sharp, and I hurriedly
slipped a pair of stout moccasins on my feet, drew on my
gloves and cap, and started through the ghostly woods for
the meadow where we had seen the moose sign. The tufts
of grass were stiff with frost ; black ice skimmed the edges
and quiet places of the little brook.

I walked slowly, it being difficult not to make a noise
by cracking sticks or brushing against trees, in the gloom ;
but the forest was so open that it favored me. When I
reached the edge of the beaver-meadow it was light enough
to shoot, though the front sight still glimmered indistinctly.
Streaks of cold red showed that the sun would soon rise.

Before leaving the shelter of the last spruces I halted
to listen ; and almost immediately heard a curious splash-
ing sound from the middle of the meadow, where the brook

The Moose. 213

broadened into small willow-bordered pools. I knew at
once that a moose was in one of these pools, wading about
and pulling up the water-lilies by seizing their slippery
stems in his lips, plunging his head deep under water to
do so. The moose love to feed in this way in the-het
months, when they spend all the time they can in the
water, feeding or lying down ; nor do they altogether
abandon the habit even when the weather is so cold that
icicles form in their shaggy coats.

Crouching, I stole noiselessly along the edge of the wil-
low thicket. The stream twisted through it from side to side
in zigzags, so that every few rods I got a glimpse down a
lane of black water. In a minute I heard a slight splash-
ing near me ; and on passing the next point of bushes, I
saw the shadowy outline of the moose's hindquarters,
standing in a bend of the water. In a moment he walked
onwards, disappearing. I ran forward a couple of rods,
and then turned in among the willows, to reach the brook
where it again bent back towards me. The splashing in
the water, and the rustling of the moose's body against
the frozen twigs, drowned the little noise made by my
moccasined feet.

I strode out on the bank at the lower end of a long
narrow pool of water, dark and half frozen. In this pool,
half way down and facing me, but a score of yards off,
stood the mighty marsh beast, strange and uncouth in
look as some monster surviving over from the Pliocene.
His vast bulk loomed black and vague in the dim gray
dawn ; his huge antlers stood out sharply ; columns of
steam rose from his nostrils. For several seconds he

214 The Wilderness Hunter.

fronted me motionless ; then he began to turn, slowly,
and as if he had a stiff neck. When quarter way round
I fired into his shoulder ; whereat he reared and bounded
on the bank with a great leap, vanishing in the willows.
Through these I heard him crash like a whirlwind for a
dozen rods ; then down he fell, and when I reached the
spot he had ceased to struggle. The ball had gone through
his heart.

When a moose is thus surprised at close quarters, it
will often stand at gaze for a moment or two, and then
turn stiffly around until headed in the right direction ;
once thus headed aright it starts off with extraordinary
speed.

The flesh of the moose is very good ; though some
deem it coarse. Old hunters, who always like rich,
greasy food, rank a moose's nose with a beaver's tail, as
the chief of backwood delicacies ; personally I never liked
either. The hide of the moose, like the hide of the elk,
is of very poor quality, much inferior to ordinary buck-
skin ; caribou hide is the best of all, especially when used
as webbing for snow-shoes.

The moose is very fond of frequenting swampy woods
throughout the summer, and indeed late into the fall.
These swampy woods are not necessarily in the lower
valleys, some being found very high among the moun-
tains. By preference it haunts those containing lakes,
where it can find the long lily-roots of which it is so fond,
and where it can escape the torment of the mosquitoes
and deer-flies by lying completely submerged save for its
nostrils. It is a bold and good swimmer, readily crossing

HEAD OF MOOSE.

SHOT SEPTEMBER, l88c

The Moose. 215

lakes of large size ; but it is of course easily slain if dis-
covered by canoe-men while in the water. It travels well
through bogs, but not as well as the caribou ; and it will
not venture on ice at all if it can possibly avoid it.

After the rut begins the animals roam everywhere
through the woods ; and where there are hardwood forests
the winter-yard is usually made among them, on high
ground, away from the swamps. In the mountains the
deep snows drive the moose, like all other game, down
to the lower valleys, in hard winters. In the summer it
occasionally climbs to the very summits of the wooded
ranges, to escape the flies ; and it is said that in certain
places where wolves are plenty the cows retire to the tops
of the mountains to calve. More often, however, they
select some patch of very dense cover, in a swamp or by
a lake, for this purpose. Their ways of life of course
vary with the nature of the country they frequent. In
the towering chains of the Rockies, clad in sombre and
unbroken evergreen forests, their habits, in regard to
winter- and summer-homes, and choice of places of seclu-
sion for cows with young calves and bulls growing their
antlers, differ from those of their kind which haunt the
comparatively low, hilly, lake-studded country of Maine
and Nova Scotia, where the forests are of birch, beech,
and maple, mixed with the pine, spruce, and hemlock.

The moose being usually monogamous is never found
in great herds like the wapiti and caribou. Occasionally
a troop of fifteen or twenty individuals may be seen, but
this is rare ; more often it is found singly, in pairs, or in
family parties, composed of a bull, a cow, and two or

216 The Wilderness Hunter.

more calves and yearlings. In yarding, two or more such
families may unite to spend the winter together in an
unusually attractive locality ; and during the rut many
bulls are sometimes found together, perhaps following
the trail of a cow in single file.

In the fall, winter, and early spring, and in certain
places during summer, the moose feeds principally by
browsing, though always willing to vary its diet by
mosses, lichens, fungi, and ferns. In the eastern forests,
with their abundance of hardwood, the birch, maple, and
moose- wood form its favorite food. In the Rocky Moun-
tains, where the forests are almost purely evergreen, it
feeds on such willows, alders, and aspens as it can find,
and also, when pressed by necessity, on balsam, fir, spruce,
and very young pine. It peels the bark between its hard
palate and sharp lower teeth, to a height of seven or
eight feet ; these " peelings " form conspicuous moose
signs. It crops the juicy, budding twigs and stem tops
to the same height; and if the tree is too tall it "rides"
it, that is, straddles the slender trunk with its fore legs,
pushing it over and walking up it until the desired
branches are within reach. No beast is more destructive
to the young growth of a forest than the moose. Where
much persecuted it feeds in the late evening, early morn-
ing, and by moonlight. Where rarely disturbed it passes
the day much as cattle do, alternately resting and feeding
for two or three hours at a time.

Young moose, when caught, are easily tamed, and are
very playful, delighting to gallop to and fro, kicking,
striking, butting, and occasionally making grotesque

The Moose. 217

faces. As they grow old they are apt to become danger-
ous, and even their play takes the form of a mock fight.
Some lumbermen I knew on the Aroostook, in Maine,
once captured a young moose, and put it in a pen of logs.
A few days later they captured another, somewhat
smaller, and put it in the same pen, thinking the first
would be grateful at having a companion. But if it was
it dissembled its feelings, for it promptly fell on the
unfortunate new-comer and killed it before it could be
rescued.

During the rut the bulls seek the cows far and wide,
uttering continually throughout the night a short, loud roar,
which can be heard at a distance of four or five miles ; the
cows now and then respond with low, plaintive bellows.
The bulls also thrash the tree trunks with their horns,
and paw big holes in soft ground ; and when two rivals
come together at this season they fight with the most
desperate fury. It is chiefly in these battles with one
another that the huge antlers are used ; in contending
with other foes they strike terrible blows with their fore
hoofs and also sometimes lash out behind like a horse.
The bear occasionally makes a prey of the moose ; the
cougar is a more dangerous enemy in the few districts
where both animals are found at all plentifully ; but next
to man its most dreaded foe is the big timber wolf, that
veritable scourge of all animals of the deer kind. Against
all of these the moose defends itself valiantly ; a cow with
a calf and a rutting bull being especially dangerous
opponents. In deep snows through which the great deer
flounders while its adversary runs lightly on the crust, a

The Wilderness Hunter.

single wolf may overcome and slaughter a big bull moose ;
but with a fair chance no one or two wolves would be a
match for it. Desperate combats take place before a
small pack of wolves can master the shovel-horned quarry,
unless it is taken at a hopeless disadvantage ; and in these
battles the prowess of the moose is shown by the fact that
it is no unusual thing for it to kill one or more of the
ravenous throng ; generally by a terrific blow of the fore-
leg, smashing a wolfs skull or breaking its back. I have
known of several instances of wolves being found dead,
having perished in this manner. Still the battle usually
ends the other way, the wolves being careful to make the
attack with the odds in their favor ; and even a small pack
of the ferocious brutes will in a single winter often drive
the moose completely out of a given district. Both
cougar and bear generally reckon on taking the moose
unawares, when they jump on it. In one case that came
to my knowledge a black bear was killed by a cow moose
whose calf he had attacked.

In the northeast a favorite method of hunting the
moose is by "calling" the bulls in the rutting season, at
dawn or nightfall ; the caller imitating their cries through
a birch-bark trumpet. If the animals are at all wary, this
kind of sport can only be carried on in still weather, as the
approaching bull always tries to get the wind of the caller.
It is also sometimes slain by fire-hunting, from a canoe,
as the deer are killed in the Adirondacks. This, however,
is but an ignoble sport ; and to kill the animal while
it is swimming in a lake is worse. However, there is
sometimes a spice of excitement even in these unworthy

The Moose. 219

methods of the chase ; for a truculent moose will do its
best, with hoofs and horns, to upset the boat.

The true way to kill the noble beast, however, is by fair
still-hunting. There is no grander sport than still-hunt'
ing the moose, whether in the vast pine and birch forests
of the northeast, or among the stupendous mountain
masses of the Rockies. The moose has wonderfully keen
nose and ears, though its eyesight is not remarkable.
Most hunters assert that he is the wariest of all game, and
the most difficult to kill. I have never been quite satisfied
that this was so ; it seems to me that the nature of the
ground wherein it dwells helps it even more than do its
own sharp senses. It is true that I made many trips in
vain before killing my first moose ; but then I had to hunt
through tangled timber, where I could hardly move a step
without noise, and could never see thirty yards ahead. If
moose were found in open park-like forests like those
where I first killed elk, on the Bighorn Mountains, or
among brushy coulies and bare hills, like the Little
Missouri Bad Lands, where I first killed blacktail deer, I
doubt whether they would prove especially difficult animals
to bag. My own experience is much too limited to allow
me to speak with any certainty on the point ; but it is
borne out by what more skilled hunters have told me.
In the Big Hole Basin, in southwest Montana, moose
were quite plentiful in the late 'seventies. Two or three
of the old settlers, whom I know as veteran hunters and
trustworthy men, have told me that in those times the
moose were often found in very accessible localities ; and
that when such was the case they were quite as easily

220 The Wilderness Hunter.

killed as elk. In fact, when run across by accident they
frequently showed a certain clumsy slowness of apprehen-
sion which amounted to downright stupidity. One of the
most successful moose-hunters I know is Col. Cecil Clay,
of the Department of Law, in Washington ; he it was who
killed the moose composing the fine group mounted by
Mr. Hornaday, in the National Museum. Col. Clay lost
his right arm in the Civil War ; but is an expert rifleshot
nevertheless, using a short, light forty-four calibre old style
Winchester carbine. With this weapon he has killed
over a score of moose, by fair still-hunting ; and he tells
me that on similar ground he considers it if anything
rather less easy to still-hunt and kill a whitetail deer than
it is to kill a moose.

My friend Col. James Jones killed two moose in a
day in northwestern Wyoming, not far from the Tetons ;
he was alone when he shot them and did not find them
especially wary. Ordinarily, moose are shot at fairly close
range ; but another friend of mine, Mr. E. P. Rogers, once
dropped one with a single bullet, at a distance of nearly
three hundred yards. This happened by Bridger's Lake,
near Two-Ocean Pass.

The moose has a fast walk, and its ordinary gait when
going at any speed is a slashing trot. Its long legs give
it a wonderful stride, enabling it to clear down-timber and
high obstacles of all sorts without altering its pace. It
also leaps well. If much pressed or startled it breaks into
an awkward gallop, which is quite fast for a few hundred
yards, but which speedily tires it out. After being dis-
turbed by the hunter a moose usually trots a long distance
before halting.

The Moose. 221

One thing which renders the chase of the moose partic-
ularly interesting is the fact that there is in it on rare
occasions a spice of peril. Under certain circumstances it
may be called dangerous quarry, being, properly speaking,
the only animal of the deer kind which ever fairly deserves-
the title. In a hand to hand grapple an elk or caribou,
or even under exceptional circumstances a blacktail or a
whitetail, may show itself an ugly antagonist ; and indeed
a maddened elk may for a moment take the offensive ;
but the moose is the only one of the tribe with which this
attitude is at all common. In bodily strength and capa-
city to do harm it surpasses the elk ; and in temper it is
far more savage and more apt to show fight when assailed
by man ; exactly as the elk in these respects surpasses the
common deer. Two hunters with whom I was well ac-
quainted once wintered between the Wind River Moun-
tains and the Three Tetons, many years ago, in the days
of the buffalo. They lived on game, killing it on snow-
shoes ; for the most part wapiti and deer, but also bison,
and one moose, though they saw others. The wapiti bulls
kept their antlers two months longer than the moose ;
nevertheless, when chased they rarely made an effort to
use them, while the hornless moose displayed far more
pugnacity, and also ran better through the deep snow.
The winter was very severe, the snows were heavy and
the crusts hard ; so that the hunters had little trouble in
overtaking their game, although — being old mountain-men,
and not hide-hunters — they killed only what was needed
Of course in such hunting they came very close to the
harried game, usually after a chase of from twenty minutes
to three hours. They found that the ordinary deer would

222 The Wilderness Hunter.

scarcely charge under any circumstances ; that among the
wapiti it was only now and then that individuals would
turn upon their pursuers — though they sometimes charged
boldly ; but that both the bison and especially the moose
when worried and approached too near, would often turn
to bay and make charge after charge in the most resolute
manner, so that they had to be approached with some
caution.

Under ordinary conditions, however, there is very lit-
tle danger, indeed, of a moose charging. A charge does
not take place once in a hundred times when the moose
is killed by fair still-hunting ; and it is altogether excep-
tional for those who assail them from boats or canoes to be
put in jeopardy. Even a cow moose, with her calf, will
run if she has the chance ; and a rutting bull will do the
same. Such a bull when wounded may walk slowly for-
ward, grunting savagely, stamping with his forefeet, and
slashing the bushes with his antlers; but, if his antago-
nist is any distance off, he rarely actually runs at him.
Yet there are now and then found moose prone to at-
tack on slight provocation ; for these great deer differ
as widely as men in courage and ferocity. Occasionally
a hunter is charged in the fall when he has lured the
game to him by calling, or when he has wounded it after
a stalk. In one well-authenticated instance which was
brought to my attention, a settler on the left bank of the
St. Johns, in New Brunswick, was tramped to death by a
bull moose which he had called to him and wounded. A
New Yorker of my acquaintance, Dr. Merrill, was charged
under rather peculiar circumstances. He stalked and

The Moose. 223

mortally wounded a bull which promptly ran towards him.
Between them was a gully in which it disappeared. Imme-
diately afterwards, as he thought, it reappeared on his side
of the gully, and with a second shot he dropped it. Walk-
ing forward he found to his astonishment that with his
second bullet he had killed a cow moose ; the bull lay
dying in the gully, out of which he had scared the cow
by his last rush.

However, speaking broadly, the danger to the still-
hunter engaged in one of the legitimate methods of the
chase is so small that it may be disregarded; for he
usually kills his game at some little distance, while the
moose, as a rule, only attacks if it has been greatly worried
and angered, and if its pursuer is close at hand. When a
moose is surprised and shot at by a hunter some way off,
its one thought is of flight. Hence, the hunters who are
charged by moose are generally those who follow them
during the late winter and early spring, when the animals
have yarded and can be killed on snow-shoes — by " crust-
ing," as it is termed, a very destructive, and often a very
unsportsman-like species of chase.

If the snow-fall is very light, moose do not yard at all ;
but in a hard winter they begin to make their yards in
December. A " yard " is not, as some people seem to
suppose, a trampled-down space, with definite boundaries ;
the term merely denotes the spot which a moose has chosen
for its winter home, choosing it because it contains plenty
of browse in the shape of young trees and saplings, and
perhaps also because it is sheltered to some extent from
the fiercest winds and heaviest snowdrifts. The animal

224 The Wilderness H^lnter.

travels to and fro across this space in straight lines and
irregular circles after food, treading in its own footsteps,
where practicable. As the snow steadily deepens, these
lines of travel become beaten paths. There results finally
a space half a mile square — sometimes more, sometimes
very much less, according to the lay of the land, and the
number of moose yarding together — where the deep snow
is seamed in every direction by a network of narrow paths
along which a moose can travel at speed, its back level
with the snow round about. Sometimes, when moose are
very plenty, many of these yards lie so close together that
the beasts can readily make their way from one to another.
When such is the case, the most expert snow-shoer, under
the most favorable conditions, cannot overtake them, for
they can then travel very fast through the paths, keeping
their gait all day. In the early decades of the present
century, the first settlers in Aroostook County, Maine,
while moose-hunting in winter, were frequently baffled in
this manner.

When hunters approach an isolated yard the moose
immediately leave it and run off through the snow. If
there is no crust, and if their long legs can reach the
ground, the snow itself impedes them but little, because
of their vast strength and endurance. Snowdrifts
which render an ordinary deer absolutely helpless, and
bring even an elk to a standstill, offer no impediment
whatever to a moose. If, as happens very rarely, the loose
snow is of such depth that even the stilt-like legs of the
moose cannot touch solid earth, it flounders and struggles
forward for a little time, and then sinks exhausted ; for a

The Moose. 225

caribou is the only large animal which can travel under
such conditions. If there be a crust, even though the
snow is not remarkably deep, the labor of the moose is
vastly increased, as it breaks through at every step, cutting
its legs and exhausting itself. A caribou, on the other"
hand, will go across a crust as well as a man on snow-shoes,
and can never be caught by the latter, save under altogether
exceptional conditions of snowfall and thaw.

" Crusting," or following game on snow-shoes, is, as the
name implies, almost always practised after the middle of
February, when thaws begin, and the snow crusts on top.
The conditions for success in crusting moose and deer are
very different. A crust through which a moose would
break at every stride may carry a running deer without
mishap ; while the former animal would trot at ease through
drifts in which the latter would be caught as if in a quick-
sand.

Hunting moose on snow, therefore, may be, and very
often is, mere butchery ; and because of this possibility or
probability, and also because of the fact that it is by far
the most destructive kind of hunting, and is carried on at
a season when the bulls are hornless and the cows heavy
with calf, it is rigidly and properly forbidden wherever
there are good game-laws. Yet this kind of hunting may
also be carried on under circumstances which render it if
not a legitimate, yet a most exciting and manly sport, only
to be followed by men of tried courage, hardihood, and
skill. This is not because it ever necessitates any skill
whatever in the use of the rifle, or any particular knowl-
edge of hunting-craft ; but because under the conditions

226 The Wilderness Hunter.

spoken of the hunter must show great endurance and res-
olution, and must be an adept in the use of snow-shoes.

It all depends upon the depth of the snow and the
state of the crust. If when the snow is very deep there
comes a thaw, and if it then freezes hard, the moose are
overtaken and killed with ease ; for the crust cuts their
legs, they sink to their bellies at every plunge, and
speedily become so worn out that they can no longer keep
ahead of any man who is even moderately skilful in the
use of show-shoes ; though they do not, as deer so often
do, sink exhausted after going a few rods from their yard.
Under such circumstances a few hardy hunters or settlers,
who are perfectly reckless in slaughtering game, may
readily kill all the moose in a district. It is a kind of
hunting which just suits the ordinary settler, who is hardy
and enduring, but knows little of hunting-craft proper.

If the snow is less deep, or the crust not so heavy, the
moose may travel for scores of miles before it is over-
taken ; and this even though the crust be strong enough
to bear a man wearing snow-shoes without breaking. The
chase then involves the most exhausting fatigue. More-
over, it can be carried on only by those who are very skilful
in the use of snow-shoes. These snow-shoes are of two
kinds. In the northeast, and in the most tangled forests
of the northwest, the webbed snow-shoes are used ; on the
bare mountain-sides, and in the open forests of the Rockies,
the long narrow wooden skees, or Norwegian snow-skates
are preferred, as upon then men can travel much faster,
though they are less handy in thick timber. Having
donned his snow-shoes and struck the trail of a moose, the

The Moose. 227

hunter may have to follow it three days if the snow is of
only ordinary depth, with a moderate crust. He shuffles
across the snow without halt while daylight lasts, and lies
down wherever he happens to be when night strikes him,
probably with a little frozen bread as his only food. The
hunter thus goes through inordinate labor, and suffers from
exposure ; not infrequently his feet are terribly cut by the
thongs of the snow-shoes, and become sore and swollen,
causing great pain. When overtaken after such a severe
chase, the moose is U3ually so exhausted as to be unable
to make any resistance ; in all likelihood it has run itself
to a standstill. Accordingly, the quality of the fire-arms
makes but little difference in this kind of hunting. Many
of the most famous old moose-hunters of Maine, in the
long past days, before the Civil War, when moose were
plenty there, used what were known as " three dollar "
guns ; light, single-barrelled smooth-bores. One whom I
knew used a flint-lock musket, a relic of the War of 1812.
Another in the course of an exhausting three days' chase
lost the lock off his cheap, percussion-cap gun ; and when
he overtook the moose he had to explode the cap by
hammering it with a stone.

It is in " crusting," when the chase has lasted but a
comparatively short time, that moose most frequently show
fight ; for they are not cast into a state of wild panic by a
sudden and unlooked-for attack by a man who is a long
distance from them, but on the contrary, after being wor-
ried and irritated, are approached very near by foes from
whom they have been fleeing for hours. Nevertheless, in
the majority of cases even crusted moose make not the

228 The Wilderness Plunter.

slightest attempt at retaliation. If the chase has been
very long, or if the depth of the snow and character of
the crust are exceptionally disadvantageous to them, they
are so utterly done out, when overtaken, that they cannot
make a struggle, and may even be killed with an axe. I
know of at least five men who have thus killed crusted
moose with an axe ; one in the Rocky Mountains, one in
Minnesota, three in Maine.

But in ordinary snow a man who should thus attempt to
kill a moose would merely jeopardize his own life ; and it is
not an uncommon thing for chased moose, when closely
approached by their pursuers, even when the latter carry
guns and are expert snow-shoers, to charge them
with such ferocity as to put them in much peril.
A brother of one of my cow-hands, a man from Maine,
was once nearly killed by a cow moose. She had been
in a yard with her last year's calf when started. After
two or three hours' chase he overtook them. They
were travelling in single file, the cow breaking her path
through the snow, while the calf followed close behind, and
in his nervousness sometimes literally ran up on her. The
man trotted close alongside ; but, before he could fire, the
old cow spun round and charged him, her mane bristling
and her green eyes snapping with rage. It happened that
just there the snow became shallow, and the moose gained
so rapidly that the man, to save his life, sprang up a tree.
As he did so the cow reared and struck at him, one fore-
foot catching in his snow-shoe and tearing it clear off, giv-
ing his ankle a bad wrench. After watching him a minute
or two she turned and continued her flight ; whereupon he

The Moose. 229

climbed down the tree, patched up his torn snow-shoe and
limped after the moose, which he finally killed.

An old hunter named Purvis told me of an adventure of
the kind, which terminated fatally. He was hunting near
the Cceur d'Alene Mountains with a mining prospector
named Pingree ; both were originally from New Hamp-
shire. Late in November there came a heavy fall of snow,
deep enough to soon bring a deer to a standstill, although
not so deep as to hamper a moose's movement. The men
bound on their skees and started to the borders of a lake,
to kill some blacktail. In a thicket close to the lake's brink
they suddenly came across a bull moose ; a lean old fel-
low, still savage from the rut. Pingree, who was nearest,
fired at and wounded him ; whereupon he rushed straight
at the man, knocked him down before he could turn round
on his skees, and began to pound him with his terrible
forefeet. Summoned by his comrade's despairing cries,
Purvis rushed round the thickets, and shot the squealing,
trampling monster through the body, and immediately after
had to swing himself up a small tree to avoid its furious
rush. The moose did not turn after this charge, but kept
straight on, and was not seen again. The wounded man
was past all help, for his chest was beaten in, and he died in
a couple of hours.

CHAPTER XII.

THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO.

WHEN we became a nation, in 1776, the buffa-
loes, the first animals to vanish when the
wilderness is settled, roved to the crests of
the mountains which mark the western boundaries of
Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas. They were-
plentiful in what are now the States of Ohio, Ken-
tucky, and Tennessee. But by the beginning of the
present century they had been driven beyond the
Mississippi ; and for the next eighty years they formed
one of the most distinctive and characteristic features of
existence on the great plains. Their numbers were count-
less — incredible. In vast herds of hundreds of thousands
of individuals, they roamed from the Saskatchewan to the
Rio Grande and westward to the Rocky Mountains. They
furnished all the means of livelihood to the tribes of Horse
Indians, and to the curious population of French Metis, or
Half-breeds, on the Red River,as well as to those dauntless
and archtypical wanderers, the white hunters and trappers.
Their numbers slowly diminished, but the decrease was
very gradual until after the Civil War. They were not de-

The Bison or American Buffalo. 231

stroyed by the settlers, but by the railways and the skin
hunters.

After the ending of the Civil War, the work of con-
structing trans-continental railway lines was pushed foward
with the utmost vigor. These supplied cheap and indis-
pensable, but hitherto wholly lacking, means of transpor-
tation to the hunters ; and at the same time the demand
for buffalo robes and hides became very great, while the
enormous numbers of the beasts, and the comparative ease
with which they were slaughtered, attracted throngs of ad-
venturers. The result was such a slaughter of big game
as the world had never before seen ; never before were so
many large animals of one species destroyed in so short a
time. Several million buffaloes were slain. In fifteen
years from the time the destruction fairly began the great
herds were exterminated. In all probability there are not
now, all told, five hundred head of wild buffaloes on the
American continent ; and no herd of a hundred individ-
uals has been in existence since 1884.

The first great break followed the building of the Union
Pacific Railway. All the buffaloes of the middle region
were then destroyed, and the others were split into two
vast sets of herds, the northern and the southern. The
latter were destroyed first, about 1878 ; the former not until
1 883. My own chief experience with buffaloes was obtained
in the latter year, among small bands and scattered individ-
uals, near my ranch on the Little Missouri ; I have related
it elsewhere. But two of my kinsmen were more fortunate,
and took part in the chase of these lordly beasts when the
herds still darkened the prairie as far as the eye could see.

232 The Wilderness Hunter.

During the first two months of 1877, my brother El-
liott, then a lad not seventeen years old, made a buffalo-
hunt toward the edge of the Staked Plains in northern
Texas. He was thus in at the death of the southern
herds ; for all, save a few scattering bands, were destroyed
within two years of this time. He was with my cousin,
John Roosevelt, and they went out on the range with six
other adventurers. It was a party of just such young men
as frequently drift to the frontier. All were short of cash,
and all were hardy, vigorous fellows, eager for excitement
and adventure. My brother was much the youngest of
the party, and the least experienced ; but he was well-
grown, strong and healthy, and very fond of boxing,
wrestling, running, riding, and shooting ; moreover, he
had served an apprenticeship in hunting deer and turkeys.
Their mess-kit, ammunition, bedding, and provisions were
carried in two prairie-wagons, each drawn by four horses.
In addition to the teams they had six saddle-animals — all
of them shaggy, unkempt mustangs. Three or four dogs,
setters and half-bred greyhounds, trotted along behind the
wagons. Each man took his turn for two days as teamster
and cook ; and there were always two with the wagons, or
camp, as the case might be, while the other six were off
hunting, usually in couples. The expedition was under-
taken partly for sport and partly with the hope of profit ;
for, after purchasing the horses and wagons, none of the
party had any money left, and they were forced to rely
upon selling skins and hides, and, when near the forts,
meat.

They started on January 2d, and shaped their course

The Bison or American Buffalo. 233

for the head-waters of the Salt Fork of the Brazos, the
centre of abundance for the great buffalo herds. During
the first few days they were in the outskirts of the settled
country, and shot only small game — quail and prairie fowl ;
then they began to kill turkey, deer, and antelope. These
they swapped for flour and feed at the ranches or squalid,
straggling frontier towns. On several occasions the hun-
ters were lost, spending the night out in the open, or sleep-
ing at a ranch, if one was found. Both towns and ranches
were filled with rough customers ; all of my brother's com-
panions were muscular, hot-headed fellows ; and as a con-
sequence they were involved in several savage free fights,
in which, fortunately, nobody was seriously hurt. My
brother kept a very brief diary, the entries being fairly
startling from their conciseness. A number of times, the
mention of their arrival, either at a halting-place, a little
village, or a rival buffalo-camp is followed by the laconic
remark, "big fight," or "big row " ; but once they evidently
concluded discretion to be the better part of valor, the en-
try for January 2oth being, " On the road — passed through
Belknap — too lively, so kept on to the Brazos — very late."
The buffalo-camps in particular were very jealous of one
another, each party regarding itself as having exclusive
right to the range it was the first to find ; and on several
occasions this feeling came near involving my brother and
his companions in serious trouble.

While slowly driving the heavy wagons to the hunting
grounds they suffered the usual hardships of plains travel.
The weather, as in most Texas winters, alternated between
the extremes of heat and cold. There had been little

234 The Wilderness Hunter.

rain ; in consequence water was scarce. Twice they were
forced to cross wild, barren wastes, where the pools had
dried up, and they suffered terribly from thirst. On the
first occasion the horses were in good condition, and they
travelled steadily, with only occasional short halts, for
over thirty-six hours, by which time they were across
the waterless country. The journal reads : " January
27th. — Big hunt — no water, and we left Quinn's block-
house this morning 3 A.M. — on the go all night —
hot. January 28th. — No water — hot — at seven we
struck water, and by eight Stinking Creek — grand ' hur-
rah.' " On the second occasion, the horses were weak and
travelled slowly, so the party went forty-eight hours with-
out drinking. "February iQth. — Pulled on twenty-one
miles — trail bad — freezing night, no water, and wolves
after our fresh meat. 2oth. — Made nineteen miles over
prairie ; again only mud, no water, freezing hard — fright-
ful thirst. 2 1 st. — Thirty miles to Clear Fork, fresh
water." These entries were hurriedly jotted down at the
time, by a boy who deemed it unmanly to make any
especial note of hardship or suffering ; but every plains-
man will understand the real agony implied in working
hard for two nights, one day, and portions of two others,
without water, even in cool weather. During the last few
miles the staggering horses were only just able to drag the
lightly loaded wagon, — for they had but one with them at the
time, — while the men plodded along in sullen silence, their
mouths so parched that they could hardly utter a word.
My own hunting and ranching were done in the north
where there is more water ; so I have never had a similar

The Bison or American Buffalo. 235

experience. Once I took a team in thirty-six hours across
a country where there was no water ; but by good luck it
rained heavily in the night, so that the horses had plenty
of wet grass, and I caught the rain in my slicker, and so
had enough water for myself. Personally, I have but
once been as long as twenty-six hours without water.

The party pitched their permanent camp in a canyon
of the Brazos known as Canyon Blanco. The last few
days of their journey they travelled beside the river
through a veritable hunter's paradise. The drought had
forced all the animals to come to the larger watercourses,
and the country was literally swarming with game. Every
day, and all day long, the wagons travelled through the
herds of antelopes that grazed on every side, while, when-
ever they approached the canyon brink, bands of deer
started from the timber that fringed the river's course ;
often, even the deer wandered out on the prairie with the
antelope. Nor was the game shy ; for the hunters, both
red and white, followed only the buffaloes, until the huge,
shaggy herds were destroyed, and the smaller beasts were
in consequence but little molested.

Once my brother shot five antelopes from a single
stand, when the party were short of fresh venison ; he was
out of sight and to leeward, and the antelopes seemed
confused rather than alarmed at the rifle-reports and the
fall of their companions. As was to be expected where
game was so plenty, wolves and coyotes also abounded.
At night they surrounded the camp, wailing and howling
in a kind of shrieking chorus throughout the hours of
darkness ; one night they came up so close that the fright-

236 The Wilderness Hunter.

ened horses had to be hobbled and guarded. On another
occasion a large wolf actually crept into camp, where he
was seized by the dogs, and the yelling, writhing knot of
combatants rolled over one of the sleepers; finally, the
long-toothed prowler managed to shake himself loose, and
vanished in the gloom. One evening they were almost as
much startled by a visit of a different kind. They were
just finishing supper when an Indian stalked suddenly and
silently out of the surrounding darkness, squatted down in
the circle of firelight, remarked gravely, " Me Tonk," and
began helping himself from the stew. He belonged to
the friendly tribe of Tonkaways, so his hosts speedily
recovered their equanimity ; as for him, he had never lost
his, and he sat eating by the fire until there was literally
nothing left to eat. The panic caused by his appearance
was natural ; for at that time the Comanches were a
scourge to the buffalo-hunters, ambushing them and raid-
ing their camps ; and several bloody fights had taken
place.

Their camp had been pitched near a deep pool or
water-hole. On both sides the bluffs rose like walls, and
where they had crumbled and lost their sheerness, the
vast buffalo herds, passing and repassing for countless
generations, had worn furrowed trails so deep that the
backs of the beasts were but little above the surrounding
soil. In the bottom, and in places along the crests of the
cliffs that hemmed in the canyon-like valley, there were
groves of tangled trees, tenanted by great flocks of wild
turkeys. Once my brother made two really remarkable
shots at a pair of these great birds. It was at dusk, and

The Bison or American Bttffalo. 237

they were flying directly overhead from one cliff to the
other. He had in his hand a thirty-eight calibre Ballard
rifle, and, as the gobblers winged their way heavily by, he
brought both down with two successive bullets. This was
of course mainly a piece of mere luck ; but it meant good
shooting, too. The Ballard was a very accurate, handy
little weapon ; it belonged to me, and was the first rifle I
ever owned or used. With it I had once killed a deer, the
only specimen of large game I had then shot ; and I pre-
sented the rifle to my brother when he went to Texas. In
our happy ignorance we deemed it quite good enough for
buffalo or anything else ; but out on the plains my brother
soon found himself forced to procure a heavier and more
deadly weapon.

When camp was pitched the horses were turned loose
to graze and refresh themselves after their trying journey,
during which they had lost flesh wofully. They were
watched and tended by the two men who were always left
in camp, and, save on rare occasions, were only used to
haul in the buffalo hides. The camp-guards for the time
being acted as cooks ; and, though coffee and flour both
ran short and finally gave out, fresh meat of every kind was
abundant. The camp was never without buffalo-beef, deer
and antelope venison, wild turkeys, prairie-chickens, quails,
ducks, and rabbits. The birds were simply " potted," as
occasion required ; when the quarry was deer or ante-
lope, the hunters took the dogs with them to run down the
wounded animals. But almost the entire attention of the
hunters was given to the buffalo. After an evening spent
in lounging round the camp-fire and a sound night's sleep,

238 The Wilderness Hunter.

wrapped in robes and blankets, they would get up before
daybreak, snatch a hurried breakfast, and start off in
couples through the chilly dawn. The great beasts were
very plentiful ; in the first day's hunt twenty were slain ;
but the herds were restless and ever on the move. Some-
times they would be seen right by the camp, and again it
would need an all-day's tramp to find them. There was no
difficulty in spying them — the chief trouble with forest
game ; for on the prairie a buffalo makes no effort to hide
and its black, shaggy bulk looms up as far as the eye can
see. Sometimes they were found in small parties of three
or four individuals, sometimes in bands of about two hun-
dred, and again in great herds of many thousands ; and
solitary old bulls, expelled from the herds, were common.
If on broken land, among hills and ravines, there was not
much difficulty in approaching from the leeward ; for,
though the sense of smell in the buffalo is very acute, they
do not see well at a distance through their overhanging
frontlets of coarse and matted hair. If, as was generally
the case, they were out on the open, rolling prairie, the
stalking was far more difficult. Every hollow, every earth
hummock and sagebush had to be used as cover. The
hunter wriggled through the grass flat on his face, push-
ing himself along for perhaps a quarter of a mile by his
toes and fingers, heedless of the spiny cactus. When near
enough to the huge, unconscious quarry the hunter began
firing, still keeping himself carefully concealed. If the
smoke was blown away by the wind, and if the buffaloes
caught no glimpse of the assailant, they would often stand
motionless and stupid until many of their number had been

The Bison or American Buffalo. 239

slain, the hunter being careful not to fire too high, aiming
just behind the shoulder, about a third of the way up the
body, that his bullet might go through the lungs. Some-
times, even after they saw the man, they would act as if
confused and panic-struck, huddling together and staring"
at the smoke puffs ; but generally they were off at a lum-
bering gallop as soon as they had an idea of the point
of danger. When once started, they ran for many miles
before halting, and their pursuit on foot was extremely
laborious.

One morning my cousin and brother had been left in
camp as guards. They were sitting idly warming them-
selves in the first sunbeams, when their attention was
sharply drawn to four buffaloes that were coming to the
pool to drink. The beasts came down a game trail, a
deep rut in the bluff, fronting where they were sitting,
and they did not dare to stir for fear of being discovered.
The buffaloes walked into the pool, and, after drinking
their fill, stood for some time with the water running out
of their mouths, idly lashing their sides with their short
tails, enjoying the bright warmth of the early sunshine ;
then, with much splashing and the gurgling of soft mud,
they left the pool and clambered up the bluff with un-
wieldy agility. As soon as they turned, my brother and
cousin ran for their rifles, but before they got back the
buffaloes had crossed the bluff crest. Climbing after
them, the two hunters found, when they reached the summit,
that their game, instead of halting, had struck straight off
across the prairie at a slow lope, doubtless intending to
rejoin the herd they had left. After a moment's consulta-

240 The Wilderness Hunter.

tion the men went in pursuit, excitement overcoming
their knowledge that they ought not, by rights, to leave
camp. They struck a steady trot, following the animals
by sight until they passed over a knoll, and then trailing
them. Where the grass was long, as it was for the first
four or five miles, this was a work of no difficulty, and
they did not break their gait, only glancing now and then
at the trail. As the sun rose and the day became warm,
their breathing grew quicker ; and the sweat rolled off
their faces as they ran across the rough prairie sward, up
and down the long inclines, now and then shifting their
heavy rifles from one shoulder to the other. But they
were in good training, and they did not have to halt. At
last they reached stretches of bare ground, sun-baked and
grassless, where the trail grew dim ; and here they had to
go very slowly, carefully examining the faint dents and
marks made in the soil by the heavy hoofs, and unravel-
ling the trail from the mass of old footmarks. It was
tedious work, but it enabled them to completely recover
their breath by the time that they again struck the grass-
land ; and but a few hundred yards from its edge, in a
slight hollow, they saw the four buffaloes just entering a
herd of fifty or sixty that were scattered out grazing.
The herd paid no attention to the new-comers, and these
immediately began to feed greedily. After a whispered
consultation, the two hunters crept back, and made a long
circle that brought them well to leeward of the herd, in
line with a slight rise in the ground. They then crawled
up to this rise and, peering through the tufts of tall, rank
grass, saw the unconscious beasts a hundred and twenty-

The Bison or American Buffalo. 241

five or fifty yards away. They fired together, each
mortally wounding his animal, and then, rushing in as the
herd halted in confusion, and following them as they ran,
impeded by numbers, hurry, and panic, they eventually
got three more.

On another occasion the same two hunters nearly met
with a frightful death, being overtaken by a vast herd of
stampeded buffaloes. All animals that go in herds are
subject to these instantaneous attacks of uncontrollable
terror, under the influence of which they become perfectly
mad, and rush headlong in dense masses on any form of
death. Horses, and more especially cattle, often suffer
from stampedes ; it is a danger against which the cowboys
are compelled to be perpetually on guard. A band of
stampeded horses, sweeping in mad terror up a valley,
will dash against a rock or tree with such violence as to
leave several dead animals at its base, while the survivors
race on without halting ; they will overturn and destroy
tents and wagons, and a man on foot caught in the rush
has but a small chance for his life. A buffalo stampede
is much worse — or rather was much worse, in the old days
—because of the great weight and immense numbers of
the beasts, which, in a fury of heedless terror, plunged
over cliffs and into rivers, and bore down whatever was
in their path. On the occasion in question, my brother
and cousin were on their way homeward. They were just
mounting one of the long, low swells, into which the
prairie was broken, when they heard a low, muttering,
rumbling noise, like far-off thunder. It grew steadily
louder, and, not knowing what it meant, they hurried for

16

242 The Wilderness Hunter.

ward to the top of the rise. As they reached it, they
stopped short in terror and amazement, for before them
the whole prairie was black with madly rushing buffaloes.

Afterward they learned that another couple of hunt-
ers, four or five miles off, had fired into and stampeded
a large herd. This herd, in its rush, gathered others, all
thundering along together in uncontrollable and increas-
ing panic.

The surprised hunters were far away from any broken
ground or other place of refuge, while the vast herd of
huge, plunging, maddened beasts was charging straight
down on them not a quarter of a mile distant. Down
they came ! — thousands upon thousands, their front ex-
tending a mile in breadth, while the earth shook beneath
their thunderous gallop, and, as they came closer, their
shaggy frontlets loomed dimly through the columns of
dust thrown up from the dry soil. The two hunters knew
that their only hope for life was to split the herd, which,
though it had so broad a front, was not very deep. If
they failed they would inevitably be trampled to death.

Waiting until the beasts were in close range, they
opened a rapid fire from their heavy breech-loading rifles,
yelling at the top of their voices. For a moment the re-
sult seemed doubtful. The line thundered steadily down
on them ; then it swayed violently, as two or three of the
brutes immediately in their front fell beneath the bullets,
while their neighbors made violent efforts to press off side-
ways. Then a narrow wedge-shaped rift appeared in the
line, and widened as it came closer, and the buffaloes,
shrinking from their foes in front, strove desperately to

1

The Bison or American Buffalo. 243

edge away from the dangerous neighborhood ; the
shouts and shots were redoubled ; the hunters were
almost choked by the cloud of dust, through which they
could see the stream of dark huge bodies passing within
rifle-length on either side ; and in a moment the peril was
over, and the two men were left alone on the plain, un-
harmed, though with their nerves terribly shaken. The
herd careered on toward the horizon, save five individuals
which had been killed or disabled by the shots.

On another occasion, when my brother was out with
one of his friends, they fired at a small herd containing
an old bull ; the bull charged the smoke, and the whole
herd followed him. Probably they were simply stam-
peded, and had no hostile intention ; at any rate, after the
death of their leader, they rushed by without doing any
damage.

But buffaloes sometimes charged with the utmost de-
termination, and were then dangerous antagonists. My
cousin, a very hardy and resolute hunter, had a narrow
escape from a wounded cow which he followed up a steep
bluff or sand cliff. Just as he reached the summit, he was
charged, and was only saved by the sudden appearance of
his dog, which distracted the cow's attention. He thus
escaped with only a tumble and a few bruises.

My brother also came in for a charge, while killing the
biggest bull that was slain by any of the party. He was out
alone, and saw a small herd of cows and calves at some
distance, with a huge bull among them, towering above
them like a giant. There was no break in the ground,
nor any tree nor bush near them, but, by making a half-

244 The Wilderness Hunter.

circle, my brother managed to creep up against the wind
behind a slight roll in the prairie surface, until he was
within seventy-five yards of the grazing and unconscious
beasts. There were some cows and calves between him
and the bull, and he had to wait some moments before
they shifted position, as the herd grazed onward and gave
him a fair shot ; in the interval they had moved so far
forward that he was in plain view. His first bullet struck
just behind the shoulder; the herd started and looked
around, but the bull merely lifted his head and took a
step forward, his tail curled up over his back. The next
bullet likewise struck fair, nearly in the same place, telling
with a loud " pack ! " against the thick hide, and making
the dust fly up from the matted hair. Instantly the great
bull wheeled and charged in headlong anger, while the
herd fled in the opposite direction. On the bare prairie,
with no spot of refuge, it was useless to try to escape,
and the hunter, with reloaded rifle, waited until the bull
was not far off, then drew up his weapon and fired. Either
he was nervous, or the bull at the moment bounded over
some obstacle, for the ball went a little wild ; neverthe-
less, by good luck, it broke a fore-leg, and the great beast
came crashing to the earth, and was slain before it could
struggle to its feet.

Two days after this event, a war party of Comanches
swept down along the river. They " jumped" a neigh-
boring camp, killing one man and wounding two more,
and at the same time ran off all but three of the horses
belonging to our eight adventurers. With the remaining
three horses and one wagon they set out homeward. The

The Bison or American Buffalo. 245

march was hard and tedious ; they lost their way and were
in jeopardy from quicksands and cloudbursts ; they suf-
fered from thirst and cold, their shoes gave out, and their
feet were lamed by cactus spines. At last they reached
Fort Griffen in safety, and great was their ravenous -re-
joicing when they procured some bread — for during the
final fortnight of the hunt they had been without flour or
vegetables of any kind, or even coffee, and had subsisted
on fresh meat " straight." Nevertheless, it was a very
healthy, as well as a very pleasant and exciting experience ;
and I doubt if any of those who took part in it will ever
forget their great buffalo-hunt on the Brazos.

My friend, Gen. W. H. Walker, of Virginia, had an
experience in the early '50*5 with buffaloes on the upper
Arkansas River, which gives some idea of their enormous
numbers at that time. He was camped with a scouting
party on the banks of the river, and had gone out to try to
shoot some meat. There were many buffaloes in sight,
scattered, according to their custom, in large bands. When
he was a mile or two away from the river a dull roaring
sound in the distance attracted his attention, and he saw
that a herd of buffalo /ar to the south, away from the river,
had been stampeded and was running his way. He knew
that if he was caught in the open by the stampeded herd
his chance for life would be small, and at once ran for the
river. By desperate efforts he reached the breaks in the
sheer banks just as the buffaloes reached them, and got
into a position of safety on the pinnacle of a little bluff.
From this point of vantage he could see the entire plain.
To the very verge of the horizon the brown masses of the

246 The Wilderness Hunter.

buffalo bands showed through the dust clouds, coming on
with a thunderous roar like that of surf. Camp was a mile
away, and the stampede luckily passed to one side of it.
Watching his chance he finally dodged back to the tent,
and all that afternoon watched the immense masses of
buffalo, as band after band tore to the brink of the bluffs
on one side, raced down them, rushed through the water,
up the bluffs on the other side, and again off over the
plain, churning the sandy, shallow stream into a ceaseless
tumult. When darkness fell there was no apparent
decrease in the numbers that were passing, and all through
that night the continuous roar showed that the herds were
still threshing across the river. Towards dawn the sound
at last ceased, and General Walker arose somewhat irri-
tated, as he had reckoned on killing an ample supply of
meat, and he supposed that there would be now no bison
left south of the river. To his astonishment, when he
strolled up on the bluffs and looked over the plain, it was
still covered far and wide with groups of buffalo, grazing
quietly. Apparently there were as many on that side as
ever, in spite of the many scores of thousands that must
have crossed over the river during the stampede of the
afternoon and night. The barren-ground caribou is the
only American animal which is now ever seen in such
enormous herds.

In 1862 Mr. Clarence King, while riding along the
overland trail through western Kansas, passed through a
great buffalo herd, and was himself injured in an encounter
with a bull. The great herd was then passing north, and
Mr. King reckoned that it must have covered an area nearly

The Bison or American Buffalo. 247

seventy miles by thirty in extent ; the figures representing
his rough guess, made after travelling through the herd
crosswise, and upon knowing how long it took to pass a
given point going northward. This great herd of course
was not a solid mass of buffaloes ; it consisted of innumer-
able bands of every size, dotting the prairie within the
limits given. Mr. King was mounted on a somewhat
unmanageable horse. On one occasion in following a band
he wounded a large bull, and became so wedged in by the
maddened animals that he was unable to avoid the charge
of the bull, which was at its last gasp. Coming straight
toward him it leaped into the air and struck the afterpart
of the saddle full with its massive forehead. The horse
was hurled to the ground with a broken back, and King's
leg was likewise broken, while the bull turned a complete
somerset over them and never rose again.

In the recesses of the Rocky Mountains, from Colorado
northward through Alberta, and in the depths of the sub-
arctic forest beyond the Saskatchewan, there have always
been found small numbers of the bison, locally called the
mountain buffalo and wood buffalo ; often indeed the old
hunters term these animals " bison," although they never
speak of the plains animals save as buffalo. They form a
slight variety of what was formerly the ordinary plains
bison, intergrading with it ; on the whole they are darker
in color, with longer, thicker hair, and in consequence
with the appearance of being heavier-bodied and shorter-
legged. They have been sometimes spoken of as forming
a separate species ; but, judging from my own limited
experience, and from a comparison of the many hides I

248 The Wilderness Hunter.

have seen, I think they are really the same animal, many
individuals of the two so-called varieties being quite
indistinguishable. In fact the only moderate-sized herd
of wild bison in existence to-day, the protected herd in the
Yellowstone Park, is composed of animals intermediate in
habits and coat between the mountain and plains varieties
— as were all the herds of the Bighorn, Big Hole, Upper
Madison, and Upper Yellowstone valleys.

However, the habitat of these wood and mountain
bison yielded them shelter from hunters in a way that the
plains never could, and hence they have always been
harder to kill in the one place than in the other ; for
precisely the same reasons that have held good with the
elk, which have been completely exterminated from the
plains, while still abundant in many of the forest fastnesses
of the Rockies. Moreover, the bison's dull eyesight is
no especial harm in the woods, while it is peculiarly hurtful
to the safety of any beast on the plains, where eyesight
avails more than any other sense, the true game of the
plains being the prong-buck, the most keen-sighted of
American animals. On the other hand the bison's hearing,
of little avail on the plains, is of much assistance in the
woods ; and its excellent nose helps equally in both places.

Though it was always more difficult to kill the bison
of the forests and mountains than the bison of the prairie,
yet now that the species is, in its wild state, hovering on
the brink of extinction, the difficulty is immeasurably
increased. A merciless and terrible process of natural
selection, in which the agents were rifle-bearing hunters,
has left as the last survivors in a hopeless struggle for

The Bison or American Buffalo. 249

existence only the wariest of the bison and those gifted
with the sharpest senses. That this was true of the last
lingering individuals that survived the great slaughter on
the plains is well shown by Mr. Hornaday in his graphic
account of his campaign against the few scattered buffalo
which still lived in 1886 between the Missouri and the
Yellowstone, along the Big Dry. The bison of the plains
and the prairies have now vanished ; and so few of their
brethren of the mountains and the northern forests are left,
that they can just barely be reckoned among American
game ; but whoever is so fortunate as to find any of these
animals must work his hardest, and show all his skill as a
hunter if he wishes to get one.

In the fall of 1889 I heard that a very few bison were
still left around the head of Wisdom River. Thither I
went and hunted faithfully ; there was plenty of game of
other kind, but of bison not a trace did we see. Never-
theless a few days later that same year I came across these
great wild cattle at a time when I had no idea of seeing
them.

It was, as nearly as we could tell, in Idaho, just south
of the Montana boundary line, and some twenty-five miles
west of the line of Wyoming. We were camped high
among the mountains, with a small pack-train. On the
day in question we had gone out to find moose, but had
seen no sign of them, and had then begun to climb over
the higher peaks with an idea of getting sheep. The old
hunter who was with me was, very fortunately, suffering
from rheumatism, and he therefore carried a long staff
instead of his rifle ; I say fortunately, for if he had carried

250 The Wilderness Hunter.

his rifle it would have been impossible to stop his firing at
such game as bison, nor would he have spared the cows
and calves.

About the middle of the afternoon we crossed a low,
rocky ridge, above timber line, and saw at our feet a basin
or round valley of singular beauty. Its walls were formed
by steep mountains. At its upper end lay a small lake,
bordered on one side by a meadow of emerald green.
The lake's other side marked the edge of the frowning
pine forest which filled the rest of the valley, and hung
high on the sides of the gorge which formed its outlet.
Beyond the lake the ground rose in a pass evidently much
frequented by game in bygone days, their trails lying
along it in thick zigzags, each gradually fading out after
a few hundred yards, and then starting again in a little
different place, as game trails so often seem to do.

We bent our steps towards these trails, and no sooner
had we reached the first than the old hunter bent over it
with a sharp exclamation of wonder. There in the dust
were the unmistakable hoof-marks of a small band of
bison, apparently but a few hours old. They were headed
towards the lake. There had been a half a dozen ani-
mals in the party ; one a big bull, and two calves.

We immediately turned and followed the trail. I tied
down to the little lake, where the beasts had spread
and grazed on the tender, green blades, and had drunk
their fill. The footprints then came together again,
showing where the animals had gathered and walked off
in single file to the forest. Evidently they had come to
the pool in the early morning, walking over the game

The Bison or American Buffalo. 251

pass from some neighboring valley, and after drinking
and feeding had moved into the pine forest to find some
spot for their noontide rest.

It was a very still day, and there were nearly three
hours of daylight left. Without a word my silent com-
panion, who had been scanning the whole country with
hawk-eyed eagerness, besides scrutinizing the sign on his
hands and knees, took the trail, motioning me to follow.
In a moment we entered the woods, breathing a sigh of
relief as we did so ; for while in the meadow we could
never tell that the buffalo might not see us, if they hap-
pened to be lying in some place with a commanding
lookout.

The old hunter was thoroughly roused, and he showed
himself a very skilful tracker. We were much favored
by the character of the forest, which was rather open, and
in most places free from undergrowth and down timber.
As in most Rocky Mountain forests the timber was small,
not only as compared to the giant trees of the groves of
the Pacific coast, but as compared to the forests of the
northeast. The ground was covered with pine needles
and soft moss, so that it was not difficult to walk noise-
lessly. Once or twice when I trod on a small dry twig,
or let the nails in my shoes clink slightly against a stone,
the hunter turned to me with a frown of angry impatience ;
but as he walked slowly, continually halting to look ahead,
as well as stooping over to examine the trail, I did not
find it very difficult to move silently. I kept a little be-
hind him, and to one side, save when he crouched to take
advantage of some piece of cover, and I crept in his foot-

252 The Wilderness Hunter.

steps. I did not look at the trail at all, but kept watching
ahead, hoping at any moment to see the game.

It was not very long before we struck their day beds,
which were made on a knoll, where the forest was open
and where there was much down timber. After leaving
the day beds the animals had at first fed separately around
the grassy base and sides of the knoll, and had then made
off in their usual single file, going straight to a small pool
in the forest. After drinking they had left this pool, and
travelled down towards the gorge at the mouth of the
basin, the trail leading along the sides of the steep hill,
which were dotted by open glades ; while the roar of the
cataracts by which the stream was broken ascended from
below. Here we moved with redoubled caution, for the
sign had grown very fresh and the animals had once more
scattered and begun feeding. When the trail led across
the glades we usually skirted them so as to keep in the
timber.

At last, on nearing the edge of one of these glades we
saw a movement among the young trees on the other side,
not fifty yards away. Peering through the safe shelter
yielded by some thick evergreen bushes, we speedily made
out three bison, a cow, a calf, and a yearling, grazing
greedily on the other side of the glade, under the fringing
timber ; all with their heads up hill. Soon another cow
and calf stepped out after them. I did not wish to shoot,
waiting for the appearance of the big bull which I knew
was accompanying them.

So for several minutes I watched the great, clumsy,
shaggy beasts, as all unconscious they grazed in the open

The Bison or American Buffalo. 253

glade. Behind them rose the dark pines. At the left of
the glade the ground fell away to form the side of a
chasm ; down in its depths the cataracts foamed and
thundered ; beyond, the huge mountains towered, their
crests crimsoned by the sinking sun. Mixed with the
eager excitement of the hunter was a certain half mel-
ancholy feeling as I gazed on these bison, themselves
part of the last remnant of a doomed and nearly vanished
race. Few, indeed, are the men who now have, or ever-
more shall have, the chance of seeing the mightiest of
American beasts, in all his wild vigor, surrounded by the
tremendous desolation of his far-off mountain home.

At last, when I had begun to grow very anxious lest
the others should take alarm, the bull likewise appeared
on the edge of the glade, and stood with outstretched
head, scratching his throat against a young tree, which
shook violently. I aimed low, behind his shoulder, and
pulled trigger. At the crack of the rifle all the bison,
without the momentary halt of terror-struck surprise so
common among game, turned and raced off at headlong
speed. The fringe of young pines beyond and below the
glade cracked and swayed as if a whirlwind were passing,
and in another moment they reached the top of a very
steep incline, thickly strewn with boulders and dead tim-
ber. Down this they plunged with reckless speed ; their
surefootedness was a marvel in such seemingly unwieldy
beasts. A column of dust obscured their passage, and
under its cover they disappeared in the forest ; but the
trail of the bull was marked by splashes of frothy blood,
and we followed it at a trot. Fifty yards beyond the

254 The Wilderness Hunter.

border of the forest we found the stark black body
stretched motionless. He was a splendid old bull, still in
his full vigor, with large, sharp horns, and heavy mane
and glossy coat ; and I felt the most exulting pride as I
handled and examined him ; for I had procured a trophy
such as can fall henceforth to few hunters indeed.

It was too late to dress the beast that evening ; so,
after taking out the tongue and cutting off enough meat
for supper and breakfast, we scrambled down to near the
torrent, and after some search found a good spot for
camping. Hot and dusty from the day's hard tramp, I
undressed and took a plunge in the stream, the icy water
making me gasp. Then, having built a slight lean-to of
brush, and dragged together enough dead timber to burn
all night, we cut long alder twigs, sat down before some
embers raked apart, and grilled and ate our buffalo meat
with the utmost relish. Night had fallen ; a cold wind
blew up the valley ; the torrent roared as it leaped past
us, and drowned our words as we strove to talk over our
adventures and success ; while the flame of the fire
flickered and danced, lighting up with continual vivid
flashes the gloom of the forest round about.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE BLACK BEAR.

NEXT to the whitetail deer the black bear is the
commonest and most widely distributed of
American big game. It is still found quite plen-
tifully in northern New England, in the Adirondacks,
Catskills, and along the entire length of the Alleghanies,
as well as in the swamps and canebrakes of the southern
States. It is also common in the great forests of northern
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and throughout the
Rocky Mountains and the timbered ranges of the Pacific
coast. In the East it has always ranked second only to
the deer among the beasts of chase. The bear and the
buck were the staple objects of pursuit of all the old
hunters. They were more plentiful than the bison and
elk even in the long vanished days when these two great
monarchs of the forest still ranged eastward to Virginia
and Pennsylvania. The wolf and the cougar were always
too scarce and too shy to yield much profit to the hunter.
The black bear is a timid, cowardly animal, and usually
a vegetarian, though it sometimes preys on the sheep, hogs,
and even cattle of the settler, and is very fond of raiding

255

256 The Wilderness Hunter.

his corn and melons. Its meat is good and its fur often
valuable ; and in its chase there is much excitement, and
occasionally a slight spice of danger, just enough to
render it attractive ; so it has always been eagerly fol-
lowed. Yet it still holds its own, though in greatly
diminished numbers, in the more thinly settled portions
of the country. One of the standing riddles of American
zoology is the fact that the black bear, which is easier
killed and less prolific than the wolf, should hold its own
in the land better than the latter, this being directly the
reverse of what occurs in Europe, where the brown bear
is generally exterminated before the wolf.

In a few wild spots in the East, in northern Maine
for instance, here and there in the neighborhood of the
upper Great Lakes, in the east Tennessee and Kentucky
mountains and the swamps of Florida and Mississippi,
there still lingers an occasional representative of the old
wilderness hunters. These men live in log-cabins in the
wilderness. They do their hunting on foot, occasionally
with the help of a single trailing dog. In Maine they are
as apt to kill moose and caribou as bear and deer ; but
elsewhere the two last, with an occasional cougar or wolf,
are the beasts of chase which they follow. Nowadays as
these old hunters die there is no one to take their places,
though there are still plenty of backwoods settlers in all of
the regions named who do a great deal of hunting and
trapping. Such an old hunter rarely makes his appear-
ance at the settlements except to dispose of his peltry and
hides in exchange for cartridges and provisions, and he
leads a life of such lonely isolation as to insure his indi-

The Black Bear. 257

vidual characteristics developing into peculiarities. Most
of the wilder districts in the eastern States still preserve
memories of some such old hunter who lived his long life
alone, waging ceaseless warfare on the vanishing game,
whose oddities, as well as his courage, hardihood, and
woodcraft, are laughingly remembered by the older set-
tlers, and who is usually best known as having killed the
last wolf or bear or cougar ever seen in the locality.

Generally the weapon mainly relied on by these old
hunters is the rifle ; and occasionally some old hunter will
be found even to this day who uses a muzzle loader, such
as Kit Carson carried in the middle of the century. There
are exceptions to this rule of the rifle however. In the
years after the Civil War one of the many noted hunters of
southwest Virginia and east Tennessee was Wilbur Waters,
sometimes called The Hunter of White Top. He often
killed black bear with a knife and dogs. He spent all his
life in hunting and was very successful, killing the last
gang of wolves to be found in his neighborhood ; and he
slew innumerable bears, with no worse results to himself
than an occasional bite or scratch.

In the southern States the planters living in the wilder
regions have always been in the habit of following the
black bear with horse and hound, many of them keeping
regular packs of bear hounds. Such a pack includes not
only pure-bred hounds, but also cross-bred animals, and
some sharp, agile, hard-biting fierce dogs and terriers.
They follow the bear and bring him to bay but do not try to
kill him, although there are dogs of the big fighting breeds
which can readily master a black bear if loosed at him

258 The Wilderness Hunter.

three or four at a time ; but the dogs of these southern
bear-hound packs are not fitted for such work, and if they
try to close with the bear he is certain to play havoc with
them, disembowelling them with blows of his paws or
seizing them in his arms and biting through their spines
or legs. The riders follow the hounds through the cane-
brakes, and also try to make cutoffs and station themselves
at open points where they think the bear will pass, so that
they may get a shot at him. The weapons used are rifles,
shotguns, and occasionally revolvers.

Sometimes, however, the hunter uses the knife. Gen-
eral Wade Hampton, who has probably killed more black
bears than any other man living in the United States,
frequently used the knife, slaying thirty or forty with this
weapon. His plan was, when he found that the dogs had
the bear at bay, to walk up close and cheer them on. They
would instantly seize the bear in a body, and he would
then rush in and stab it behind the shoulder, reaching over
so as to inflict the wound on the opposite side from that
where he stood. He escaped scathless from all these
encounters save one, in which he was rather severely torn
in the forearm. Many other hunters have used the knife,
but perhaps none so frequently as he ; for he was always
fond of steel, as witness his feats with the " white arm "
during the Civil War.

General Hampton always hunted with large packs of
hounds, managed sometimes by himself and sometimes by
his negro hunters. He occasionally took out forty dogs
at a time. He found that all his dogs together could not
kill a big fat bear, but they occasionally killed three-year-

The Black Bear. 259

olds, or lean and poor bears. During the course of his
life he has himself killed, or been in at the death of, five
hundred bears, at least two thirds of them falling by his
own hand. In the years just before the war he had on
one occasion, in Mississippi, killed sixty-eight bears in five
months. Once he killed four bears in a day ; at another
time three, and frequently two. The two largest bears
he himself killed weighed, respectively, 408 and 410
pounds. They were both shot in Mississippi. But he
saw at least one bear killed which was much larger than
either of these. These figures were taken down at the
time, when the animals were actually weighed on the
scales. Most of his hunting for bear was done in north-
ern Mississippi, where one of his plantations was situated,
near Greenville. During the half century that he hunted,
on and off, in this neighborhood, he knew of two instances
where hunters were fatally wounded in the chase of the
black bear. Both of the men were inexperienced, one
being a raftsman who came down the river, and the other
a man from Vicksburg. He was not able to learn the
particulars in the last case, but the raftsman came too
close to a bear that was at bay, and it broke through the
dogs, rushed at and overthrew him, then lying on him, it
bit him deeply in the thigh, through the femoral artery,
so that he speedily bled to death.

But a black bear is not usually a formidable opponent,
and though he will sometimes charge home he is much
more apt to bluster and bully than actually to come to
close quarters. I myself have but once seen a man who
had been hurt by one of these bears. This was an Indian.

260 The Wilderness Hunter.

He had come on the beast close up in a thick wood, and
had mortally wounded it with his gun ; it had then closed
with him, knocking the gun out of his hand, so that he
was forced to use his knife. It charged him on all fours,
but in the grapple, when it had failed to throw him down,
it raised itself on its hind legs, clasping him across the
shoulders with its fore-paws. Apparently it had no inten-
tion of hugging, but merely sought to draw him within
reach of his jaws. He fought desperately against this,
using the knife freely, and striving to keep its head back ;
and the flow of blood weakened the animal, so that it
finally fell exhausted, before being able dangerously to
injure him. But it had bitten his left arm very severely,
and its claws had made long gashes on his shoulders.

Black bears, like grislies, vary greatly in their modes
of attack. Sometimes they rush in and bite ; and again
they strike with their fore-paws. Two of my cowboys
were originally from Maine, where I knew them well.
There they were fond of trapping bears, and caught a
good many. The huge steel gins, attached by chains to
heavy clogs, prevented the trapped beasts from going
far ; and when found they were always tied tight round
some tree or bush, and usually nearly exhausted. The
men killed them either with a little 32-calibre pistol or a
hatchet. But once did they meet with any difficulty.
On this occasion one of them incautiously approached a
captured bear to knock it on the head with his hatchet,
but the animal managed to partially untwist itself, and
with its free fore-arm made a rapid sweep at him ; he
jumped back just in time, the bear's claws tearing his

The Black Bear. 261

clothes — after which he shot it. Bears are shy and have
very keen noses ; they are therefore hard to kill by fair
hunting, living, as they generally do, in dense forests or
thick brush. They are easy enough to trap, however.
Thus, these two men, though they trapped so many,
never but once killed them in any other way. On this
occasion one of them, in the winter, found in a great
hollow log a den where a she and two well-grown cubs
had taken up their abode, and shot all three with his rifle
as they burst out.

Where they are much hunted, bear become purely
nocturnal ; but in the wilder forests I have seen them
abroad at all hours, though they do not much relish the
intense heat of noon. They are rather comical animals
to watch feeding and going about the ordinary business
of their lives. Once I spent half an hour lying at the
edge of a wood and looking at a black bear some three
hundred yards off across an open glade. It was in good
stalking country, but the wind was unfavorable and I
waited for it to shift — waited too long as it proved, for
something frightened the beast and he made off before I
could get a shot at him. When I first saw him he was
shuffling along and rooting in the ground, so that he
looked like a great pig. Then he began to turn over the
stones and logs to hunt for insects, small reptiles, and
the like. A moderate-sized stone he would turn over
with a single clap of his paw, and then plunge his nose
down into the hollow to gobble up the small creatures
beneath while still dazed by the light. The big logs and
rocks he would tug and worry at with both paws ; once,

262 The Wilderness Hunter.

over-exerting his clumsy strength, he lost his grip and
rolled clean on his back. Under some of the ,logs he
evidently found mice and chipmunks ; then, as soon as
the log was overturned, he would be seen jumping about
with grotesque agility, and making quick dabs here and
there, as the little, scurrying rodent turned and twisted,
until at last he put his paw on it and scooped it up into his
mouth. Sometimes, probably when he smelt the mice
underneath, he would cautiously turn the log over with
one paw, holding the other lifted and ready to strike.
Now and then he would halt and sniff the air in every
direction, and it was after one of these halts that he sud-
denly shuffled off into the woods.

Black bear generally feed on berries, nuts, insects,
carrion, and the like ; but at times they take to killing
very large animals. In fact, they are curiously irregular
in their food. They will kill deer if they can get at
them ; but generally the deer are too quick. Sheep and
hogs are their favorite prey, especially the latter, for
bears seem to have a special relish for pork. Twice I
have known a black bear kill cattle. Once the victim
was a bull which had got mired, and which the bear delib-
erately proceeded to eat alive, heedless of the bellows of
the unfortunate beast. On the other occasion, a cow
was surprised and slain among some bushes at the edge
of a remote pasture. In the spring, soon after the long
winter sleep, they are very hungry, and are especially
apt to attack large beasts at this time ; although dur-
ing the very first days of their appearance, when they
are just breaking their fast, they eat rather sparingly,

The Black Bear. 263

and by preference the tender shoots of green grass
and other herbs, or frogs and crayfish ; it is not for a
week or two that they seem to be overcome by lean,
ravenous hunger. They will even attack and master
that formidable fighter the moose, springing at it from
an ambush as it passes — for a bull moose would surely
be an overmatch for one of them if fronted fairly in
the open. An old hunter, whom I could trust, told
me that he had seen in the snow in early spring the
place where a bear had sprung at two moose, which were
trotting together ; he missed his spring, and the moose
got off, their strides after they settled down into their
pace being tremendous, and showing how thoroughly
they were frightened. Another time he saw a bear chase
a moose into a lake, where it waded out a little distance,
and then turned to bay, bidding defiance to his pursuer,
the latter not daring to approach in the water. I have
been told — but cannot vouch for it — that instances have
been known where the bear, maddened by hunger, has
gone in on a moose thus standing at bay, only to be
beaten down under the water by the terrible fore-hoofs of
the quarry, and to yield its life in the contest. A lumber-
man told me that he once saw a moose, evidently much
startled, trot through a swamp, and immediately afterwards
a bear came up following the tracks. He almost ran into
the man, and was evidently not in a good temper, for he
growled and blustered, and two or three times made feints
of charging, before he finally concluded to go off.

Bears will occasionally visit hunters' or lumbermen's
camps, in the absence of the owners, and play sad havoc

264 The Wilderness Hunter.

with all that therein is, devouring everything eatable,
especially if sweet, and trampling into a dirty mess what-
ever they do not eat. The black bear does not average
more than a third the size of the grisly ; but, like all its
kind, it varies greatly in weight. The largest I myself
ever saw weighed was in Maine, and tipped the scale at
346 pounds ; but I have a perfectly authentic record of
one in Maine that weighed 397, and my friend, Dr. Hart
Merriam, tells me that he has seen several in the Adiron-
dacks that when killed weighed about 350.

I have myself shot but one or two black bears, and
these were obtained under circumstances of no special in-
terest, as I merely stumbled on them while after other
game, and killed them before they had a chance either to
run or show fight

CHAPTER XIV.

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR.

THE king of the game beasts of temperate North
America, because the most dangerous to the hun-
ter, is the grisly bear ; known to the few remain-
ing old-time trappers of the Rockies and the Great Plains,
sometimes as " Old Ephraim " and sometimes as " Mocca-
sin Joe " — the last in allusion to his queer, half-human
footprints, which look as if made by some misshapen
giant, walking in moccasins.

Bear vary greatly in size and color, no less than in tem-
per and habits. Old hunters speak much of them in their
endless talks over the camp fires and in the snow-bound
winter huts. They insist on many species ; not merely
the black and the grisly, but the brown, the cinnamon, the
gray, the silver-tip, and others with names known only in
certain localities, such as the range bear, the roach-back,
and the smut-face. But, in spite of popular opinion to
the contrary, most old hunters are very untrustworthy in
dealing with points of natural history. They usually know
only so much about any given game animal as will enable
them to kill it. They study its habits solely with this end

266 The Wilderness Hunter.

in view ; and once slain they only examine it to see about its
condition and fur. With rare exceptions they are quite
incapable of passing judgment upon questions of specific
identity or difference. When questioned, they not only
advance perfectly impossible theories and facts in support
of their views, but they rarely even agree as to the views
themselves. One hunter will assert that the true grisly
is only found in California, heedless of the fact that the
name was first used by Lewis and Clarke as one of the
titles they applied to the large bears of the plains country
round the Upper Missouri, a quarter of a century before
the California grisly was known to fame. Another hun-
ter will call any big brindled bear a grisly no matter where
it is found ; and he and his companions will dispute by
the hour as to whether a bear of large, but not extreme,
size is a grisly or a silver-tip. In Oregon the cinnamon
bear is a phase of the small black bear ; in Montana it is
the plains variety of the large mountain silver-tip. I have
myself seen the skins of two bears killed on the upper
waters of Tongue River ; one was that of a male, one of a
female, and they had evidently just mated ; yet one was
distinctly a " silver-tip " and the other a " cinnamon." The
skin of one very big bear which I killed in the Bighorn
has proved a standing puzzle to almost all the old hunters
to whom I have showed it ; rarely do any two of them
agree as to whether it is a grisly, a silver-tip, a cinnamon,
or a " smut-face." Any bear with unusually long hair on
the spine and shoulders, especially if killed in the spring,
when the fur is shaggy, is forthwith dubbed a " roach-back."
The average sporting writer moreover joins with the more

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear. 267

imaginative members of the " old hunter " variety in
ascribing wildly various traits to these different bears.
One comments on the superior prowess of the roach-
back ; the explanation being that a bear in early spring
is apt to be ravenous from hunger. The next insists that
the California grisly is the only really dangerous bear ;
while another stoutly maintains that it does not compare
in ferocity with what he calls the " smaller " silver-tip or
cinnamon. And so on, and so on, without end. All of
which is mere nonsense.

Nevertheless, it is no easy task to determine how many
species or varieties of bear actually do exist in the United
States, and I cannot even say without doubt that a very
large set of skins and skulls would not show a nearly com-
plete intergradation between the most widely separated
individuals. However, there are certainly two very dis-
tinct types, which differ almost as widely from each other
as a wapiti does from a mule deer, and which exist in the
same localities in most heavily timbered portions of the
Rockies. One is the small black bear, a bear which will
average about two hundred pounds weight, with fine,
glossy, black fur, and the fore-claws but little longer than
the hinder ones ; in fact the hairs of the fore-paw often
reach to their tips. This bear is a tree climber. It is the
only kind found east of the great plains, and it is also
plentiful in the forest-clad portions of the Rockies, being
common in most heavily timbered tracts throughout the
United States. The other is the grisly, which weighs
three or four times as much as the black, and has a pelt of
coarse hair, which is in color gray, grizzled, or brown of

268 The Wilderness Hunter.

various shades. It is not a tree climber, and the fore-claws
are very long, much longer than the hinder ones. It is
found from the great plains west of the Mississippi to the
Pacific coast. This bear inhabits indifferently lowland and
mountain ; the deep woods, and the barren plains where
the only cover is the stunted growth fringing the streams.
These two types are very distinct in every way, and their
differences are not at all dependent upon mere geographical
considerations ; for they are often found in the same dis-
trict. Thus I found them both in the Bighorn Mountains,
each type being in extreme form, while the specimens I shot
showed no trace of intergradation. The huge grizzled,
long-clawed beast, and its little glossy-coated, short-clawed,
tree-climbing brother roamed over exactly the same coun-
try in those mountains ; but they were as distinct in
habits, and mixed as little together as moose and caribou.
On the other hand, when a sufficient number of bears,
from widely separated regions are examined, the various
distinguishing marks are found to be inconstant and to
show a tendency — exactly how strong I cannot say — to
fade into one another. The differentiation of the two
species seems to be as yet scarcely completed ; there are
more or less imperfect connecting links, and as regards
the grisly it almost seems as if the specific characters were
still unstable. In the far northwest, in the basin of
the Columbia, the " black " bear is as often brown as any
other color ; and I have seen the skins of two cubs, one
black and one brown, which were shot when following the
same dam. When these brown bears have coarser hair
than usual their skins are with difficulty to be distinguished

Old Rphraim, the Grisly Bear. 269

from those of certain varieties of the grisly. Moreover,
all bears vary greatly in size ; and I have seen the bodies
of very large black or brown bears with short fore-claws
which were fully as heavy as, or perhaps heavier than,
some small but full-grown grislies with long fore-claws.
These very large bears with short claws are very reluctant
to climb a tree ; and are almost as clumsy about it as is a
young grisly. Among the grislies the fur varies much
in color and texture even among bears of the same locality ;
it is of course richest in the deep forest, while the bears
of the dry plains and mountains are of a lighter, more
washed-out hue.

A full grown grisly will usually weigh from five to seven
hundred pounds ; but exceptional individuals undoubtedly
reach more than twelve hundredweight. The California
bears are said to be much the largest. This I think is so,
but I cannot say it with certainty — at any rate I have
examined several skins of full-grown Californian bears
which were no larger than those of many I have seen from
the northern Rockies. The Alaskan bears, particularly
those of the peninsula, are even bigger beasts ; the skin of
one which I saw in the possession of Mr. Webster, the
taxidermist, was a good deal larger than the average polar
bear skin ; and the animal when alive, if in good condition,
could hardly have weighed less than 1,400 pounds.* Bears
vary wonderfully in weight, even to the extent of becoming
half as heavy again, according as they are fat or lean ; in this
respect they are more like hogs than like any other animals.

* Both this huge Alaskan bear and the entirely distinct bear of the barren grounds
differ widely from the true grisly, at least in their extreme forms.

270 The Wilderness Hunter.

The grisly is now chiefly a beast of the high hills and
heavy timber ; but this is merely because he has learned
that he must rely on cover to guard him from man, and
has forsaken the open ground accordingly. In old days,
and in one or two very out-of-the-way places almost to the
present time, he wandered at will over the plains. It is only
the wariness born of fear which nowadays causes him to
cling to the thick brush of the large river-bottoms through-
out the plains country. When there were no rifle-bearing
hunters in the land, to harass him and make him afraid,
he roved hither and thither at will, in burly self-confidence.
Then he cared little for cover, unless as a weather-break,
or because it happened to contain food he liked. If the
humor seized him he would roam for days over the rolling
or broken prairie, searching for roots, digging up gophers,
or perhaps following the great buffalo herds either to prey
on some unwary straggler which he was able to catch at
a disadvantage in a washout, or else to feast on the car-
casses of those which died by accident. Old hunters,
survivors of the long-vanished ages when the vast herds
thronged the high plains and were followed by the wild
red tribes, and by bands of whites who were scarcely less
savage, have told me that they often met bears under
such circumstances ; and these bears were accustomed to
sleep in a patch of rank sage bush, in the niche of a wash-
out, or under the lee of a boulder, seeking their food abroad
even in full daylight. The bears of the Upper Missouri
basin — which were so light in color that the early explorers
often alluded to them as gray or even as "white " —were
particularly given to this life in the open. To this day

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear. 271

that close kinsman of the grisly known as the bear of the
barren grounds continues to lead this same kind of life, in
the far north. My friend Mr. Rockhill, of Maryland, who
was the first white man to explore eastern Tibet, describes
the large, grisly-like bear of those desolate uplands as
having similar habits.

However, the grisly is a shrewd beast and shows the
usual bear-like capacity for adapting himself to changed
conditions. He has in most places become a cover-haunting
animal, sly in his ways, wary to a degree, and clinging to
the shelter of the deepest forests in the mountains and of
the most tangled thickets in the plains. Hence he has
held his own far better than such game as the bison and
elk. He is much less common than formerly, but he is still
to be found throughout most of his former range ; save of
course in the immediate neighborhood of the large towns.

In most places the grisly hibernates, or as old hunters
say "holes up, " during the cold season, precisely as does
the black bear ; but as with the latter species, those animals
which live farthest south spend the whole year abroad in
mild seasons. The grisly rarely chooses that favorite den
of his little black brother, a hollow tree or log, for his
winter sleep, seeking or making some cavernous hole in
the ground instead. The hole is sometimes in a slight
hillock in a river bottom, but more often on a hill-side, and
may be either shallow or deep. In the mountains it is
generally a natural cave in the rock, but among the foot-hills
and on the plains the bear usually has to take some
hollow or opening, and then fashion it into a burrow to his
liking with his big digging claws.

272 The Wilderness Hunter.

Before the cold weather sets in the bear begins to grow
restless, and to roam about seeking for a good place in
which to hole up. One will often try and abandon several
caves or partially dug-out burrows in succession before
finding a place to its taste. It always endeavors to choose
a spot where there is little chance of discovery or molesta-
tion, taking great care to avoid leaving too evident trace
of its work. Hence it is not often that the dens are found.

Once in its den the bear passes the cold months
in lethargic sleep ; yet, in all but the coldest weather,
and sometimes even then, its slumber is but light, and if
disturbed it will promptly leave its den, prepared for
fight or flight as the occasion may require. Many times
when a hunter has stumbled on the winter resting-place of
a bear and has left it, as he thought, without his presence
being discovered, he has returned only to find that the
crafty old fellow was aware of the danger all the time, and
sneaked off as soon as the coast was clear. But in veiy
cold weather hibernating bears can hardly be wakened
from their torpid lethargy.

The length of time a bear stays in its den depends of
course upon the severity of the season and the latitude and
altitude of the country. In the northernmost and coldest
regions all the bears hole up, and spend half the year in a
state of lethargy ; whereas in the south only the she's with
young and the fat he-bears retire for the sleep, and these
but for a few weeks, and only if the season is severe.

When the bear first leaves its den the fur is in very fine
order, but it speedily becomes thin and poor, and does not
recover its condition until the fall. Sometimes the bear

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear. 273

does not betray any great hunger for a few days after its
appearance ; but in a short while it becomes ravenous.
During the early spring, when the woods are still entirely
barren and lifeless, while the snow yet lies in deep drifts,
the lean, hungry brute, both maddened and weakened by
long fasting, is more of a flesh eater than at any other
time. It is at this period that it is most apt to turn true
beast of prey, and show its prowess either at the expense
of the wild game, or of the flocks of the settler and the
herds of the ranchman. Bears are very capricious in this
respect, however. Some are confirmed game, and cattle-
killers ; others are not ; while yet others either are or are
not accordingly as the freak seizes them, and their ravages
vary almost unaccountably, both with the season and the
locality.

Throughout 1889, for instance, no cattle, so far as I
heard, were killed by bears anywhere near my range on
the Little Missouri in western Dakota ; yet I happened to
know that during that same season the ravages of the bears
among the herds of the cowmen in the Big Hole Basin, in
western Montana, were very destructive.

In the spring and early summer of 1888, the bears
killed no cattle near my ranch ; but in the late summer
and early fall of that year a big bear, which we well knew
by its tracks, suddenly took to cattle-killing. This was a
brute which had its headquarters on some very large brush
bottoms a dozen miles below my ranch house, and which
ranged to and fro across the broken country flanking the
river on each side. It began just before berry time, but
continued its career of destruction long after the wild plums

274 The Wilderness Hunter.

and even buffalo berries had ripened. I think that what
started it was a feast on a cow which had mired and died
in the bed of the creek ; at least it was not until after we
found that it had been feeding at the carcass and had eaten
every scrap, that we discovered traces of its ravages among
the livestock. It seemed to attack the animals wholly
regardless of their size and strength ; its victims including
a large bull and a beef steer, as well as cows, yearlings,
and gaunt, weak trail " doughgies," which had been
brought in very late by a Texas cow- outfit — for that year
several herds were driven up from the overstocked,
eaten-out, and drought-stricken ranges of the far south.
Judging from the signs, the crafty old grisly, as cunning
as he was ferocious, usually lay in wait for the cattle when
they came down to water, choosing some thicket of dense
underbrush and twisted cottonwoods through which they
had to pass before reaching the sand banks on the river's
brink. Sometimes he pounced on them as they fed through
the thick, low cover of the bottoms, where an assailant
could either lie in ambush by one of the numerous cattle
trails, or else creep unobserved towards some browsing
beast. When within a few feet a quick rush carried him
fairly on the terrified quarry ; and though but a clumsy
animal compared to the great cats, the grisly is far quicker
than one would imagine from viewing his ordinary lum-
bering gait. In one or two instances the bear had appar-
ently grappled with his victim by seizing it near the loins
and striking a disabling blow over the small of the back ;
in at least one instance he had jumped on the animal's head,
grasping it with his fore-paws, while with his fangs he tore

GRISLY KILLING A STEER.

Old Rpkraim, the Grisly Bear. 275

open the throat or craunched the neck bone. Some of his
victims were slain far from the river, in winding, brushy
coulies of the Bad Lands, where the broken nature of the
ground rendered stalking easy. Several of the ranchmen,
angered at their losses, hunted their foe eagerly, but
always with ill success ; until one of them put poison in a
carcass, and thus at last, in ignoble fashion, slew the cat-
tle-killer.

Mr. Clarence King informs me that he was once eye-
witness to a bear's killing a steer, in California. The steer
was in a small pasture, and the bear climbed over, partly
breaking down, the rails which barred the gateway. The
steer started to run, but the grisly overtook it in four or
five bounds, and struck it a tremendous blow on the flank
with one paw, knocking several ribs clear away from the
spine, and killing the animal outright by the shock.

Horses no less than horned cattle at times fall victims
to this great bear, which usually spring on them from the
edge of a clearing as they graze in some mountain pasture,
or among the foot-hills ; and there is no other animal of
which horses seem so much afraid. Generally the bear,
whether successful or unsuccessful in its raids on cattle
and horses, comes off unscathed from the struggle ; but
this is not always the case, and it has much respect for
the hoofs or horns of its should-be prey. Some horses do
not seem to know how to fight at all ; but others are both
quick and vicious, and prove themselves very formidable
foes, lashing out behind, and striking with their fore-hoofs.
I have elsewhere given an instance of a stallion which beat
off a bear, breaking its jaw.

2 76 The Wilderness Hunter.

Quite near my ranch, once, a cowboy in my employ
found unmistakable evidence of the discomfiture of a bear
by a long-horned range cow. It was in the early spring,
and the cow with her new-born calf was in a brush-
bordered valley. The footprints in the damp soil were very
plain, and showed all that had happened. The bear had
evidently come out of the bushes with a rush, probably
bent merely on seizing the calf ; and had slowed up when
the cow instead of flying faced him. He had then begun
to walk round his expected dinner in a circle, the cow
fronting him and moving nervously back and forth, so that
her sharp hoofs cut and trampled the ground. Finally she
had charged savagely ; whereupon the bear had bolted ;
and, whether frightened at the charge, or at the approach
of some one, he had not returned.

The grisly is even fonder of sheep and pigs than is
its smaller black brother. Lurking round the settler's
house until after nightfall, it will vault into the fold or sty,
grasp a helpless, bleating fleece-bearer, or a shrieking,
struggling member of the bristly brotherhood, and bundle
it out over the fence to its death. In carrying its prey a
bear sometimes holds the body in its teeth, walking along
on all-fours and dragging it as a wolf does. Sometimes,
however, it seizes an animal in its forearms or in one of
them, and walks awkwardly on three legs or two, adopting
this method in lifting and pushing the body over rocks
and down timber.

When a grisly can get at domestic animals it rarely
seeks to molest game, the former being far less wary and
more helpless. Its heaviness and clumsiness do not fit it

Old Rpkraim, the Grisly Bear. 277

well for a life of rapine against shy woodland creatures.
Its vast strength and determined temper, however, more
than make amends for lack of agility in the actual struggle
with the stricken prey ; its difficulty lies in seizing, not in
killing, the game. Hence, when a grisly does take to
game-killing, it is likely to attack bison, moose, and elk ;
it is rarely able to catch deer, still less sheep or antelope.
In fact these smaller game animals often show but little
dread of its neighborhood, and, though careful not to let
it come too near, go on grazing when a bear is in full
sight. Whitetail deer are frequently found at home in
the same thicket in which a bear has its den, while they
immediately desert the temporary abiding place of a wolf
or cougar. Nevertheless, they sometimes presume too
much on this confidence. A couple of years before the
occurrence of the feats of cattle-killing mentioned above
as happening near my ranch, either the same bear that
figured in them, or another of similar tastes, took to game-
hunting. The beast lived in the same succession of huge
thickets which cover for two or three miles the river
bottoms and the mouths of the inflowing creeks ; and he
suddenly made a raid on the whitetail deer which were
plentiful in the dense cover. The shaggy, clumsy mon-
ster was cunning enough to kill several of these knowing
creatures. The exact course of procedure I never could
find out ; but apparently the bear laid in wait beside the
game trails, along which the deer wandered.

In the old days when the innumerable bison grazed
free on the prairie, the grisly sometimes harassed their
bands as it now does the herds of the ranchman. The

278 The Wilderness Hunter.

bison was the most easily approached of all game, and the
great bear could often get near some outlying straggler,
in its quest after stray cows, yearlings, or calves. In
default of a favorable chance to make a prey of
one ef these weaker members of the herds, it did
not hesitate to attack the mighty bulls themselves ;
and perhaps the grandest sight which it was ever the
good fortune of the early hunters to witness, was one of
these rare battles between a hungry grisly and a power-
ful buffalo bull. Nowadays, however, the few last sur-
vivors of the bison are vanishing even from the inaccessible
mountain fastnesses in which they sought a final refuge
from their destroyers.

At present the wapiti is of all wild game that which is
most likely to fall a victim to the grisly, when the big
bear is in the mood to turn hunter. Wapiti are found in
the same places as the grisly, and in some spots they are
yet very plentiful ; they are less shy and active than deer,
while not powerful enough to beat off so ponderous a foe ;
and they live in cover where there is always a good chance
either to stalk or to stumble on them. At almost any
season bear will come and feast on an elk carcass ; and if
the food supply runs short, in early spring, or in a fall
when the berry crop fails, they sometimes have to do their
own killing. Twice I have come across the remains of
elk, which had seemingly been slain and devoured by
bears. I have never heard of elk making a fight against
a bear ; yet, at close quarters and at bay, a bull elk in the
rutting season is an ugly foe.

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear. 279

A bull moose is even more formidable, being able to
strike the most lightning-like blows with his terrible
forefeet, his true weapons of defence. I doubt if any
beast of prey would rush in on one of these woodland
giants, when his horns were grown, and if he was on his
guard and bent on fight. Nevertheless, the moose some-
times fall victims to the uncouth prowess of the grisly, in
the thick wet forests of the high northern Rockies, where
both beasts dwell. An old hunter who a dozen years ago
wintered at Jackson Lake, in northwestern Wyoming, told
me that when the snows got deep on the mountains the
moose came, down and took up their abode near the lake,
on its western side. Nothing molested them during the
winter. Early in the spring a grisly came out of its den,
and he found its tracks in many places, as it roamed rest-
lessly about, evidently very hungry. Finding little to eat
in the bleak, snow-drifted woods, it soon began to depre-
date on the moose, and killed two or three, generally by
lying in wait and dashing out on them as they passed near
its lurking-place. Even the bulls were at that season
weak, and of course hornless, with small desire to fight ;
and in each case the rush of the great bear — doubtless
made with the ferocity and speed which so often belie the
seeming awkwardness of the animal — bore down the
startled victim, taken utterly unawares before it had a
chance to defend itself. In one case the bear had missed
its spring ; the moose going off, for a few rods, with huge
jumps, and then settling down into its characteristic trot.
The old hunter who followed the tracks said he would

280 The Wilderness Hunter.

never have deemed it possible for any animal to make
such strides while in a trot.

Nevertheless, the grisly is only occasionally, not nor-
mally, a formidable predatory beast, a killer of cattle and
of large game. Although capable of far swifter move-
ment than is promised by his frame of seemingly clumsy
strength, and in spite of his power of charging with
astonishing suddenness and speed, he yet lacks altogether
the supple agility of such finished destroyers as the cougar
and the wolf ; and for the absence of this agility no amount
of mere huge muscle can atone. He is more apt to feast
on animals which have met their death by accident, or
which have been killed by other beasts or by man, than
to do his own killing. He is a very foul feeder, with a
strong relish for carrion, and possesses a grewsome and
cannibal fondness for the flesh of his own kind ; a bear
carcass will toll a brother bear to the ambushed hunter
better than almost any other bait, unless it is the carcass
of a horse.

Nor do these big bears always content themselves
merely with the carcasses of their brethren. A black bear
would have a poor chance if in the clutches of a large,
hungry grisly ; and an old male will kill and eat a cub,
especially if he finds it at a disadvantage. A rather re-
markable instance of this occurred in the Yellowstone
National Park, in the spring of 1891. The incident is
related in the following letter written to Mr. William
Hallett Phillips, of Washington, by another friend, Mr.
Elwood Hofer. Hofer is an old mountain-man ; I have
hunted with him myself, and know his statements to be

Old Epkraim, the Grisly Bear. 281

trustworthy. He was, at the time, at work in the Park
getting animals for the National Museum at Washington,
and was staying at Yancey's " hotel " near Tower Falls.
His letter which was dated June 2ist, 1891, runs in jpart
as follows :

" I had a splendid Grizzly or Roachback cub and was
going to send him into the Springs next morning the team
was here, I heard a racket out side went out and found
him dead an old bear that made an 9 1-2 inch track had
killed and partly eaten him. Last night another one came,
one that made an 8 1-2 inch track, and broke Yancy up
in the milk business. You know how the cabins stand
here. There is a hitching post between the saloon and
old house, the little bear was killed there. In a creek
close by was a milk house, last night another bear came
there and smashed the whole thing up, leaving nothing
but a few flattened buckets and pans and boards. I was
sleeping in the old cabin, I heard the tin ware rattle but
thought it was all right supposed it was cows or horses
about. I don't care about the milk but the damn cuss dug
up the remains of the cub I had buried in the old ditch,
he visited the old meat house but found nothing. Bear
are very thick in this part of the Park, and are getting
very fresh. I sent in the game to Capt. Anderson, hear
its doing well."

Grislies are fond of fish ; and on the Pacific slope,
where the salmon run, they, like so many other beasts,
travel many scores of miles and crowd down to the
rivers to gorge themselves upon the fish which are
thrown up on the banks. Wading into the water a bear

282 The Wilderness Hunter.

will knock out the salmon right and left when they are
running thick.

Flesh and fish do not constitute the grisly's ordinary
diet. At most times the big bear is a grubber in the
ground, an eater of insects, roots, nuts, and berries. Its
dangerous fore-claws are normally used to overturn stones
and knock rotten logs to pieces, that it may lap up the
small tribes of darkness which swarm under the one and
in the other. It digs up the camas roots, wild onions, and
an occasional luckless woodchuck or gopher. If food is
very plenty bears are lazy, but commonly they are obliged
to be very industrious, it being no light task to gather
enough ants, beetles, crickets, tumble-bugs, roots, and nuts
to satisfy the cravings of so huge a bulk. The sign of a
bear's work is, of course, evident to the most unpractised
eye ;*and in no way can one get a better idea of the
brute's power than by watching it busily working for its
breakfast, shattering big logs and upsetting boulders by
sheer strength. There is always a touch of the comic, as
well as a touch of the strong and terrible, in a bear's look
and actions. It will tug and pull, now with one paw, now
with two, now on all fours, now on its hind legs, in the
effort to turn over a large log or stone ; and when it
succeeds it jumps round to thrust its muzzle into the damp
hollow and lap up the affrighted mice or beetles while
they are still paralyzed by the sudden exposure.

The true time of plenty for bears is the berry season.
Then they feast ravenously on huckleberries, blueberries,
kinnikinic berries, buffalo berries, wild plums, elder-
berries, and scores of other fruits. They often smash all

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear. 283

the bushes in a berry patch, gathering the fruit with half-
luxurious, half-laborious greed, sitting on their haunches,
and sweeping the berries into their mouths with dexterous
paws. So absorbed do they become in their feasts on the
luscious fruit that they grow reckless of their safety, and
feed in broad daylight, almost at midday ; while in some
of the thickets, especially those of the mountain haws,
they make so much noise in smashing the branches that
it is a comparatively easy matter to approach them un-
heard. That still-hunter is in luck who in the fall finds
an accessible berry-covered hill-side which is haunted by
bears ; but, as a rule, the berry bushes do not grow close
enough together to give the hunter much chance.

Like most other wild animals, bears which have known
the neighborhood of man are beasts of the darkness, or
at least of the dusk and the gloaming. But they are by
no means such true night-lovers as the big cats and the
wolves. In regions where they know little of hunters
they roam about freely in the daylight, and in cool
weather are even apt to take their noontide slumbers
basking in the sun. Where they are much hunted they
finally almost reverse their natural habits and sleep
throughout the hours of light, only venturing abroad
after nightfall and before sunrise ; but even yet this is not
the habit of those bears which exist in the wilder localities
where they are still plentiful. In these places they sleep,
or at least rest, during the hours of greatest heat, and
again in the middle part of the night, unless there is a full
moon. They start on their rambles for food about mid-
afternoon, and end their morning roaming soon after the

284 The Wilderness Hunter.

sun is above the horizon. If the moon is full, however,
they may feed all night long, and then wander but little
in the daytime.

Aside from man, the full-grown grisly has hardly any foe
to fear. Nevertheless, in the early spring, when weakened
by the hunger that succeeds the winter sleep, it behooves
even the grisly, if he dwells in the mountain fastnesses of
the far northwest, to beware of a famished troop of great
timber wolves. These northern Rocky Mountain wolves
are most formidable beasts, and when many of them band
together in time of famine they do not hesitate to pounce
on the black bear and cougar ; and even a full-grown
grisly is not safe from their ^attacks, unless he can back up
against some rock which will prevent them from assailing
him from behind. A small ranchman whom I knew well,
who lived near Flathead Lake, once in April found where
a troop of these wolves had killed a good-sized yearling
grisly. Either cougar or wolf will make a prey of a grisly
which is but a few months old ; while any fox, lynx,
wolverine, or fisher will seize the very young cubs. The
old story about wolves fearing to feast on game killed by
a grisly is all nonsense. Wolves are canny beasts, and
they will not approach a carcass if they think a bear is
hidden nearby and likely to rush out at them ; but under
ordinary circumstances they will feast not only on the
carcasses of the grisly's victims, but on the carcass of the
grisly himself after he has been slain and left by the
hunter. Of course wolves would only attack a grisly if in
the most desperate straits for food, as even a victory over
such an antagonist must be purchased with heavy loss of

Old Rphraim, the Grisly Bear. 285

life ; and a hungry grisly would devour either a wolf or
a cougar, or any one of the smaller carnivora off-hand if
it happened to corner it where it could not get away.

The grisly occasionally makes its den in a cave and
spends therein the midday hours. But this is rare. Usually
it lies in the dense shelter of the most tangled piece of
woods in the neighborhood, choosing by preference some
bit where the young growth is thick and the ground strewn
with boulders and fallen logs. Often, especially if in a
restless mood and roaming much over the country, it
merely makes a temporary bed, in which it lies but once
or twice ; and again it may make a more permanent lair or
series of lairs, spending many consecutive nights in each.
Usually the lair or bed is made some distance from the
feeding ground ; but bold bears, in very wild localities,
may lie close by a carcass, or in the middle of a berry
ground. The deer-killing bear above mentioned had
evidently dragged two or three of his victims to his den,
which was under an impenetrable mat of bull-berries and
dwarf box-alders, hemmed in by a cut bank on one side
and a wall of gnarled cottonwoods on the other. Round
this den, and rendering it noisome, were scattered the
bones of several deer and a young steer or heifer. When
we found it we thought we could easily kill the bear, but
the fierce, cunning beast must have seen or smelt us, for
though we laid in wait for it long and patiently, it did not
come back to its place ; nor, on our subsequent visits, did
we ever find traces of its having done so.

Bear are fond of wallowing in the water, whether in the
sand, on the edge of a rapid plains river, on the muddy

286 The Wilderness Hunter.

margin of a pond, or in the oozy moss of a clear, cold
mountain spring. One hot August afternoon, as I was
clambering down a steep mountain-side near Pend'Oreille
lake, I heard a crash some distance below, which showed
that a large beast was afoot. On making my way towards
the spot, I found I had disturbed a big bear as it was
lolling at ease in its bath ; the discolored water showed
where it had scrambled hastily out and galloped off as I
approached. The spring welled out at the base of a high
granite rock, forming a small pool of shimmering broken
crystal. The soaked moss lay in a deep wet cushion round
about, and jutted over the edges of the pool like a floating
shelf. Graceful, water-loving ferns swayed to and fro.
Above, the great conifers spread their murmuring branches,
dimming the light, and keeping out the heat ; their brown
boles sprang from the ground like buttressed columns.
On the barren mountain-side beyond the heat was op-
pressive. It was small wonder that Bruin should have
sought the spot to cool his gross carcass in the fresh
spring water.

The bear is a solitary beast, and although many may
assemble together, in what looks like a drove, on some
favorite feeding-ground — usually where the berries are
thick, or by the banks of a salmon-thronged river — the
association is never more than momentary, each going its
own way as soon as its hunger is satisfied. The males
always live alone by choice, save in the rutting season,
when they seek the females. Then two or three may come
together in the course of their pursuit and rough courtship
of the female ; and if the rivals are well matched, savage

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear. 287

battles follow, so that many of the old males have their
heads seamed with scars made by their fellows' teeth. At
such times they are evil tempered and prone to attack
man or beast on slight provocation.

The she brings forth her cubs, one, two, or three in
number, in her winter den. They are very small and
helpless things, and it is some time after she leaves her
winter home before they can follow her for any distance.
They stay with her throughout the summer and the fall,
leaving her when the cold weather sets in. By this time
they are well grown ; and hence, especially if an old male
has joined the she, the family may number three or four
individuals, so as to make what seems like quite a little
troop of bears. A small ranchman who lived a dozen
miles from me on the Little Missouri once found a she-
bear and three half-grown cubs feeding at a berry-patch in
a ravine. He shot the old she in the small of the back,
whereat she made a loud roaring and squealing. One of
the cubs rushed towards her ; but its sympathy proved
misplaced, for she knocked it over with a hearty cuff,
either out of mere temper, or because she thought her
pain must be due to an unprovoked assault from one of
her offspring. The hunter then killed one of the cubs,
and the other two escaped. When bears are together and
one is wounded by a bullet, but does not see the real
assailant, it often falls tooth and nail upon its comrade,
apparently attributing its injury to the latter.

Bears are hunted in many ways. Some are killed by
poison ; but this plan is only practised by the owners of
cattle or sheep who have suffered from their ravages.

288 The Wilderness Hunter.

Moreover, they are harder to poison than wolves. Most
often they are killed in traps, which are sometimes dead-
falls, on the principle of the little figure-4 trap familiar to
every American country boy, sometimes log-pens in
which the animal is taken alive, but generally huge steel
gins. In some states there is a bounty for the destruc-
tion of grislies ; and in many places their skins have a
market price, although much less valuable than those of
the black bear. The men who pursue them for the
bounty, or for their fur, as well as the ranchmen who
regard them as foes to stock, ordinarily use steel traps.
The trap is very massive, needing no small strength to
set, and it is usually chained to a bar or log of wood,
which does not stop the bear's progress outright, but
hampers and interferes with it, continually catching in
tree stumps and the like. The animal when trapped
makes off at once, biting at the trap and the bar ; but it
leaves a broad wake and sooner or later is found tangled
up by the chain and bar. A bear is by no means so
difficult to trap as a wolf or fox although more so than a
cougar or a lynx. In wild regions a skilful trapper can
often catch a great many with comparative ease. A
cunning old grisly however, soon learns the danger, and
is then almost impossible to trap, as it either avoids the
neighborhood altogether or finds out some way by which
to get at the bait without springing the trap, or else
deliberately springs it first. I have been told of bears
which spring traps by rolling across them, the iron jaws
slipping harmlessly off the big round body. An old horse
is the most common bait.

Old Epkraim, the Grisly Bear. 289

It is, of course, all right to trap bears when they are
followed merely as vermin or for the sake of the fur.
Occasionally, however, hunters who are out merely for
sport adopt this method ; but this should never be done.
To shoot a trapped bear for sport is a thoroughly un-
sportsmanlike proceeding. A funny plea sometimes
advanced in its favor is that it is "dangerous." No
doubt in exceptional instances this is true ; exactly as it
is true that in exceptional instances it is " dangerous "
for a butcher to knock over a steer in the slaughter-
house. A bear caught only by the toes may wrench
itself free as the hunter comes near, and attack him with
pain-maddened fury ; or if followed at once, and if the
trap and bar are light, it may be found in some thicket,
still free, and in a frenzy of rage. But even in such
cases the beast has been crippled, and though crazy with
pain and anger is easily dealt with by a good shot ; while
ordinarily the poor brute is found in the last stages of
exhaustion, tied tight to a tree where the log or bar has
caught, its teeth broken to splintered stumps by rabid
snaps at the cruel trap and chain. Some trappers kill
the trapped grislies with a revolver ; so that it may
easily be seen that the sport is not normally danger-
ous. Two of my own cowboys, Seawell and Dow, were
originally from Maine, where they had trapped a number
of black bears ; and they always killed them either with
a hatchet or a small 32-calibre revolver. One of them,
Seawell, once came near being mauled by a trapped bear,
seemingly at the last gasp, which he approached in-
cautiously with his hatchet.
19

290 The Wilderness Hunter.

There is, however, one very real danger to which the
solitary bear-trapper is exposed, the danger of being
caught in his own trap. The huge jaws of the gin are easy
to spring and most hard to open. If an unwary passer-by
should tread between them and be caught by the leg, his
fate would be doubtful, though he would probable die under
the steadily growing torment of the merciless iron jaws,
as they pressed ever deeper into the sore flesh and broken
bones. But if caught by the arms, while setting or fixing
the trap, his fate would be in no doubt at all, for it would
be impossible for the stoutest man to free himself by any
means. Terrible stories are told of solitary mountain
hunters who disappeared, and were found years later in
the lonely wilderness, as mouldering skeletons, the
shattered bones of the forearms still held in the rusty
jaws of the gin.

Doubtless the grisly could be successfully hunted with
dogs, if the latter were carefully bred and trained to the
purpose, but as yet this has not been done, and though
dogs are sometimes used as adjuncts in grisly hunting
they are rarely of much service. It is sometimes said
that very small dogs are the best for this end. But this
is only so with grislies that have never been hunted.
In such a case the big bear sometimes becomes so irritated
with the bouncing, yapping little terriers or fice-dogs that
he may try to catch them and thus permit the hunter to
creep upon him. But the minute he realizes, as he
speedily does, that the man is his real foe, he pays no
further heed whatever to the little dogs, who can then
neither bring him to bay nor hinder his flight. Ordinary

Old Rphraim, the Grisly Bear. 291

hounds, of the kinds used in the South for fox, deer, wild-
cat, and black bear, are but little better. I have known
one or two men who at different times tried to hunt the
grisly with a pack of hounds and fice-dogs wonted to the
chase of the black bear, but they never met with success,
This was probably largely owing to the nature of the
country in which they hunted, a vast tangled mass of
forest and craggy mountain ; but it was also due to the
utter inability of the dogs to stop the quarry from break-
ing bay when it wished. Several times a grisly was
bayed, but always in some inaccessible spot which it took
hard climbing to reach, and the dogs were never able to
hold the beast until the hunters came up.

Still a well-trained pack of large hounds which were
both bold and cunning could doubtless bay even a grisly.
Such dogs are the big half-breed hounds sometimes used
in the Alleghanies of West Virginia, which are trained
not merely to nip a bear, but to grip him by the hock as
he runs and either throw him or twirl him round. A
grisly could not disregard a wary and powerful hound
capable of performing this trick, even though he paid
small heed to mere barking and occasional nipping. Nor
do I doubt that it would be possible to get together a
pack of many large, fierce dogs, trained to dash straight
at the head and hold on like a vice, which could fairly
master a grisly a*hd, though unable, of course, to kill him,
would worry him breathless and hold him down so that he
could be slain with ease. There have been instances in
which five or six of the big so-called blood-hounds of the
southern States — not pure blood-hounds at all, but huge,

292 The Wilderness Hunter.

fierce, ban-dogs, with a cross of the ferocious Cuban blood-
hound, to give them good scenting powers — have by them-
selves mastered the cougar and the black bear. Such
instances occurred in the hunting history of my own
forefathers on my mother's side, who during the last half
of the eighteenth, and the first half of the present, century
lived in Georgia and over the border in what are now
Alabama and Florida. These big dogs can only overcome
such foes by rushing in in a body and grappling all
together ; if they hang back, lunging and snapping, a
cougar or bear will destroy them one by one. With a
quarry so huge and redoubtable as the grisly, no number
of dogs, however large and fierce, could overcome him
unless they all rushed on him in a mass, the first in the
charge seizing by the head or throat. If the dogs hung
back, or if there were only a few of them, or if they did
not seize around the head, they would be destroyed without
an effort. It is murder to slip merely one or two close-
quarter dogs at a grisly. Twice I have known a man take
a large bull dog with his pack when after one of these big
bears, and in each case the result was the same. In one
instance the bear was trotting when the bulldog seized it
by the cheek, and without so much as altering its gait, it
brushed off the hanging dog with a blow from the fore-
paw that broke the latter's back. In the other instance
the bear had come to bay, and when seized by the ear it
got the dog's body up to its jaws, and tore out the life
with one crunch.

A small number of dogs must rely on their activity,
and must hamper the bear's escape by inflicting a severe

Old Epkraim, the Grisly Bear. 293

bite and avoiding the counter-stroke. The only dog I ever
heard of which, single-handed, was really of service in
stopping a grisly, was a big Mexican sheep-dog, once
owned by the hunter Tazewell Woody. It was an agile
beast with powerful jaws, and possessed both intelligence
and a fierce, resolute temper. Woody killed three grislies
with its aid. It attacked with equal caution and ferocity,
rushing at the bear as the latter ran, and seizing the out-
stretched hock with a grip of iron, stopping the bear short,
but letting go before the angry beast could whirl round
and seize it. It was so active and wary that it always
escaped damage ; and it was so strong and bit so severely
that the bear could not possibly run from it at any speed.
In consequence, if it once came to close quarters with its
quarry, Woody could always get near enough for a shot.
Hitherto, however, the mountain hunters — as distin-
guished from the trappers — who have followed the grisly
have relied almost solely on their rifles. In my own case
about half the bears I have killed I stumbled across almost
by accident ; and probably this proportion holds good
generally. The hunter may be after bear at the time, or
he may be after blacktail deer or elk, the common game
in most of the haunts of the grisly ; or he may merely be
travelling through the country or prospecting for gold.
Suddenly he comes over the edge of a cut bank, or round
the sharp spur of a mountain or the shoulder of a cliff
which walls in a ravine, or else the indistinct game trail
he has been following through the great trees twists
sharply to one side to avoid a rock or a mass of down
timber, and behold he surprises old Elphraim digging for

294 The Wilderness Hunter.

roots, or munching berries, or slouching along the pathr
or perhaps rising suddenly from the lush, rank plants amid
which he has been lying. Or it may be that the bear will
be spied afar rooting in an open glade or on a bare
hill-side.

In the still-hunt proper it is necessary to find some
favorite feeding-ground, where there are many roots or
berry-bearing bushes, or else to lure the grisly to a carcass.
This last method of "baiting" for bear is under ordinary
circumstances the only way which affords even a mod-
erately fair chance of killing them. They are very
cunning, with the sharpest of noses, and where they have
had experience of hunters they dwell only in cover where
it is almost impossible for the best of still-hunters to
approach them.

Nevertheless, in favorable ground a man can often find
and kill them by fair stalking, in berry time, or more
especially in the early spring, before the snow has gone
from the mountains, and while the bears are driven by
hunger to roam much abroad and sometimes to seek their
food in the open. In such cases the still-hunter is stirring
by the earliest dawn, and walks with stealthy speed to
some high point of observation from which he can over-
look the feeding-grounds where he has previously dis-
covered sign. From the coign of vantage he scans the
country far and near, either with his own keen eyes or with
powerful glasses ; and he must combine patience and good
sight with the ability to traverse long distances noiselessly
and yet at speed. He may spend two or three hours sit-
ting still and looking over a vast tract of country before

Old Rpkraim, the Grisly Bear. 295

he will suddenly spy a bear ; or he may see nothing after
the most careful search in a given place, and must then go
on half a dozen miles to another, watching warily as he
walks, and continuing this possibly for several days before
getting a glimpse of his game. If the bear are digging
roots, or otherwise procuring their food on the bare hill-
sides and table-lands, it is of course comparatively easy to
see them ; and it is under such circumstances that this
kind of hunting is most successful. Once seen, the actual
stalk may take two or three hours, the nature of the
ground and the direction of the wind often necessitating a
long circuit ; perhaps a gully, a rock, or a fallen log offers
a chance for an approach to within two hundred yards,
and although the hunter will, if possible, get much closer
than this, yet even at such a distance a bear is a large
enough mark to warrant risking a shot.

Usually the berry grounds do not offer such favorable
opportunities, as they often He in thick timber, or are
covered so densely with bushes as to obstruct the view ;
and they are rarely commanded by a favorable spot from
which to spy. On the other hand, as already said, bears
occasionally forget all their watchfulness while devour-
ing fruit, and make such a noise rending and tearing
the bushes that, if once found, a man can creep upon
them unobserved.

CHAPTER XV.

HUNTING THE GRISLY.

IF out in the late fall or early spring, it is often possible
to follow a bear's trail in the snow ; having come
upon it either by chance or hard hunting, or else
having found where it leads from some carcass on which
the beast has been feeding. In the pursuit one must ex-
ercise great caution, as at such times the hunter is easily
seen a long way off, and game is always especially watch-
ful for any foe that may follow its trail.

Once I killed a grisly in this manner. It was early in
the fall, but snow lay on the ground, while the gray weather
boded a storm. My camp was in a bleak, wind-swept
valley, high among the mountains which form the divide
between the head-waters of the Salmon and Clarke's Fork
of the Columbia. All night I had lain in my buffalo-bag,
under the lea of a windbreak of branches, in the clump of
fir-trees, where I had halted the preceding evening. At
my feet ran a rapid mountain torrent, its bed choked with
ice-covered rocks ; I had been lulled to sleep by the stream's
splashing murmur, and the loud moaning of the wind
along the naked cliffs. At dawn I rose and shook myself

2Q6

Hunting the Grisly. 297

free of the buffalo robe, coated with hoar-frost. The ashes
of the fire were lifeless ; in the dim morning the air was
bitter cold. I did not linger a moment, but snatched up
my rifle, pulled on my fur cap and gloves, and strode off
up a side ravine ; as I walked I ate some mouthfuls of
venison, left over from supper.

Two hours of toil up the steep mountain brought me
to the top of a spur. The sun had risen, but was hidden
behind a bank of sullen clouds. On the divide I halted,
and gazed out over a vast landscape, inconceivably wild
and dismal. Around me towered the stupendous moun-
tain masses which make up the backbone of the Rockies.
From my feet, as far as I could see, stretched a rugged
and barren chaos of ridges and detached rock masses.
Behind me, far below, the stream wound like a silver ribbon,
fringed with dark conifers and the changing, dying foliage
of poplar and quaking aspen. In front the bottoms of the
valleys were filled with the sombre evergreen forest, dotted
here and there with black, ice-skimmed tarns ; and the
dark spruces clustered also in the higher gorges, and were
scattered thinly along the mountain sides. The snow
which had fallen lay in drifts and streaks, while, where the
wind had scope it was blown off, and the ground left bare.

For two hours I walked onwards across the ridges
and valleys. Then among some scattered spruces, where
the snow lay to the depth of half a foot, I suddenly came
on the fresh, broad trail of a grisly. The brute was evi-
dently roaming restlessly about in search of a winter den,
but willing, in passing, to pick up any food that lay handy.
At once I took the trail, travelling above and to one

298 The Wilderness Hunter.

side, and keeping a sharp look-out ahead. The bear was
going across wind, and this made my task easy. I walked
rapidly, though cautiously ; and it was only in crossing
the large patches of bare ground that I had to fear mak-
ing a noise. Elsewhere the snow muffled my footsteps,
and made the trail so plain that I scarcely had to waste a
glance upon it, bending my eyes always to the front.

At last, peering cautiously over a ridge crowned with
broken rocks, I saw my quarry, a big, burly bear, with
silvered fur. He had halted on an open hill-side, and was
busily digging up the caches of some rock gophers or
squirrels. He seemed absorbed in his work, and the
stalk was easy. Slipping quietly back, I ran towards the
end of the spur, and in ten minutes struck a ravine, of
which one branch ran past within seventy yards of where
the bear was working. In this ravine was a rather close
growth of stunted evergreens, affording good cover,
although in one or two places I had to lie down and crawl
through the snow. When I reached the point for which
I was aiming, the bear had just finished rooting, and was
starting off. A slight whistle brought him to a standstill,
and I drew a bead behind his shoulder, and low down,
resting the rifle across the crooked branch of a dwarf
spruce. At the crack he ran off at speed, making no
sound, but the thick spatter of blood splashes, showing
clear on the white snow, betrayed the mortal nature of
the wound. For some minutes I followed the trail ; and
then, topping a ridge, I saw the dark bulk lying motion-
less in a snow drift at the foot of a low rock-wall, down
which he had tumbled.

Hunting the Grisly. 299

The usual practice of the still-hunter who is after
grisly is to toll it to baits. The hunter either lies in
ambush near the carcass, or approaches it stealthily when
he thinks the bear is at its meal.

One day while camped near the Bitter Root Moun-
tains in Montana I found that a bear had been feeding
on the carcass of a moose which lay some five miles from
the little open glade in which my tent was pitched, and I
made up my mind to try to get a shot at it that afternoon.
I stayed in camp till about three o'clock, lying lazily back
on the bed of sweet-smelling evergreen boughs, watching
the pack ponies as they stood under the pines on the edge
of the open, stamping now and then, and switching their
tails. The air was still, the sky a glorious blue ; at that
hour in the afternoon even the September sun was hot
The smoke from the smouldering logs of the camp fire
curled thinly upwards. Little chipmunks scuttled out
from their holes to the packs, which lay in a heap on the
ground, and then scuttled madly back again. A couple
of drab-colored whiskey-jacks, with bold mien and fearless
bright eyes, hopped and fluttered round, picking up the
scraps, and uttering an extraordinary variety of notes,
mostly discordant ; so tame were they that one of them
lit on my outstretched arm as I half dozed, basking in
the sunshine.

When the shadows began to lengthen, I shouldered
my rifle and plunged into the woods. At first my route
lay along a mountain side ; then for half a mile over a
windfall, the dead timber piled about in crazy confusion.
After that I went up the bottom of a valley by a little

300 The Wilderness Hunter.

brook, the ground being carpeted with a sponge of soaked
moss. At the head of this brook was a pond covered with
water-lilies ; and a scramble through a rocky pass took me
into a high, wet valley, where the thick growth of spruce
was broken by occasional strips of meadow. In this
valley the moose carcass lay, well at the upper end.

In moccasined feet I trod softly through the soundless
woods. Under the dark branches it was already dusk,
and the air had the cool chill of evening. As I neared
the clump where the body lay, I walked with redoubled
caution, watching and listening with strained alertness.
Then I heard a twig snap ; and my blood leaped, for I
knew the bear was at his supper. In another moment I
saw his shaggy, brown form. He was working with all
his awkward giant strength, trying to bury the carcass,
twisting it to one side and the other with wonderful ease.
Once he got angry and suddenly gave it a tremendous
cuff with his paw ; in his bearing he had something half
humorous, half devilish. I crept up within forty yards ;
but for several minutes he would not keep his head still.
Then something attracted his attention in the forest, and
he stood motionless looking towards it, broadside to me,
with his fore- paws planted on the carcass. This gave me
my chance. I drew a very fine bead between his eye and
ear, and pulled trigger. He dropped like a steer when
struck with a pole-axe.

If there is a good hiding-place handy it is better to lie
in wait at the carcass. One day on the head-waters of the
Madison, I found that a bear was coming to an elk I had
shot some days before ; and I at once determined to am-

Hunting the Grisly.

bush the beast when he came back that evening. The
carcass lay in the middle of a valley a quarter of a mile
broad. The bottom of this valley was covered by an open
forest of tall pines ; a thick jungle of smaller evergreens,
marked where the mountains rose on either hand. There
were a number of large rocks scattered here and there, one,
of very convenient shape, being only some seventy or
eighty yards from the carcass. Up this I clambered. It
hid me perfectly, and on its top was a carpet of soft pine
needles, on which I could lie at my ease.

Hour after hour passed by. A little black woodpecker
with a yellow crest ran nimbly up and down the tree trunks
for some time and then flitted away with a party of chicka-
dees and nut-hatches. Occasionally a Clarke's crow soared
about overhead or clung in any position to the swaying
end of a pine branch, chattering and screaming. Flocks
of cross-bills, with wavy flight and plaintive calls, flew to
a small mineral lick near by, where they scraped the clay
with their queer little beaks.

As the westering sun sank out of sight beyond the
mountains these sounds of bird-life gradually died away.
Under the great pines the evening was still with the silence
of primeval desolation. The sense of sadness and loneli-
ness, the melancholy of the wilderness, came over me like
a spell. Every slight noise made my pulses throb as I lay
motionless on the rock gazing intently into the gathering
gloom. I began to fear that it would grow too dark to
shoot before the grisly came.

Suddenly and without warning, the great bear stepped
out of the bushes and trod across the pine needles with

302 The Wilderness Hunter.

such swift and silent footsteps that its bulk seemed unreal.
It was very cautious, continually halting to peer around ;
and once it stood up on its hind legs and looked long
down the valley towards the red west. As it reached
the carcass I put a bullet between its shoulders. It
rolled over, while the woods resounded with its savage
roaring. Immediately it struggled to its feet and stag-
gered off; and fell again to the next shot, squalling and
yelling. Twice this was repeated ; the brute being one of
those bears which greet every wound with a great outcry,
and sometimes seem to lose their feet when hit — although
they will occasionally fight as savagely as their more silent
brethren. In this case the wounds were mortal, and the
bear died before reaching the edge of the thicket.

I spent much of the fall of 1889 hunting on the head-
waters of the Salmon and Snake in Idaho, and along the
Montana boundary line from the Big Hole Basin and the
head of the Wisdom River to the neighborhood of Red
Rock Pass and to the north and west of Henry's Lake.
During the last fortnight my companion was the old moun-
tain man, already mentioned, named Griffeth or Griffin —
I cannot tell which, as he was always called either " Hank "
or " Griff." He was a crabbedly honest old fellow, and a
very skilful hunter ; but he was worn out with age and
rheumatism, and his temper had failed even faster than his
bodily strength. He showed me a greater variety of game
than I had ever seen before in so short a time ; nor did I
ever before or after make so successful a hunt. But he
was an exceedingly disagreeable companion on account of
his surly, moody ways. I generally had to get up first, to

Hunting the Grisly. 303

kindle the fire and make ready breakfast, and he was very
quarrelsome. Finally, during my absence from camp one
day, while not very far from Red Rock pass, he found my
whiskey flask, which I kept purely for emergencies, and
drank all the contents. When I came back he was quite
drunk. This was unbearable, and after some high words
I left him, and struck off homeward through the woods on
my own account. We had with us four pack and saddle
horses ; and of these I took a very intelligent and gentle
little bronco mare, which possessed the invaluable trait of
always staying near camp, even when not hobbled. I was
not hampered with much of an outfit, having only my
buffalo sleeping-bag, a fur coat, and my washing kit, with
a couple of spare pairs of socks and some handkerchiefs.
A frying-pan, some salt, flour, baking-powder, a small
chunk of salt pork, and a hatchet, made up a light pack,
which, with the bedding, I fastened across the stock sad-
dle by means of a rope and a spare packing cinch. My
cartridges and knife were in my belt ; my compass and
matches, as always, in my pocket. I walked, while the lit-
tle mare followed almost like a dog, often without my
having to hold the lariat which served as halter.

The country was for the most part fairly open, as I
kept near the foot-hills where glades and little prairies
broke the pine forest. The trees were of small size. There
was no regular trail, but the course was easy to keep, and
I had no trouble of any kind save on the second day.
That afternoon I was following a stream which at last
"canyoned up," that is, sank to the bottom of a canyon-
like ravine impassable for a horse. I started up a side

304 The Wilderness Hunter.

valley, intending to cross from its head coulies to those of
another valley which would lead in below the canyon.

However, I got enmeshed in the tangle of winding
valleys at the foot of the steep mountains, and as dusk
was coming on I halted and camped in a little open spot
by the side of a small, noisy brook, with crystal water.
The place was carpeted with soft, wet, green moss, dotted
red with the kinnikinnic berries, and at its edge, under
the trees where the ground was dry, I threw down the
buffalo bed on the mat of sweet-smelling pine needles.
Making camp took but a moment. I opened the pack,
tossed the bedding on a smooth spot, knee-haltered the
little mare, dragged up a few dry logs, and then strolled
off, rifle on shoulder, through the frosty gloaming, to see
if I could pick up a grouse for supper.

For half a mile I walked quickly and silently over the
pine needles, across a succession of slight ridges separated
by narrow, shallow valleys. The forest here was com-
posed of lodge-pole pines, which on the ridges grew close
together, with tall slender trunks, while in the valleys the
growth was more open. Though the sun was behind the
mountains there was yet plenty of light by which to shoot,
but it was fading rapidly.

At last, as I was thinking of turning towards camp, I
stole up to the crest of one of the ridges, and looked over
into the valley some sixty yards off. Immediately I caught
the loom of some large, dark object ; and another glance
showed me a big grisly walking slowly off with his head
down. He was quartering to me, and I fired into his
flank, the bullet, as I afterwards found, ranging forward

Hunting the Grisly. 305

and piercing one lung. At the shot he uttered a loud,
moaning grunt and plunged forward at a heavy gallop,
while I raced obliquely down the hill to cut him off.
After going a few hundred feet he reached a laurel thicket,
some thirty yards broad, and two or three times as long
which he did not leave. I ran up to the edge and there
halted, not liking to venture into the mass of twisted, close-
growing stems and glossy foliage. Moreover, as I halted,
I heard him utter a peculiar, savage kind of whine from
the heart of the brush. Accordingly, I began to skirt the
edge, standing on tiptoe and gazing earnestly to see if I
could not catch a glimpse of his hide. When I was at
the narrowest part of the thicket, he suddenly left it
directly opposite, and then wheeled and stood broadside to
me on the hill-side, a little above. He turned his head
stiffly towards me ; scarlet strings of froth hung from his
lips ; his eyes burned like embers in the gloom.

I held true, aiming behind the shoulder, and my bullet
shattered the point or lower end of his heart, taking out a
big nick. Instantly the great bear turned with a harsh
roar of fury and challenge, blowing the bloody foam from
his mouth, so that I saw the gleam of his white fangs ;
and then he charged straight at me, crashing and bound-
ing through the laurel bushes, so that it was hard to aim.
I waited until he came to a fallen tree, raking him as he
topped it with a ball, which entered his chest and went
through the cavity of his body, but he neither swerved
nor flinched, and at the moment I did not know that I
had struck him. He came steadily on, and in another
second was almost upon me. I fired for his forehead, but

20

306 The Wilderness Hunter.

my bullet went low, entering his open mouth, smashing
his lower jaw and going into the neck. I leaped to one
side almost as I pulled trigger ; and through the hanging
smoke the first thing I saw was his paw as he made a
vicious side blow at me. The rush of his charge carried
him past. As he struck he lurched forward, leaving a
pool of bright blood where his muzzle hit the ground ;
but he recovered himself and made two or three jumps
onwards, while I hurriedly jammed a couple of cartridges
into the magazine, my rifle holding only four, all of which
I had fired. Then he tried to pull up, but as he did so
his muscles seemed suddenly to give way, his head
drooped, and he rolled over and over like a shot rabbit.
Each of my first three bullets had inflicted a mortal
wound.

It was already twilight, and I merely opened the car-
cass, and then trotted back to camp. Next morning I
returned and with much labor took off the skin. The fur
was very fine, the animal being in excellent trim, and
unusually bright-colored. Unfortunately, in packing it
out I lost the skull, and had to supply its place with one
of plaster. The beauty of the trophy, and the memory of
the circumstances under which I procured it, make me
value it perhaps more highly than any other in my house.

This is the only instance in which I have been regu-
larly charged by a grisly. On the whole, the danger of
hunting these great bears has been much exaggerated.
At the beginning of the present century, when white
hunters first encountered the grisly, he was doubtless an
exceedingly savage beast, prone to attack without provo-

Hunting the Grisly. 307

cation, and a redoubtable foe to persons armed with the
clumsy, small-bore, muzzle-loading rifles of the day. But
at present bitter experience has taught him caution. He
has been hunted for sport, and hunted for his pelt, and
hunted for the bounty, and hunted as a dangerous enemy
to stock, until, save in the very wildest districts, he has
learned to be more wary than a deer, and to avoid man's
presence almost as carefully as the most timid kind of
game. Except in rare cases he will not attack of his own
accord, and, as a rule, even when wounded his object is
escape rather than battle.

Still, when fairly brought to bay, or when moved by a
sudden fit of ungovernable anger, the grisly is beyond
peradventure a very dangerous antagonist. The first
shot, if taken at a bear a good distance off and previously
unwounded and unharried, is not usually fraught with
much danger, the startled animal being at the outset
bent merely on flight. It is always hazardous, however,
to track a wounded and worried grisly into thick cover,
and the man who habitually follows and kills this chief of
American game in dense timber, never abandoning the
bloody trail whithersoever it leads, must show no small
degree of skill and hardihood, and must not too closely
count the risk to life or limb. Bears differ widely in tem-
per, and occasionally one may be found who will not show
fight, no matter how much he is bullied ; but, as a rule, a
hunter must be cautious in meddling with a wounded ani-
mal which has retreated into a dense thicket, and has
been once or twice roused ; and such a beast, when it does
turn, will usually charge again and again, and fight to the

308 The Wilderness Hunter.

last with unconquerable ferocity. The short distance at
which the bear can be seen through the underbrush, the
fury of his charge, and his tenacity of life make it neces-
sary for the hunter on such occasions to have steady
nerves and a fairly quick and accurate aim. It is always
well to have two men in following a wounded bear under
such conditions. This is not necessary, however, and a
good hunter, rather than lose his quarry, will, under ordi-
nary circumstances, follow and attack it no matter how
tangled the fastness in which it has sought refuge ; but
he must act warily and with the utmost caution and reso-
lution, if he wishes to escape a terrible and probably fatal
mauling. An experienced hunter is rarely rash, and never
heedless ; he will not, when alone, follow a wounded bear
into a thicket, if by the exercise of patience, skill, and
knowledge of the game's habits he can avoid the neces-
sity ; but it is idle to talk of the feat as something which
ought in no case to be attempted. While danger ought
never to be needlessly incurred, it is yet true that the
keenest zest in sport comes from its presence, and from
the consequent exercise of the qualities necessary to over-
come it. The most thrilling moments of an Amerian
hunter's life are those in which, with every sense on the
alert, and with nerves strung to the highest point, he is
following alone into the heart of its forest fastness the
fresh and bloody footprints of an angered grisly ; and no
other triumph of American hunting can compare with the
victory to be thus gained.

These big bears will not ordinarily charge from a dis-
tance of over a hundred yards ; but there are exceptions

Hunting the Grisly. 309

to this rule. In the fall of 1890 my friend Archibald
Rogers was hunting in Wyoming, south of the Yellow-
stone Park, and killed seven bears. One, an old he, was
out on a bare table-land, grubbing for roots, when he was
spied. It was early in the afternoon, and the hunters,
who were on a high mountain slope, examined him for
some time through their powerful glasses before making
him out to be a bear. They then stalked up to the edge
of the wood which fringed the table-land on one side, but
could get no nearer than about three hundred yards, the
plains being barren of all cover. After waiting for a
couple of hours Rogers risked the shot, in despair of get-
ting nearer, and wounded the bear, though not very seri-
ously. The animal made off, almost broadside to, and
Rogers ran forward to intercept it. As soon as it saw
him it turned and rushed straight for him, not heeding
his second shot, and evidently bent on charging home.
Rogers then waited until it was within twenty yards, and
brained it with his third bullet.

In fact bears differ individually in courage and ferocity
precisely as men do, or as the Spanish bulls, of which it
is said that not more than one in twenty is fit to stand the
combat of the arena. One grisly can scarcely be bullied
into resistance ; the next may fight to the end, against
any odds, without flinching, or even attack unprovoked.
Hence men of limited experience in this sport, generaliz-
ing from the actions of the two or three bears each has
happened to see or kill, often reach diametrically opposite
conclusions as to the fighting temper and capacity of the
quarry. Even old hunters — who indeed, as a class, are

3*° The Wilderness Hunter.

very narrow-minded and opinionated — often generalize
just as rashly as beginners. One will portray all bears
as very dangerous ; another will speak and act as if he
deemed them of no more consequence than so many
rabbits. I knew one old hunter who had killed a score
without ever seeing one show fight. On the other hand,
Dr. James C. Merrill, U. S. A., who has had about as
much experience with bears as I have had, informs me
that he has been charged with the utmost determination
three times. In each case the attack was delivered before
the bear was wounded or even shot at, the animal being
roused by the approach of the hunters from his day bed,
and charging headlong at them from a distance of twenty
or thirty paces. All three bears were killed before they
could do any damage. There was a very remarkable
incident connected with the killing of one of them. It
occurred in the northern spurs of the Bighorn range. Dr.
Merrill, in company with an old hunter, had climbed
down into a deep, narrow canyon. The bottom was
threaded with well-beaten elk trails. While following
one of these the two men turned a corner of the canyon
and were instantly charged by an old she-grisly, so close
that it was only by good luck that one of the hurried
shots disabled her and caused her to tumble over a cut
bank where she was easily finished. They found that
she had been lying directly across the game trail, on a
smooth well beaten patch of bare earth, which looked as
if it had been dug up, refilled, and trampled down. Look-
ing curiously at this patch they saw a bit of hide only
partially covered at one end ; digging down they found
the body of a well grown grisly cub. Its skull had been

Hunting the Grisly. 31 1

crushed, and the brains licked out, and there were signs of
other injuries. The hunters pondered long over this
strange discovery, and hazarded many guesses as to its
meaning. At last they decided that probably the cub
had been killed, and its brains eaten out, either by some
old male-grisly or by a cougar, that the mother had re-
turned and driven away the murderer, and that she had
then buried the body and lain above it, waiting to wreak
her vengeance on the first passer-by.

Old Tazewell Wood}', during his thirty years' life as a
hunter in the Rockies and on the great plains, killed very
many grislies. He always exercised much caution in
dealing with them ; and, as it happened, he was by some
suitable tree in almost every case when he was charged.
He would accordingly climb the tree (a practice of which
I do not approve however) ; and the bear would look up
at him and pass on without stopping. Once, when he
was hunting in the mountains with a companion, the
latter, who was down in a valley, while Woody was on
the hill-side, shot at a bear. The first thing Woody knew
the wounded grisly, running up-hill, was almost on
him from behind. As he turned it seized his rifle in its
jaws. He wrenched the rifle round, while the bear still
gripped it, and pulled trigger, sending a bullet into its
shoulder; whereupon it struck him with its paw, and
knocked him over the rocks. By good luck he fell in a
snow bank and was not hurt in the least. Meanwhile the
bear went on and they never got it.

Once he had an experience with a bear which showed
a very curious mixture of rashness and cowardice. He
and a companion were camped in a little tepee or wigwam,

312 The Wilderness Hunter.

with a bright fire in front of it, lighting up the night.
There was an inch of snow on the ground. Just after
they went to bed a grisly came close to camp. Their dog
rushed out and they could hear it bark round in the dark-
ness for nearly an hour ; then the bear drove it off and
came right into camp. It went close to the fire, picking
up the scraps of meat and bread, pulled a haunch of veni-
son down from a tree, and passed and repassed in front
of the tepee, paying no heed whatever to the two men,
who crouched in the doorway talking to one another.
Once it passed so close that Woody could almost have
touched it. Finally his companion fired into it, and off
it ran, badly wounded, without an attempt at retaliation.
Next morning they followed its tracks in the snow, and
found it a quarter of a mile away. It was near a pine
and had buried itself under the loose earth, pine needles,
and snow ; Woody's companion almost walked over it,
and putting his rifle to its ear blew out its brains.

In all his experience Woody had personally seen but
four men who were badly mauled by bears. Three of
these were merely wounded. One was bitten terribly in
the back. Another had an arm partially chewed off. The
third was a man named George Dow, and the accident
happened to him on the Yellowstone, about the year 1878.
He was with a pack animal at the time, leading it on a
trail through a wood. Seeing a big she-bear with cubs
he yelled at her ; whereat she ran away, but only to cache
her cubs, and in a minute, having hidden them, came
racing back at him. His pack animal being slow he started
to climb a tree ; but before he could get far enough up

Hunting the Grisly.

she caught him, almost biting a piece out of the calf of his
leg, pulled him down, bit and cuffed him two or three
times, and then went on her way.

The only time Woody ever saw a man killed by a bear
was once when he had given a touch of variety to his
life by shipping on a New Bedford whaler which had
touched at one of the Puget Sound ports. The whaler
went up to a part of Alaska where bears were very plen-
tiful and bold. One day a couple of boats' crews landed ;
and the men, who were armed only with an occasional
harpoon or lance, scattered over the beach, one of them,
a Frenchman, wading into the water after shell-fish. Sud-
denly a bear emerged from some bushes and charged
among the astonished sailors, who scattered in every di-
rection ; but the bear, said Woody, "just had it in for
that Frenchman," and went straight at him. Shrieking
with terror he retreated up to his neck in the water ; but
the bear plunged in after him, caught him, and disem-
bowelled him. One of the Yankee mates then fired a
bomb lance into the bear's hips, and the savage beast
hobbled off into the dense cover of the low scrub, where
the enraged sailor folk were unable to get at it.

The truth is that while the grisly generally avoids a
battle if possible, and often acts with great cowardice, it is
never safe to take liberties with him ; he usually fights
desperately and dies hard when wounded and cornered,
and exceptional individuals take the aggressive on small
provocation.

During the years I lived on the frontier I carrie in con-
tact with many persons who had been severely mauled or

3H The Wilderness Hunter,

even crippled for life by grislies ; and a number of cases
where they killed men outright were also brought under
my ken. Generally these accidents, as was natural, oc-
curred to hunters who had roused or wounded the game.
A fighting bear sometimes uses his claws and sometimes
his teeth. I have never known one to attempt to kill an
antagonist by hugging, in spite of the popular belief to
this effect ; though he will sometimes draw an enemy tow-
ards him with his paws the better to reach him with his
teeth, and to hold him so that he cannot escape from the
bitting. Nor does the bear often advance on his hind legs to
the attack ; though, if the man has come close to him in thick
underbrush, or has stumbled on him in his lair unawares,
he will often rise up in this fashion and strike a single
blow. He will also rise in clinching with a man on horse-
back. In 1882 a mounted Indian was killed in this mari-
ner on one of the river bottoms some miles below where
my ranch house now stands, not far from the junction of
the Beaver and Little Missouri. The bear had been
hunted into a thicket by a band of Indians, in whose com-
pany my informant, a white squaw-man, with whom I af-
terward did some trading, was travelling. One of them
in the excitement of the pursuit rode across the end of the
thicket ; as he did so the great beast sprang at him with
wonderful quickness, rising on its hind legs, and knocking
over the horse and rider with a single sweep of its terri-
ble fore-paws. It then turned on the fallen man and tore
him open, and though the other Indians came promptly
to his rescue and slew his assailant, they were not in time
to save their comrade's life.

Hunting the Grisly. 3J5

A bear is apt to rely mainly on his teeth or claws ac-
cording to whether his efforts are directed primarily to
killing his foe or to making good his own escape. In the
latter event he trusts chiefly to his claws. If cornered, he
of course makes a rush for freedom, and in that case he
downs any man who is in his way with a sweep of his
great paw, but passes on without stopping to bite him. If
while sleeping or resting in thick brush some one suddenly
stumbles on him close up he pursues the same course, less
from anger than from fear, being surprised and startled
Moreover, if attacked at close quarters by men and dogs
he strikes right and left in defence.

Sometimes what is called a charge is rather an effort to
get away. In localities where he has been hunted, a bear,
like every other kind of game, is always on the look-out
for an attack, and is prepared at any moment for immedi-
ate flight. He seems ever to have in his mind, whether
feeding, sunning himself, or merely roaming around, the
direction — usually towards the thickest cover or most
broken ground — in which he intends to run if molested.
When shot at he instantly starts towards this place ; or he
may be so confused that he simply runs he knows not
whither ; and in either event he may take a line that leads
almost directly to or by the hunter, although he had at
first no thought of charging. In such a case he usually
strikes a single knock-down blow and gallops on without
halting, though that one blow may have taken life. If
the claws are long and fairly sharp (as in early spring, or
even in the fall, if the animal has been working over soft
ground) they add immensely to the effect of the blow, for

316 The Wilderness Hunter.

they cut like blunt axes. Often, however, late in the sea-
son, and if the ground has been dry and hard, or rocky,
the claws are worn down nearly to the quick, and the blow
is then given mainly with the under side of the paw ;
although even under this disadvantage a thump from a
big bear will down a horse or smash in a man's breast.
The hunter Hofer once lost a horse in this manner. He
shot at and wounded a bear which rushed off, as ill luck
would have it, past the place where his horse was picketed ;
probably more in fright than in anger it struck the poor
beast a blow which, in the end, proved mortal.

If a bear means mischief and charges not to escape but
to do damage, its aim is to grapple with or throw down its
foe and bite him to death. The charge is made at a gal-
lop, the animal sometimes coming on silently, with the
mouth shut, and sometimes with the jaws open, the lips
drawn back and teeth showing, uttering at the same time
a succession of roars or of savage rasping snarls. Certain
bears charge without any bluster and perfectly straight ;
while others first threaten and bully, and even when
charging stop to growl, shake the head, and bite at a bush
or knock holes in the ground with their fore-paws. Again,
some of them charge home with a ferocious resolution
which their extreme tenacity of life renders especially
dangerous ; while others can be turned or driven back even
by a shot which is not mortal. They show the same vari-
ability in their behavior when wounded. Often a big
bear, especially if charging, will receive a bullet in perfect
silence, without flinching or seeming to pay any heed to it ;
while another will cry out and tumble about, and if char-

Hunting the Grisly. 31?

ging, even though it may not abandon the attack, will
pause for a moment to whine or bite at the wound.

Sometimes a single bite causes death. One of the
most successful bear hunters I ever knew, an old fellow
whose real name I never heard as he was always called
Old Ike, was killed in this way in the spring or early sum-
mer of 1886 on one of the head-waters of the Salmon. He
was a very good shot, had killed nearly a hundred bears with
the rifle, and, although often charged, had never met with
any accident, so that he had grown somewhat careless. On
the day in question he had met a couple of mining prospec-
tors and was travelling with them, when a grisly crossed
his path. The old hunter immediately ran after it, rapidly
gaining, as the bear did not hurry when it saw itself pur-
sued, but slouched slowly forwards, occasionally turning
its head to grin and growl. It soon went into a dense
grove of young spruce, and as the hunter reached the edge
it charged fiercely out. He fired one hasty shot, evidently
wounding the animal, but not seriously enough to stop or
cripple it ; and as his two companions ran forward they
saw the bear seize him with its wide-spread jaws, forcing
him to the ground. They shouted and fired, and the beast
abandoned the fallen man on the instant and sullenly re-
treated into the spruce thicket, whither they dared not
follow it. Their friend was at his last gasp ; for the whole
side of the chest had been crushed in by the one bite, the
lungs showing between the rent ribs.

Very often, however, a bear does not kill a man by
one bite, but after throwing him lies on him, biting him to
death. Usually, if no assistance is at hand, such a man is

3l8 The Wilderness Hunter.

doomed ; although if he pretends to be dead, and has the
nerve to lie quiet under very rough treatment, it is just
possible that the bear may leave him alive, perhaps after
half burying what it believes to be the body. In a very
few exceptional instances men of extraordinary prowess
with the knife have succeeded in beating off a bear, and
even in mortally wounding it, but in most cases a single-
handed struggle, at close quarters, with a grisly bent on
mischief, means death.

Occasionally the bear, although vicious, is also fright-
ened, and passes on after giving one or two bites ; and
frequently a man who is knocked down is rescued by his
friends before he is killed, the big beast mayhap using
his weapons with clumsiness. So a bear may kill a foe
with a single blow of its mighty fore-arm, either crushing
in the head or chest by sheer force of sinew, or else tear-
ing open the body with its formidable claws ; and so on
the other hand he may, and often does, merely disfigure
or maim the foe by a hurried stroke. Hence it is com-
mon to see men who have escaped the clutches of a grisly,
but only at the cost of features marred beyond recogni-
tion, or a body rendered almost helpless for life. Almost
every old resident of western Montana or northern Idaho
has known two or three unfortunates who have suffered
in this manner. I have myself met one such man in
Helena, and another in Missoula ; both were living at
least as late as 1889, the date at which I last saw them.
One had been partially scalped by a bear's teeth ; the
animal was very old and so the fangs did not enter the
skull. The other had been bitten across the face, and the

Hunting the Grisly.

wounds never entirely healed, so that his disfigured visage
was hideous to behold.

Most of these accidents occur in following a wounded
or worried bear into thick cover ; and under such circum-
stances an animal apparently hopelessly disabled, or in
the death throes, may with a last effort kill one or more
of its assailants. In 1874 my wife's uncle, Captain Alex-
ander Moore, U. S. A., and my friend Captain Bates,
with some men of the 2d and 3d Cavalry, were scout-
ing in Wyoming, near the Freezeout Mountains. One
morning they roused a bear in the open prairie and fol-
lowed it at full speed as it ran towards a small creek. At
one spot in the creek beavers had built a dam, and as
usual in such places there was a thick growth of bushes
and willow saplings. Just as the bear reached the edge
of this little jungle it was struck by several balls, both of
its fore-legs being broken. Nevertheless, it managed to
shove itself forward on its hind-legs, and partly rolled,
partly pushed itself into the thicket, the bushes though
low being so dense that its body was at once completely
hidden. The thicket was a mere patch of brush, not
twenty yards across in any direction. The leading
troopers reached the edge almost as the bear tumbled in.
One of them, a tall and powerful man named Miller, in-
stantly dismounted and prepared to force his way in
among the dwarfed willows, which were but breast-high.
Among the men who had ridden up were Moore and
Bates, and also the two famous scouts, Buffalo Bill — long
a companion of Captain Moore, — and California Joe, Cus-
ter's faithful follower. California Joe had spent almost

320 The Wilderness Hunter.

all his life on the plains and in the mountains, as a
hunter and Indian fighter ; and when he saw the trooper
about to rush into the thicket he called out to him not to
do so, warning him of the danger. But the man was a
very reckless fellow and he answered by jeering at the
old hunter for his over-caution in being afraid of a crip-
pled bear. California Joe made no further effort to dis-
suade him, remarking quietly : " Very well, sonny, go in ;
it's your own affair." Miller then leaped off the bank on
which they stood and strode into the thicket, holding his
rifle at the port. Hardly had he taken three steps when
the bear rose in front of him, roaring with rage and pain.
It was so close that the man had no chance to fire. Its
fore-arms hung useless and as it reared unsteadily on its
hind-legs, lunging forward at him, he seized it by the ears
and strove to hold it back. His strength was very great,
and he actually kept the huge head from his face and
braced himself so that he was not overthrown ; but the
bear twisted its muzzle from side to side, biting and tear-
ing the man's arms and shoulders. Another soldier
jumping down slew the beast with a single bullet, and
rescued his comrade ; but though alive he was too badly
hurt to recover and died after reaching the hospital. Buf-
falo Bill was given the bear-skin, and I believe has it
now.

The instances in which hunters who have rashly fol-
lowed grislies into thick cover have been killed or severely
mauled might be multiplied indefinitely. I have myself
known of eight cases in which men have met their deaths
in this manner.

Hunting the Grisly, 321

It occasionally happens that a cunning old grisly
will lie so close that the hunter almost steps on him ; and
he then rises suddenly with a loud, coughing growl and
strikes down or seizes the man before the latter can fire
off his rifle. More rarely a bear which is both vicious
and crafty deliberately permits the hunter to approach
fairly near to, or perhaps pass by, its hiding-place, and
then suddenly charges him with such rapidity that he
has barely time for the most hurried shot. The danger
in such a case is of course great.

Ordinarily, however, even in the brush, the bear's
object is to slink away, not to fight, and very many are
killed even under the most unfavorable circumstances
without accident. If an unwounded bear thinks itself un-
observed it is not apt to attack ; and in thick cover it is
really astonishing to see how one of these large animals
can hide, and how closely it will lie when there is danger.
About twelve miles below my ranch there are some large
river bottoms and creek bottoms covered with a matted
mass of cottonwood, box-alders, bullberry bushes, rose-
bushes, ash, wild plums, and other bushes. These bot-
toms have harbored bears ever since I first saw them ;
but though, often in company with a large party, I have
repeatedly beaten through them, and though we must at
times have been very near indeed to the game, we never
so much as heard it run.

When bears are shot, as they usually must be, in open
timber or on the bare mountain, the risk is very much
less. Hundreds may thus be killed with comparatively
little danger ; yet even under these circumstances they

322 The Wilderness Hunter.

will often charge, and sometimes make their charge good.
The spice of danger, especially to a man armed with a
good repeating rifle, is only enough to add zest to the
chase, and the chief triumph is in outwitting the wary
quarry and getting within range. Ordinarily the only
excitement is in the stalk, the bear doing nothing more
than keep a keen look-out and manifest the utmost anxiety
to get away. As is but natural, accidents occasionally
occur ; yet they are usually due more to some failure in
man or weapon than to the prowess of the bear. A good
hunter whom I once knew, at a time when he was living
in Butte, received fatal injuries from a bear he attacked
in open woodland. The beast charged after the first
shot, but slackened its pace on coming almost up to the
man. The latter's gun jammed, and as he was endeavor-
ing to work it he kept stepping slowly back, facing the
bear which followed a few yards distant, snarling and
threatening. Unfortunately while thus walking back-
wards the man struck a dead log and fell over it, where-
upon the beast instantly sprang on him and mortally
wounded him before help arrived.

On rare occasions men who are not at the time hunt-
ing it fall victims to the grisly. This is usually because
they stumble on it unawares and the animal attacks them
more in fear than in anger. One such case, resulting
fatally, occurred near my own ranch. The man walked
almost over a bear while crossing a little point of brush,
in a bend of the river, and was brained with a single blow
of the paw. In another instance which came to my knowl-
edge the man escaped with a shaking up, and without

Hunting the Grisly. 323

even a fright. His name was Perkins, and he was out
gathering huckleberries in the woods on a mountain side
near Pend'Oreille Lake. Suddenly he was sent flying
head over heels, by a blow which completely knocked the
breath out of his body ; and so instantaneous was the
whole affair that all he could ever recollect about it was
getting a vague glimpse of the bear just as he was bowled
over. When he came to he found himself lying some
distance down the hill-side, much shaken, and without his
berry pail, which had rolled a hundred yards below him,
but not otherwise the worse for his misadventure ; while
the footprints showed that the bear, after delivering the
single hurried stroke at the unwitting disturber of its day-
dreams, had run off up-hill as fast as it was able.

A she-bear with cubs is a proverbially dangerous
beast ; yet even under such conditions different grislies
act in directly opposite ways. Some she-grislies, when
their cubs are young, but are able to follow them about,
seem always worked up to the highest pitch of anxious
and jealous rage, so that they are likely to attack unpro-
voked any intruder or even passer-by. Others when
threatened by the hunter leave their cubs to their fate
without a visible qualm of any kind, and seem to think
only of their own safety.

In 1882 Mr. Caspar W. Whitney, now of New York,
met with a very singular adventure with a she-bear and
cub. He was in Harvard when I was, but left it and, like
a good many other Harvard men of that time, took to
cow-punching in the West. He went on a ranch in Rio
Arriba County, New Mexico, and was a keen hunter,

324 The Wilderness Hunter.

especially fond of the chase of cougar, bear, and elk. One
day while riding a stony mountain trail he saw a little
grisly cub watching him from the chaparral above, and
he dismounted to try to capture it ; his rifle was a 40-90
Sharp's. Just as he neared the cub, he heard a growl and
caught a glimpse of the old she, and he at once turned
up-hill, and stood under some tall, quaking aspens. From
this spot he fired at and wounded the she, then seventy
yards off; and she charged furiously. He hit her again,
but as she kept coming like a thunderbolt he climbed
hastily up the aspen, dragging his gun with him, as it had
a strap. When the bear reached the foot of the aspen
she reared, and bit and clawed the slender trunk, shaking
it for a moment, and he shot her through the eye. Off
she sprang for a few yards, and then spun round a dozen
times, as if dazed or partially stunned ; for the bullet had
not touched the brain. Then the vindictive and resolute
beast came back to the tree and again reared up against
it ; this time to receive a bullet that dropped her lifeless.
Mr. Whitney then climbed down and walked to where the
cub had been sitting as a looker-on. The little animal
did not move until he reached out his hand ; when it sud-
denly struck at him like an angry cat, dove into the
bushes, and was seen no more.

In the summer of 1888 an old-time trapper, named
Charley Norton, while on Loon Creek, of the middle fork
of the Salmon, meddled with a she and her cubs. She
ran at him and with one blow of her paw almost knocked
off his lower jaw ; yet he recovered, and was alive when I
last heard of him.

Hunting the Grisly. 325

Yet the very next spring the cowboys with my own
wagon on the Little Missouri round-up killed a mother
bear which made but little more fight than a coyote. She
had two cubs, and was surprised in the early morning, on
the prairie far from cover. There were eight or ten cow-
boys together at the time, just starting off on a long circle,
and of course they all got down their ropes in a second,
and putting spurs to their fiery little horses started toward
the bears at a run, shouting and swinging their loops
round their heads. For a moment the old she tried to
bluster and made a half-hearted threat of charging ; but
her courage failed before the rapid onslaught of her yell-
ing, rope-swinging assailants ; and she took to her heels
and galloped off, leaving the cubs to shift for themselves.
The cowboys were close behind, however, and after half
a mile's run she bolted into a shallow cave or hole in the
side of a butte, where she stayed cowering and growling,
until one of the men leaped off his horse, ran up to the
edge of the hole, and killed her with a single bullet from
his revolver, fired so close that the powder burned her
hair. The unfortunate cubs were roped, and then so
dragged about that they were speedily killed instead of
being brought alive to camp, as ought to have been
done.

In the cases mentioned above the grisly attacked only
after having been itself assailed, or because it feared an
assault, for itself or for its young. In the old days, how-
ever, it may almost be said that a grisly was more apt to
attack than to flee. Lewis and Clarke and the early
explorers who immediately succeeded them, as well as the

3 26 The Wilderness Hunter.

first hunters and trappers, the " Rocky Mountain men " of
the early decades of the present century, were repeatedly
assailed in this manner ; and not a few of the bear hunters
of that period found that it was unnecessary to take much
trouble about approaching their quarry, as the grisly was
usually prompt to accept the challenge and to advance of
its own accord, as soon as it discovered the foe. All this
is changed now. Yet even at the present day an occa-
sional vicious old bear may be found, in some far off
and little trod fastness, which still keeps up the former
habit of its kind. All old hunters have tales of this sort
to relate, the prowess, cunning, strength, and ferocity of
the grisly being favorite topics for camp-fire talk through-
out the Rockies ; but in most cases it is not safe to accept
these stories without careful sifting.

Still, it is just as unsafe to reject them all. One of
my own cowboys was once attacked by a grisly, seem-
ingly in pure wantonness. He was riding up a creek
bottom, and had just passed a clump of rose and bull-
berry bushes when his horse gave such a leap as almost
to unseat him, and then darted madly forward. Turning
round in the saddle to his utter astonishment he saw a
large bear galloping after him, at the horse's heels. For
a few jumps the race was close, then the horse drew away
and the bear wheeled and went into a thicket of wild
plums. The amazed and indignant cowboy, as soon as
he could rein in his steed, drew his revolver and rode back
to and around the thicket, endeavoring to provoke his
late pursuer to come out and try conclusions on more
equal terms ; but prudent Ephraim had apparently re-

Hunting the Grisly. 327

pented of his freak of ferocious bravado, and declined
to leave the secure shelter of the jungle.

Other attacks are of a much more explicable nature.
Mr. Huffman, the photographer, of Miles City, informed
me that once when butchering some slaughtered elk he
was charged twice by a she-bear and two well-grown cubs.
This was a piece of sheer bullying, undertaken solely with
the purpose of driving away the man and feasting on the
carcasses ; for in each charge the three bears, after
advancing with much blustering, roaring, and growling,
halted just before coming to close quarters. In another
instance a gentleman I once knew, a Mr. S. Carr, was
charged by a grisly from mere ill temper at being dis-
turbed at meal-time. The man was riding up a valley ;
and the bear was at an elk carcass, near a clump of firs.
As soon as it became aware of the approach of the horse-
man, while he was yet over a hundred yards distant, it
jumped on the carcass, looked at him a moment, and then
ran straight for him. There was no particular reason
why it should have charged, for it was fat and in good
trim, though when killed its head showed . scars made by
the teeth of rival grislies. Apparently it had been living
so well, principally on flesh, that it had become quarrel-
some ; and perhaps its not over sweet disposition had
been soured by combats with others of its own kind. In
yet another case, a grisly charged with even less excuse.
An old trapper, from whom I occasionally bought fur,
was toiling up a mountain pass when he spied a big bear
sitting on his haunches on the hill-side above. The
trapper shouted and waved his cap ; whereupon, to his

328 The Wilderness Hunter.

amazement, the bear uttered a loud " wough " and charged
straight down on him — only to fall a victim to misplaced
boldness.

I am even inclined to think that there have been
wholly exceptional occasions when a grisly has attacked a
man with the deliberate purpose of making a meal of
him ; when, in other words, it has started on the career
of a man-eater. At least, on any other theory I find it
difficult to account for an attack which once came to my
knowledge. I was at Sand Point, on Pend'Oreille Lake,
and met some French and Meti trappers, then in town
with their bales of beaver, otter, and sable. One of
them, who gave his name as Baptiste Lamoche, had his
head twisted over to one side, the result of the bite of a
bear. When the accident occurred he was out on a trap-
ping trip with two companions. They had pitched camp
right on the shore of a cove in a little lake, and his com-
rades were off fishing in a dugout or pirogue. He himself
was sitting near the shore, by a little lean-to, watching
some beaver meat which was sizzling over the dying
embers. Suddenly, and without warning, a great bear,
which had crept silently up beneath the shadows of the
tall evergreens, rushed at him, with a guttural roar, and
seized him before he could rise to his feet. It grasped
him with its jaws at the junction of the neck and shoulder,
making the teeth meet through bone, sinew, and muscle ;
and turning, racked off towards the forest, dragging with
it the helpless and paralyzed victim. Luckily the two men
in the canoe had just paddled round the point, in sight
of, and close to, camp. The man in the bow, seeing the

Hunting the Grisly. 329

plight of their comrade, seized his rifle and fired at the
bear. The bullet went through the beast's lungs, and it
forthwith dropped its prey, and running off some two hun-
dred yards, lay down on its side and died. The rescued
man recovered full health and strength, but never again
carried his head straight.

Old hunters and mountain-men tell many stories, not
only of malicious grislies thus attacking men in camp, but
also of their even dogging the footsteps of some solitary
hunter and killing him when the favorable opportunity
occurs. Most of these tales are mere fables ; but it is
possible that in altogether exceptional instances they rest
on a foundation of fact. One old hunter whom I knew
told me such a story. He was a truthful old fellow, and
there was no doubt that he believed what he said, and
that his companion was actually killed by a bear ; but it is
probable that he was mistaken in reading the signs of his
comrade's fate, and that the latter was not dogged by the
bear at all, but stumbled on him and was slain in the sur-
prise of the moment.

At any rate, cases of wanton assaults by grislies are
altogether out of the common. The ordinary hunter may
live out his whole life in the wilderness and never know
aught of a bear attacking a man unprovoked ; and the
great majority of bears are shot under circumstances of
no special excitement, as they either make no fight at all,
or, if they do fight, are killed before there is any risk of
their doing damage. If surprised on the plains, at some
distance from timber or from badly broken ground, it is
no uncommon feat for a single horseman to kill them

33° The Wilderness Hunter.

with a revolver. Twice of late years it has been per-
formed in the neighborhood of my ranch. In both in-
stances the men were not hunters out after game, but
simply cowboys, riding over the range in early morning
in pursuance of their ordinary duties among the cattle. I
knew both men and have worked with them on the
round-up. Like most cowboys they carried 44-calibre
Colt revolvers, and were accustomed to and fairly expert
in their use, and they were mounted on ordinary cow-
ponies — quick, wiry, plucky little beasts. In one case the
bear was seen from quite a distance, lounging across a
broad table-land. The cowboy, by taking advantage of a
winding and rather shallow coulie, got quite close to him.
He then scrambled out of the coulie, put spurs to his
pony, and raced up to within fifty yards of the astonished
bear ere the latter quite understood what it was that was
running at him through the gray dawn. He made no at-
tempt at fight, but ran at top speed towards a clump of
brush not far off at the head of a creek. Before he could
reach it, however, the galloping horseman was alongside,
and fired three shots into his broad back. He did not
turn, but ran on into the bushes and then fell over and
died.

In the other case the cowboy, a Texan, was mounted
on a good cutting pony, a spirited, handy, agile little ani-
mal, but excitable, and with a habit of dancing, which ren-
dered it difficult to shoot from its back. The man was
with the round-up wagon, and had been sent off by him-
self to make a circle through some low, barren buttes,
where it was not thought more than a few head of stock

Hunting the Grisly. 33 1

would be found. On rounding the corner of a small
washout he almost ran over a bear which was feeding on
the carcass of a steer that had died in an alkali hole.
After a moment of stunned surprise the bear hurled him-_
self at the intruder with furious impetuosity ; while the
cowboy, wheeling his horse on its haunches and dashing
in the spurs, carried it just clear of his assailant's headlong
rush. After a few springs he reined in and once more
wheeled half round, having drawn his revolver, only to
find the bear again charging and almost on him. This
time he fired into it, near the joining of the neck and
shoulder, the bullet going downwards into the chest hol-
low ; and again by a quick dash to one side he just avoided
the rush of the beast and the sweep of its mighty fore-
paw. The bear then halted for a minute, and he rode
close by it at a run, firing a couple of shots, which brought
on another resolute charge. The ground was somewhat
rugged and broken, but his pony was as quick on its feet
as a cat, and never stumbled, even when going at full speed
to avoid the bear's first mad rushes. It speedily became
so excited, however, as to render it almost impossible for
the rider to take aim. Sometimes he would come up close
to the bear and wait for it to charge, which it would do,
first at a trot, or rather rack, and then at a lumbering but
swift gallop ; and he would fire one or two shots before
being forced to run. At other times, if the bear stood
still in a good place, he would run by it, firing as he rode.
He spent many cartridges, and though most of them were
wasted, occasionally a bullet went home. The bear fought
with the most savage courage, champing its bloody jaws,

33 2 The Wilderness Hunter.

roaring with rage, and looking the very incarnation of
evil fury. For some minutes it made no effort to flee,
either charging or standing at bay. Then it began to
move slowly towards a patch of ash and wild plums in the
head of a coulie, some distance off. Its pursuer rode
after it, and when close enough would push by it and fire,
while the bear would spin quickly round and charge as
fiercely as ever, though evidently beginning to grow weak.
At last, when still a couple of hundred yards from cover
the man found he had used up all his cartridges, and then
merely followed at a safe distance. The bear no longer
paid heed to him, but walked slowly forwards, swaying its
great head from side to side, while the blood streamed
from between its half-opened jaws. On reaching the cover
he could tell by the waving of the bushes that it walked
to the middle and then halted. A few minutes after-
wards some of the other cowboys rode up, having been
attracted by the incessant firing. They surrounded the
thicket, firing and throwing stones into the bushes.
Finally, as nothing moved, they ventured in and found
the indomitable grisly warrior lying dead.

Cowboys delight in nothing so much as the chance to
show their skill as riders and ropers ; and they always try
to ride down and rope any wild animal they come across
in favorable ground and close enough up. If a party of
them meets a bear in the open they have great fun ; and
the struggle between the shouting, galloping rough-riders
and their shaggy quarry is full of wild excitement and
not unaccompanied by danger. The bear often throws
the noose from his head so rapidly that it is a difficult

Hunting the Grisly. 333

matter to catch him ; and his frequent charges scatter
his tormentors in every direction while the horses become
wild with fright over the roaring, bristling beast — for
horses seem to dread a bear more than any other animal.
If the bear cannot reach cover, however, his fate is sealed.
Sooner or later, the noose tightens over one leg, or per-
chance over the neck and fore-paw, and as the rope
straightens with a " pluck," the horse braces itself desper-
ately and the bear tumbles over. Whether he regains
his feet or not the cowboy keeps the rope taut ; soon
another noose tightens over a leg, and the bear is speedily
rendered helpless.

I have known of these feats being performed several
times in northern Wyoming, although never in the im-
mediate neighborhood of my ranch. Mr. Archibald
Roger's cowhands have in this manner caught several
bears, on or near his ranch on the Gray Bull, which flows
into the Bighorn ; and those of Mr. G. B. Grinnell have
also occasionally done so. Any set of moderately good
ropers and riders, who are accustomed to back one
another up and act together, can accomplish the feat if
they have smooth ground and plenty of room. It is,
however, indeed a feat of skill and daring for a single
man ; and yet I have known of more than one instance
in which it has been accomplished by some reckless
knight of the rope and the saddle. One such occurred in
1887 on the Flathead Reservation, the hero being a half-
breed ; and another in 1890 at the mouth of the Bighorn,
where a cowboy roped, bound, and killed a large bear
single-handed.

334 The Wilderness Hunter.

My friend General "Red" Jackson, of Bellemeade,
in the pleasant mid-county of Tennessee, once did a feat
which casts into the shade even the feats of the men of
the lariat. General Jackson, who afterwards became one
of the ablest and most renowned of the Confederate
cavalry leaders, was at the time a young officer in the
Mounted Rifle Regiment, now known as the 3d United
States Cavalry. It was some years before the Civil War,
and the regiment was on duty in the Southwest, then the
debatable land of Comanche and Apache. While on a
scout after hostile Indians, the troops in their march
roused a large grisly which sped off across the plain in
front of them. Strict orders had been issued against
firing at game, because of the nearness of the Indians.
Young Jackson was a man of great strength, a keen
swordsman, who always kept the finest edge on his blade,
and he was on a swift and mettled Kentucky horse, which
luckily had but one eye. Riding at full speed he soon
overtook the quarry. As the horse hoofs sounded nearer,
the grim bear ceased its flight, and whirling round stood
at bay, raising itself on its hind-legs and threatening its
pursuer with bared fangs and spread claws. Carefully
riding his horse so that its blind side should be towards
the monster, the cavalryman swept by at a run, handling
his steed with such daring skill that he just cleared the
blow of the dreaded fore-paw, while with one mighty
sabre stroke he cleft the bear's skull, slaying the grinning
beast as it stood upright.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE COUGAR.

NO animal of the chase is so difficult to kill by fair
still-hunting as the cougar — that beast of many
names, known in the East as panther and painter,
in the West as mountain lion, in the Southwest as Mexi-
can lion, and in the southern continent as lion and puma.
Without hounds its pursuit is so uncertain that from
the still-hunter's standpoint it hardly deserves to rank as
game at all — though, by the way, it is itself a more skil-
ful still-hunter than any human rival. It prefers to move
abroad by night or at dusk ; and in the daytime usually
lies hid in some cave or tangled thicket where it is abso-
lutely impossible even to stumble on it by chance. It is
a beast of stealth and rapine ; its great, velvet paws, never
make a sound, and it is always on the watch whether for
prey or for enemies, while it rarely leaves shelter even
when it thinks itself safe. Its soft, leisurely movements
and uniformity of color make it difficult to discover at
best, and its extreme watchfulness helps it ; but it is
the cougar's reluctance to leave cover at any time, its
habit of slinking off through the brush, instead of running

335

336 The Wilderness Hunter.

in the open, when startled, and the way in which it lies
motionless in its lair even when a man is within twenty
yards, that render it so difficult to still-hunt.

In fact it is next to impossible with any hope of suc-
cess regularly to hunt the cougar without dogs or bait.
Most cougars that are killed by still-hunters are shot by
accident while the man is after other game. This has been
my own experience. Although not common, cougars are
found near my ranch, where the ground is peculiarly fav-
orable for the solitary rifleman ; and for ten years I have,
off and on, devoted a day or two to their pursuit ; but
never successfully. One December a large cougar took
up his abode on a densely wooded bottom two miles above
the ranch house. I did not discover his existence until I
went there one evening to kill a deer, and found that he
had driven all the deer off the bottom, having killed sev-
eral, as well as a young heifer. Snow was falling at the
time, but the storm was evidently almost over ; the leaves
were all off the trees and bushes ; and I felt that next day
there would be such a chance to follow the cougar as fate
rarely offered. In the morning by dawn I was at the bot-
tom, and speedily found his trail. Following it I came
across his bed, among some cedars in a dark, steep gorge,
where the buttes bordered the bottom. He had evidently
just left it, and I followed his tracks all day. But I never
caught a glimpse of him, and late in the afternoon I
trudged wearily homewards. When I went out next
morning I found that as soon as I abandoned the chase,
my quarry, according to the uncanny habit sometimes dis-
played by his kind, coolly turned likewise, and deliberately

The Cougar. 337

dogged my footsteps to within a mile of the ranch house ;
his round footprints being as clear as writing in the snow.

This was the best chance of the kind that I ever had ;
but again and again I have found fresh signs of cougarr
such as a lair which they had just left, game they had
killed, or one of our venison caches which they had robbed,
and have hunted for them all day without success. My
failures were doubtless due in part to various shortcomings
in hunter' s-craft on my own part ; but equally without
doubt they were mainly due to the quarry's wariness and
its sneaking ways.

I have seen a wild cougar alive but twice, and both
times by chance. On one occasion one of my men, Mer*
rifield, and I surprised one eating a skunk in a bullberry
patch ; and by our own bungling frightened it away from
its unsavory repast without getting a shot.

On the other occasion luck befriended me. I was with
a pack train in the Rockies, and one day, feeling lazy, and
as we had no meat in camp, I determined to try for deer
by lying in wait beside a recently travelled game trail.
The spot I chose was a steep, pine-clad slqpe leading down
to a little mountain lake. I hid behind a breastwork of
rotten logs, with a few young evergreens in front — an ex-
cellent ambush. A broad game trail slanted down the hill
directly past me. I lay perfectly quiet for about an hour,
listening to the murmur of the pine forests, and the occa-
sional call of a jay or woodpecker, and gazing eagerly
along the trail in the waning light of the late afternoon.
Suddenly, without noise or warning of any kind, a cougar
stood in the trail before me. The unlocked for and un-

338 The Wilderness Hunter.

heralded approach of the beast was fairly ghost-like. With
its head lower than its shoulders, and its long tail twitch-
ing, it slouched down the path, treading as softly as a kit-
ten. I waited until it had passed and then fired into the
short ribs, the bullet ranging forward. Throwing its tail
up in the air, and giving a bound, the cougar galloped off
over a slight ridge. But it did not go far ; within a hun-
dred yards I found it stretched on its side, its jaws still
working convulsively.

The true way to hunt the cougar is to follow it with
dogs. If the chase is conducted in this fashion, it is very
exciting, and resembles on a larger scale the ordinary
method of hunting the wildcat or small lynx, as practised
by the sport-loving planters of the southern States. With
a very little training, hounds readily and eagerly pursue
the cougar, showing in this kind of chase none of the fear
and disgust they are so prone to exhibit when put on the
trail of the certainly no more dangerous wolf. The cougar,
when the hounds are on its track, at first runs, but when
hard-pressed takes to a tree, or possibly comes to bay in
thick cover. Its attention is then so taken up with the
hounds that it can usually be approached and shot without
much difficulty ; though some cougars break bay when the
hunters come near, and again make off, when they can only
be stopped by many large and fierce hounds. Hounds
are often killed in these fights ; and if hungry a cougar
will pounce on any dog for food ; yet, as I have elsewhere
related, I know of one instance in which a small pack of
big, savage hounds killed a cougar unassisted. General
Wade Hampton, who with horse and hound has been the

HEAD OF COUGAR.

SHOT SEPTEMBER, 1889.

The Cougar. 339

mightiest hunter America has ever seen, informs me that
he has killed with his pack some sixteen cougars, during
the fifty years he has hunted in South Carolina and Mis-
sissippi. I believe they were all killed in the latter State.
General Hampton's hunting has been chiefly for bear and
deer, though his pack also follows the lynx and the gray
fox ; and, of course, if good fortune throws either a wolf
or a cougar in his way it is followed as the game of all
others. All the cougars he killed were either treed or
brought to bay in a canebrake by the hounds ; and they
often handled the pack very roughly in the death struggle.
He found them much more dangerous antagonists than
the black bear when assailed with the hunting knife, a
weapon of which he was very fond. However, if his pack
had held a few very large, savage dogs, put in purely for
fighting when the quarry was at bay, I think the danger
would have been minimized.

General Hampton followed his game on horseback ;
but in following the cougar with dogs this is by no means
always necessary. Thus Col. Cecil Clay, of Washington,
killed a cougar in West Virginia, on foot with only three
or four hounds. The dogs took the cold trail, and he had
to run many miles over the rough, forest-clad mountains
after them. Finally they drove the cougar up a tree ;
where he found it, standing among the branches, in a half-
erect position, its hind-feet on one limb and its fore-feet
on another, while it glared down at the dogs, and switched
its tail from side to side. He shot it through both shoul-
ders, and down it came in a heap, whereupon the dogs
jumped in and worried it, for its fore-legs were useless,

340 The Wilderness Hunter.

though it managed to catch one dog in its jaws and bite
him severely.

A wholly exceptional instance of the kind was related
to me by my old hunting friend Willis. In his youth, in
southwest Missouri, he knew a half-witted " poor white"
who was very fond of hunting coons. He hunted at
night, armed with an axe, and accompanied by his dog
Penny, a large, savage, half-starved cur. One dark night
the dog treed an animal which he could not see ; so he
cut down the tree, and immediately Penny jumped in and
grabbed the beast. The man sung out " Hold on, Penny,"
seeing that the dog had seized some large, wild animal ; the
next moment the brute knocked the dog endways, and at
the same instant the man split open its head with the axe.
Great was his astonishment, and greater still the astonish-
ment of the neighbors next day when it was found that
he had actually killed a cougar. These great cats often
take to trees in a perfectly foolish manner. My friend,
the hunter Woody, in all his thirty years' experience in
the wilds never killed but one cougar. He was lying out
in camp with two dogs at the time ; it was about mid-
night, the fire was out, and the night was pitch-black. He
was roused by the furious barking of his two dogs, who
had charged into the gloom, and were apparently baying
at something in a tree close by. He kindled the fire, and
to his astonishment found the thing in the tree to be a
cougar. Coming close underneath he shot it with his
revolver ; thereupon it leaped down, ran some forty
yards, and climbed up another tree, where it died among
the branches.

The Cougar. 341

If cowboys come across a cougar in open ground they
invariably chase and try to rope it — as indeed they do
with any wild animal. I have known several instances of
cougars being roped in this way ; in one the animal was
brought into camp alive by two strapping cowpunchers.

The cougar sometimes stalks its prey, and sometimes
lies in wait for it beside a game-trail or drinking pool —
very rarely indeed does it crouch on the limb of a tree.
When excited by the presence of game it is sometimes
very bold. Willis once fired at some bighorn sheep, on a
steep mountain-side ; he missed, and immediately after his
shot, a cougar made a dash into the midst of the flying
band, in hopes to secure a victim. The cougar roams
over long distances, and often changes its hunting ground,
perhaps remaining in one place two or three months,
until the game is exhausted, and then shifting to another.
When it does not lie in wait it usually spends most of the
night, winter and summer, in prowling restlessly around
the places where it thinks it may come across prey, and it
will patiently follow an animal's trail. There is no kind
of game, save the full-grown grisly and buffalo, which it
does not at times assail and master. It readily snaps up
grisly cubs or buffalo calves ; and in at least one instance,
I have known of it springing on, slaying, and eating a full-
grown wolf. I presume the latter was taken by surprise.
On the other hand, the cougar itself has to fear the big
timber wolves when maddened by the winter hunger and
gathered in small parties ; while a large grisly would of
course be an overmatch for it twice over, though its
superior agility puts it beyond the grisly's power to harm

342 The Wilderness Hunter.

it, unless by some unlucky chance taken in a cave. Nor
could a cougar overcome a bull moose, or a bull elk either,
if the latter' s horns were grown, save by taking it una-
wares. By choice, with such big game, its victims are the
cows and young. The prong-horn rarely comes within
reach of its spring ; but it is the dreaded enemy of big-
horn, white goat, and every kind of deer, while it also
preys on all the smaller beasts, such as foxes, coons, rab-
bits, beavers, and even gophers, rats, and mice. It some-
times makes a thorny meal of the porcupine, and if
sufficiently hungry attacks and eats its smaller cousin the
lynx. It is not a brave animal ; nor does it run its prey
down in open chase. It always makes its attacks by
stealth, and if possible from behind, and relies on two or
three tremendous springs to bring it on the doomed crea-
ture's back. It uses its claws as well as its teeth in hold-
ing and killing the prey. If possible it always seizes a
large animal by the throat, whereas the wolf's point of
attack is more often the haunch or flank. Small deer or
sheep it will often knock over and kill, merely using its
big paws ; sometimes it breaks their necks. It has a small
head compared to the jaguar, and its bite is much less
dangerous. Hence, as compared to its larger and bolder
relative, it places more trust in its claws and less in its teeth.
Though the cougar prefers woodland, it is not neces-
sarily a beast of the dense forests only ; for it is found in
all the plains country, living in the scanty timber belts
which fringe the streams, or among the patches of brush
in the Bad Lands. The persecution of hunters however
always tends to drive it into the most thickly wooded and

The Cougar. 343

broken fastnesses of the mountains. The she has from
one to three kittens, brought forth in a cave or a secluded
lair, under a dead log or in very thick brush. It is said
that the old he's kill the small male kittens when they get
a chance. They certainly at times during the breeding
season fight desperately among themselves. Cougars are
very solitary beasts ; it is rare to see more than one at a
time, and then only a mother and young, or a mated male
and female. While she has kittens, the mother is doubly
destructive to game. The young begin to kill for them-
selves very early. The first fall, after they are born, they
attack large game, and from ignorance are bolder in
making their attacks than their parents ; but they are
clumsy and often let the prey escape. Like all cats,
cougars are comparatively easy to trap, much more so than
beasts of the dog kind, such as the fox and wolf.

They are silent animals ; but old hunters say that at
mating time the males call loudly, while the females have
a very distinct answer. They are also sometimes noisy at
other seasons. I am not sure that I ever heard one ; but
one night, while camped in a heavily timbered coulie near
Kildeer Mountains, where, as their footprints showed, the
beasts were plentiful, I twice heard a loud, wailing scream
ringing through the impenetrable gloom which shrouded
the hills around us. My companion, an old plainsman,
said that this was the cry of the cougar prowling for its
prey. Certainly no man could well listen to a stranger
and wilder sound.

Ordinarily the rifleman is in no danger from a hunted
cougar ; the beast's one idea seems to be flight, and even

344 The Wilderness Hunter.

if its assailant is very close, it rarely charges if there is any
chance for escape. Yet there are occasions when it will
show fight. In the spring of 1890, a man with whom I
had more than once worked on the round-up — though I
never knew his name — was badly mauled by a cougar near
my ranch. He was hunting with a companion and they
unexpectedly came on the cougar on a shelf of sandstone
above their heads, only some ten feet off. It sprang down
on the man, mangled him with teeth and claws for a
moment, and then ran away. Another man I knew, a
hunter named Ed. Smith, who had a small ranch near
Helena, was once charged by a wounded cougar ; he
received a couple of deep scratches, but was not seriously
hurt.

Many old frontiersmen tell tales of the cougar's occa-
sionally itself making the attack, and dogging to his death
some unfortunate wayfarer. Many others laugh such tales
to scorn. It is certain that if such attacks occur they are
altogether exceptional, being indeed of such extreme
rarity that they may be entirely disregarded in practice.
I should have no more hesitation in sleeping out in a wood
where there were cougars, or walking through it after
nightfall, than I should have if the cougars were tomcats.

Yet it is foolish to deny that in exceptional instances
attacks may occur. Cougars vary wonderfully in size, and
no less in temper. Indeed I think that by nature they are
as ferocious and bloodthirsty as they are cowardly ; and
that their habit of sometimes dogging wayfarers for miles
is due to a desire for bloodshed which they lack the
courage to realize. In the old days, when all wild beasts

The Cougar. 345

were less shy than at present, there was more danger from
the cougar ; and this was especially true in the dark cane-
brakes of some of the southern States, where the man a
cougar was most likely to encounter was a nearly naked
and unarmed negro. General Hampton tells me that near
his Mississippi plantation, many years ago, a negro who
was one of a gang engaged in building a railroad through
low and wet ground was waylaid and killed by a cougar
late one night as he was walking alone through the swamp.

I knew two men in Missoula who were once attacked
by cougars in a very curious manner. It was in
January, and they were walking home through the snow
after a hunt, each carrying on his back the saddle,
haunches, and hide of a deer he had slain. Just at dusk,
as they were passing through a narrow ravine, the man in
front heard his partner utter a sudden loud call for help.
Turning, he was dumbfounded to see the man lying on his
face in the snow, with a cougar which had evidently just
knocked him down standing over him, grasping the deer
meat ; while another cougar was galloping up to assist.
Swinging his rifle round he shot the first one in the brain,
and it dropped motionless, whereat the second halted,
wheeled, and bounded into the woods. His companion
was not in the least hurt or even frightened, though
greatly amazed. The cougars were not full grown, but
young of the year.

Now in this case I do not believe the beasts had any
real intention of attacking the men. They were young
animals, bold, stupid, and very hungry. The smell of
the raw meat excited them beyond control, and they

346 The Wilderness Hunter.

probably could not make out clearly what the men were,
as they walked bent under their burdens, with the deer
skins on their backs. Evidently the cougars were only
trying to get at the venison.

In 1886 a cougar killed an Indian near Flathead Lake.
Two Indians were hunting together on horseback when
they came on the cougar. It fell at once to their shots,
and they dismounted and ran towards it. Just as they
reached it it came to, and seized one, killing him instantly
with a couple of savage bites in the throat and chest ; it
then raced after the other, and, as he sprung on his horse,
struck him across the buttocks, inflicting a deep but not
dangerous scratch. I saw this survivor a year later. He
evinced great reluctance to talk of the event, and insisted
that the thing which had slain his companion was not
really a cougar at all, but a devil.

A she-cougar does not often attempt to avenge the
loss of her young, but sometimes she does. A remarkable
instance of the kind happened to my friend, Professor
John Bache McMaster, in 1875. He was camped near
the head of Green River, Wyoming. One afternoon he
found a couple of cougar kittens, and took them into
camp ; they were clumsy, playful, friendly little creatures.
The next afternoon he remained in camp with the cook.
Happening to look up he suddenly spied the mother
cougar running noiselessly down on them, her eyes glaring
and tail twitching. Snatching up his rifle, he killed her
when she was barely twenty yards distant.

A ranchman, named Trescott, who was at one time
my neighbor, told me that while he was living on a sheep-

The Cougar.

347

farm in the Argentine, he found pumas very common,
and killed many. They were very destructive to sheep
and colts, but were singularly cowardly when dealing
with men. Not only did they never attack human beings,
under any stress of hunger, but they made no effective
resistance when brought to bay, merely scratching and
cuffing like a big cat ; so that if found in a cave, it was
safe to creep in and shoot them with a revolver. Jaguars,
on the contrary, were very dangerous antagonists.

CHAPTER XVII.

A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES.

IN the United States the peccary is only found in the
southernmost corner of Texas. In April, 1892, I
made a flying visit to the ranch country of this
region, starting from the town of Uvalde with a Texan
friend, Mr. John Moore. My trip being very hurried, I
had but a couple of days to devote to hunting.

Our first halting-place was at a ranch on the Frio ; a
low, wooden building, of many rooms, with open galleries
between them, and verandas round about. The country
was in some respects like, in others strangely unlike, the
northern plains with which I was so well acquainted. It
was for the most part covered with a scattered growth
of tough, stunted mesquite trees, not dense enough to be
called a forest, and yet sufficiently close to cut off the
view. It was very dry, even as compared with the
northern plains. The bed of the Frio was filled with
coarse gravel, and for the most part dry as a bone on
the surface, the water seeping through underneath, and
only appearing in occasional deep holes. These deep
holes or ponds never fail, even after a year's drouth ; they

340

A Peccary Hunt on the Nueces. 349

were filled with fish. One lay quite near the ranch house,
under a bold rocky bluff; at its edge grew giant cypress
trees. In the hollows and by the watercourses were
occasional groves of pecans, live-oaks, and elms. Strange
birds hopped among the bushes ; the chaparral cock — a
big, handsome ground-cuckoo of remarkable habits, much
given to preying on small snakes and lizards — ran over
the ground with extraordinary rapidity. Beautiful swal*
low-tailed kingbirds with rosy plumage perched on the
tops of the small trees, and soared and flitted in graceful
curves above them. Blackbirds of many kinds scuttled in
flocks about the corrals and outbuildings around the
ranches. Mocking-birds abounded, and were very noisy,
singing almost all the daytime, but with their usual
irritating inequality of performance, wonderfully musical
and powerful snatches of song being interspersed with
imitations of other bird notes and disagreeable squalling.
Throughout the trip I did not hear one of them utter the
beautiful love song in which they sometimes indulge
at night.

The country was all under wire fence, unlike the
northern regions, the pastures however being sometimes
many miles across. When we reached the Frio ranch a
herd of a thousand cattle had just been gathered, and
two or three hundred beeves and young stock were being
cut out to be driven northward over the trail. The cat-
tle were worked in pens much more than in the North,
and on all the ranches there were chutes with steering
gates, by means of which the individuals of a herd could
be dexterously shifted into various corrals. The brand-

350 The Wilderness Hunter.

ing of the calves was done ordinarily in one of these
corrals and on foot, the calf being always roped by both
forelegs ; otherwise the work of the cowpunchers was
much like that of their brothers in the North. As a
whole, however, they were distinctly more proficient with
the rope, and at least half of them were Mexicans.

There were some bands of wild cattle living only in
the densest timber of the river bottoms which were liter-
ally as wild as deer, and moreover very fierce and dan-
gerous. The pursuit of these was exciting and hazardous
in the extreme. The men who took part in it showed not
only the utmost daring but the most consummate horse-
manship and wonderful skill in the use of the rope, the
coil being hurled with the force and precision of an iron
quoit ; a single man speedily overtaking, roping, throwing,
and binding down the fiercest steer or bull.

There had been many peccaries, or, as the Mexicans
and cowpunchers of the border usually call them, javalinas,
round this ranch a few years before the date of my visit.
Until 1886, or thereabouts, these little wild hogs were
not much molested, and abounded in the dense chaparral
around the lower Rio Grande. In that year, however, it
was suddenly discovered that their hides had a market
value, being worth four bits — that is, half a dollar — apiece ;
and many Mexicans and not a few shiftless Texans went
into the business of hunting them as a means of livelihood.
They were more easily killed than deer, and, as a result,
they were speedily exterminated in many localities where
they had formerly been numerous, and even where they
were left were to be found only in greatly diminished

A Peccary Hunt on the Nueces. 351

numbers. On this particular Frio ranch the last little
band had been killed nearly a year before. There were
three of them, a boar and two sows, and a couple of the
cowboys stumbled on them early one morning while .out
with a dog. After half a mile's chase the three peccaries
ran into a hollow pecan tree, and one of the cowboys,
dismounting, improvised a lance by tying his knife to the
end of a pole, and killed them all.

Many anecdotes were related to me of what they had
done in the old days when they were plentiful on the
ranch. They were then usually found in parties of from
twenty to thirty, feeding in the dense chaparral, the sows
rejoining the herd with the young very soon after the
birth of the latter, each sow usually having but one or two
at a litter. At night they sometimes lay in the thickest
cover, but always, where possible, preferred to house in
a cave or big hollow log, one invariably remaining as a
sentinel close to the mouth, looking out. If this senti-
nel were shot, another would almost certainly take his
place. They were subject to freaks of stupidity, and
were pugnacious to a degree. Not only would they fight
if molested, but they would often attack entirely without
provocation.

Once my friend Moore himself, while out with another
cowboy on horseback, was attacked in sheer wantonness
by a drove of these little wild hogs. The two men were
riding by a grove of live-oaks along a wood-cutter's cart
track, and were assailed without a moment's warning.
The little creatures completely surrounded them, cutting
fiercely at the horses' legs and jumping up at the riders'

35 2 The Wilderness Hunter.

feet. The men, drawing their revolvers, dashed through
and were closely followed by their pursuers for three or
four hundred yards, although they fired right and left with
good effect. Both of the horses were badly cut. On
another occasion the bookkeeper of the ranch walked off
to a water hole but a quarter of a mile distant, and came
face to face with a peccary on a cattle trail, where the
brush was thick. Instead of getting out of his way the
creature charged him instantly, drove him up a small mes-
quite tree, and kept him there for nearly two hours, look-
ing up at him and champing its tusks.

I spent two days hunting round this ranch but saw no
peccary sign whatever, although deer were quite plentiful.
Parties of wild geese and sandhill cranes occasionally flew
overhead. At nightfall the poor-wills wailed everywhere
through the woods, and coyotes yelped and yelled, while
in the early morning the wild turkeys gobbled loudly
from their roosts in the tops of the pecan trees.

Having satisfied myself that there were no javalinas
left on the Frio ranch, and being nearly at the end of my
holiday, I was about to abandon the effort to get any,
when a passing cowman happened to mention the fact
that some were still to be found on the Nueces River
thirty miles or thereabouts to the southward. Thither I
determined to go, and next morning Moore and I started
in a buggy drawn by a redoubtable horse, named Jim
Swinger, which we were allowed to use because he bucked
so under the saddle that nobody on the ranch could ride
him. We drove six or seven hours across the dry, water-
less plains. There had been a heavy frost a few days

A Peccary Hunt on the Nueces. 353

before, which had blackened the budding mesquite trees,
and their twigs still showed no signs of sprouting. Occa-
sionally we came across open spaces where there was
nothing but short brown grass. In most places, however ,.
the leafless, sprawling mesquites were scattered rather
thinly over the ground, cutting off an extensive view and
merely adding to the melancholy barrenness of the land-
scape. The road was nothing but a couple of dusty
wheel-tracks ; the ground was parched, and the grass
cropped close by the gaunt, starved cattle. As we drove
along buzzards and great hawks occasionally soared over-
head. Now and then we passed lines of wild-looking,
long-horned steers, and once we came on the grazing
horses of a cow-outfit, just preparing to start northward
over the trail to the fattening pastures. Occasionally we
encountered one or two cowpunchers : either Texans,
habited exactly like their brethren in the North, with
broad-brimmed gray hats, blue shirts, silk neckerchiefs,
and leather leggings ; or else Mexicans, more gaudily
dressed, and wearing peculiarly stiff, very broad-brimmed
hats, with conical tops.

Toward the end of our ride we got where the ground
was more fertile, and there had recently been a sprinkling
of rain. Here we came across wonderful flower prairies.
In one spot I kept catching glimpses through the mesquite
trees of lilac stretches which I had first thought must be
ponds of water. On coming nearer they proved to be
acres on acres thickly covered with beautiful lilac-colored
flowers. Farther on we came to where broad bands of
red flowers covered the ground for many furlongs ; then

354 The Wilderness Hunter.

their places were taken by yellow blossoms, elsewhere by
white. Generally each band or patch of ground was
covered densely by flowers of the same color, making a
great vivid streak across the landscape ; but in places they
were mixed together, red, yellow, and purple, interspersed
in patches and curving bands, carpeting the prairie in a
strange, bright pattern.

Finally, toward evening we reached the Nueces.
Where we struck it first the bed was dry, except in occa-
sional deep, malarial-looking pools, but a short distance
below there began to be a running current. Great blue
herons were stalking beside these pools, and from one we
flushed a white ibis. In the woods were reddish cardinal
birds, much less brilliant in plumage than the true cardinals
and the scarlet tanagers ; and yellow-headed titmice which
had already built large domed nests.

In the valley of the Nueces itself, the brush grew
thick. There were great groves of pecan trees, and ever-
green live-oaks stood in many places, long, wind-shaken
tufts of gray moss hanging from their limbs. Many of
the trees in the wet spots were of giant size, and the
whole landscape was semi-tropical in character. High
on a bluff shoulder overlooking the course of the river
was perched the ranch house, toward which we were bend-
ing our steps ; and here we were received with the hearty
hospitality characteristic of the ranch country everywhere.

The son of the ranchman, a tall, well-built young
fellow, told me at once that there were peccaries in the
neighborhood, and that he had himself shot one but two
or three days before, and volunteered to lend us horses

A Peccary Hunt on the Nueces. 355

and pilot us to the game on the morrow, with the help of
his two dogs. The last were big black curs with, as we
were assured, " considerable hound " in them. One was
at the time staying at the ranch house, the other was four
or five miles off with a Mexican goat-herder, and it was
arranged that early in the morning we should ride down
to the latter place, taking the first dog with us and pro-
curing his companion when we reached the goat-herder's
house.

We started after breakfast, riding powerful cow-ponies,
well trained to gallop at full speed through the dense
chaparral. The big black hound slouched at our heels.
We rode down the banks of the Nueces, crossing and
recrossing the stream. Here and there were long, deep
pools in the bed of the river, where rushes and lilies grew
and huge mailed garfish swam slowly just beneath the
surface of the water. Once my two companions stopped
to pull a mired cow out of a slough, hauling with ropes
from their saddle horns. In places there were half-dry
pools, out of the regular current of the river, the water
green and fetid. The trees were very tall and large.
The streamers of pale gray moss hung thickly from the
branches of the live-oaks, and when many trees thus
draped stood close together they bore a strangely mourn-
ful and desolate look.

We finally found the queer little hut of the Mexican
goat-herder in the midst of a grove of giant pecans. On
the walls were nailed the skins of different beasts, rac-
coons, wild-cats, and the tree-civet, with its ringed tail.
The Mexican's brown wife and children were in the hut,

356 The Wilderness Hunter.

but the man himself and the goats were off in the forest,
and it took us three or four hours' search before we found
him. Then it was nearly noon, and we lunched in his
hut, a square building of split logs, with bare earth floor,
and roof of clap-boards and bark. Our lunch consisted of
goat's meat and pan de mais. The Mexican, a broad-
chested man with a stolid Indian face, was evidently quite
a sportsman, and had two or three half-starved hounds,
besides the funny, hairless little house dogs, of which
Mexicans seem so fond.

Having borrowed the javalina hound of which we
were in search, we rode off in quest of our game, the two
dogs trotting gayly ahead. The one which had been
living at the ranch had evidently fared well, and was very
fat ; the other was little else but skin and bone, but as
alert and knowing as any New York street-boy, with the
same air of disreputable capacity. It was this hound
which always did most in finding the javalinas and bring-
ing them to bay, his companion's chief use being to make
a noise and lend the moral support of his presence.

We rode away from the river on the dry uplands, where
the timber, though thick, was small, consisting almost
exclusively of the thorny mesquites. Mixed among them
were prickly pears, standing as high as our heads on horse-
back, and Spanish bayonets, looking in the distance like
small palms ; and there were many other kinds of cactus,
all with poisonous thorns. Two or three times the dogs
got on an old trail and rushed off giving tongue, whereat
we galloped madly after them, ducking and dodging
through and among the clusters of spine-bearing trees

A Peccary Hunt on the Nueces. 357

and cactus, not without getting a considerable number of
thorns in our hands and legs. It was very dry and hot.
Where the javalinas live in droves in the river bottoms
they often drink at the pools ; but when some distance
from water they seem to live quite comfortably on the
prickly pear, slaking their thirst by eating its hard, juicy
fibre.

At last, after several false alarms, and gallops which
led to nothing, when it lacked but an hour of sundown
we struck a band of five of the little wild hogs. They
were running off through the mesquites with a peculiar
hopping or bounding motion, and we all, dogs and men,
tore after them instantly.

Peccaries are very fast for a few hundred yards, but
speedily tire, lose their wind, and come to bay. Almost
immediately one of these, a sow, as it turned out, wheeled
and charged at Moore as he passed, Moore never seeing
her but keeping on after another. The sow then stopped
and stood still, chattering her teeth savagely, and I
jumped off my horse and dropped her dead with a shot
in the spine, over the shoulders. Moore meanwhile had
dashed off after his pig in one direction, and killed the
little beast with a shot from the saddle when it had come
to bay, turning and going straight at him. Two of the
peccaries got off ; the remaining one, a rather large boar,
was followed by the two dogs, and as soon as I had killed
the sow I leaped again on my horse and made after
them, guided by the yelping and baying. In less than a
quarter of a mile they were on his haunches, and he
wheeled and stood under a bush, charging at them when

358 The Wilderness Hunter.

they came near him, and once catching one, inflicting an
ugly cut. All the while his teeth kept going like casta-
nets, with a rapid champing sound. I ran up close and
killed him by a shot through the backbone where it joined
the neck. His tusks were fine.

The few minutes' chase on horseback was great fun,
and there was a certain excitement in seeing the fierce
little creatures come to bay ; but the true way to kill these
peccaries would be with the spear. They could often be
speared on horseback, and where this was impossible, by
using dogs to bring them to bay they could readily be
killed on foot ; though, as they are very active absolutely
fearless, and inflict a most formidable bite, it would usually
be safest to have two men go at one together. Peccaries
are not difficult beasts to kill, because their short wind
and their pugnacity make them come to bay before hounds
so quickly. Two or three good dogs can bring to a halt
a herd of considerable size. They then all stand in a
bunch, or else with their sterns against a bank, chattering
their teeth at their antagonists. When angry and at bay,
they get their legs close together, their shoulders high,
and their bristles all ruffled, and look the very incarnation
of anger, and they fight with reckless indifference to the
very last. Hunters usually treat them with a certain
amount of caution ; but, as a matter of fact, I know of but
one case where a man was hurt by them. He had shot at
and wounded one, was charged both by it and by its two
companions, and started to climb a tree ; but as he drew
himself from the ground, one sprang at him and bit him
through the calf, inflicting a very severe wound. I have

A Peccary Hunt on the Nueces. 359

known of several cases of horses being cut, however, and
dogs are very commonly killed. Indeed, a dog new to the
business is almost certain to get very badly scarred, and
no dog that hunts steadily can escape without some injury.
If it runs in right at the heads of the animals, the proba-
bilities are that it will get killed ; and, as a rule, even two
good-sized hounds cannot kill a peccary, though it is no
larger than either of them. However, a wary, resolute,
hard-biting dog of good size speedily gets accustomed to
the chase, and can kill a peccary single-handed, seizing it
from behind and worrying it to death, or watching its
chance and grabbing it by the back of the neck where it
joins the head.

Peccaries have delicately moulded short legs, and their
feet are small, the tracks looking peculiarly dainty in con-
sequence. Hence, they do not swim well, though they
take to the water if necessary. They feed on roots,
prickly pears, nuts, insects, lizards, etc. They usually
keep entirely separate from the droves of half-wild swine
that are so often found in the same neighborhoods ; but
in one case, on this very ranch where I was staying, a
peccary deliberately joined a party of nine pigs and asso-
ciated with them. When the owner of the pigs came up
to them one day the peccary manifested great suspicion
at his presence, and finally sidled close up and threatened
to attack him, so that he had to shoot it. The ranchman's
son told me that he had never but once had a peccary
assail him unprovoked, and even in this case it was his
dog that was the object of attack, the peccary rushing out
at it as it followed him home one evening through the

360

The Wilderness Hunter.

chaparral. Even around this ranch the peccaries had very
greatly decreased in numbers, and the survivors were
learning some caution. In the old days it had been no
uncommon thing for a big band to attack entirely of their
own accord, and keep a hunter up a tree for hours at a
time.

CHAPTER XVIII.

HUNTING WITH HOUNDS.

IN hunting American big game with hounds, several
entirely distinct methods are pursued. The true
wilderness hunters, the men who in the early days
lived alone in, or moved in parties through, the Indian-
haunted solitudes, like their successors of to-day, rarely
made use of a pack of hounds, and, as a rule, did not use
dogs at all. In the eastern forests occasionally an old-
time hunter would own one or two track-hounds, slow,
with a good nose, intelligent and obedient, of use mainly
in following wounded game. Some Rocky Mountain
hunters nowadays employ the same kind of dog, but the
old-time trappers of the great plains and the Rockies led
such wandering lives of peril and hardship that they could
not readily take dogs with them. The hunters of the
Alleghanies and the Adirondacks have, however, always
used hounds to drive deer, killing the animal in the water
or at a runaway.

As soon, however, as the old wilderness hunter type
passes away, hounds come into use among his successors,

the rough border settlers of the backwoods and the plains.

361

362 The Wilderness Hunter.

Every such settler is apt to have four or five large
mongrel dogs with hound blood in them, which serve to
drive off beasts of prey from the sheepfold and cattle-shed,
and are also used, when the occasion suits, in regular
hunting, whether after bear or deer.

Many of the southern planters have always kept packs
of fox-hounds, which are used in the chase, not only of the
gray and the red fox, but also of the deer, the black bear,
and the wildcat. The fox the dogs themselves run down
and kill, but as a rule in this kind of hunting, when
after deer, bear, or even wildcat, the hunters carry guns
with them on their horses, and endeavor either to get a
shot at the fleeing animal by hard and dexterous riding,
or else to kill the cat when treed, or the bear when it
comes to bay. Such hunting is great sport.

Killing driven game by lying in wait for it to pass is
the very poorest kind of sport that can be called legitimate.
This is the way the deer is usually killed with hounds
in the East. In the North the red fox is often killed in
somewhat the same manner, being followed by a slow
hound and shot at as he circles before the dog. Although
this kind of fox-hunting is inferior to hunting on horse-
back, it nevertheless has its merits, as the man must walk
and run well, shoot with some accuracy, and show consid-
erable knowledge both of the country and of the habits
of the game.

During the last score of years an entirely different type
of dog from the fox-hound has firmly established itself
in the field of American sport. This is the greyhound,
whether the smooth-haired, or the rough-coated Scotch

Hunting with Hounds. 363

deer-hound. For half a century the army officers posted
in the far West have occasionally had greyhounds with
them, using the dogs to course jack-rabbit, coyote, and
sometimes deer, antelope, and gray wolf. Many of them
were devoted to this sport, — General Custer, for instance.
I have myself hunted with many of the descendants of
Custer's hounds. In the early 70*3 the ranchmen of the
great plains themselves began to keep greyhounds for
coursing (as indeed they had already been used for a con-
siderable time in California, after the Pacific coast jack-
rabbit), and the sport speedily assumed large proportions
and a permanent form. Nowadays the ranchmen of the
cattle country not only use their greyhounds after the
jack-rabbit, but also after every other kind of game ani-
mal to be found there, the antelope and coyote being es-
pecial favorites. Many ranchmen soon grew to own fine
packs, coursing being the sport of all sports for the plains.
In Texas the wild turkey was frequently an object of the
chase, and wherever the locality enabled deer to be fol-
lowed in the open, as for instance in the Indian territory,
and in many places in the neighborhood of the large plains
rivers, the whitetail was a favorite quarry, the hunters
striving to surprise it in the early morning when feeding
on the prairie.

I have myself generally coursed with scratch packs,
including perhaps a couple of greyhounds, a wire-haired
deer-hound, and two or three long-legged mongrels.
However, we generally had at least one very fast and
savage dog — a strike dog — in each pack, and the others
were of assistance in turning the game, sometimes in tiring

364 The Wilderness Hunter.

it, and usually in helping to finish it at the worry. With
such packs I have had many a wildly exciting ride over
the great grassy plains lying near the Little Missouri and
the Knife and Heart rivers. Usually our proceedings on
such a hunt were perfectly simple. We started on horse-
back and when reaching favorable ground beat across it
in a long scattered line of men and dogs. Anything that
we put up, from a fox to a coyote or a prong-buck, was
fair game, and was instantly followed at full speed. The
animals we most frequently killed were jack-rabbits. They
always gave good runs, though like other game they dif-
fered much individually in speed. The foxes did not run
so well, and whether they were the little swift, or the big
red prairie fox, they were speedily snapped up if the dogs
had a fair showing. Once our dogs roused a blacktail
buck close up out of a brush coulie where the ground was
moderately smooth, and after a headlong chase of a mile
they ran into him, threw him, and killed him before he
could rise. (His stiff-legged bounds sent him along at a
tremendous pace at first, but he seemed to tire rather
easily.) On two or three occasions we killed whitetail
deer, and several times antelope. Usually, however, the
antelopes escaped. The bucks sometimes made a good
fight, but generally they were seized while running, some
dogs catching by the throat, others by the shoulders, and
others again by the flank just in front of the hind-leg.
Wherever the hold was obtained, if the dog made his
spring cleverly, the buck was sure to come down with a
crash, and if the other dogs were anywhere near he was
probably killed before he could rise, although not infre-

Hunting with Hounds. 365

quently the dogs themselves were more or less scratched
in the contests. Some greyhounds, even of high breed-
ing, proved absolutely useless from timidity, being afraid
to take hold ; but if they got accustomed to the chase,
being worked with old dogs, and had any pluck at all,
they proved singularly fearless. A big ninety-pound
greyhound or Scotch deer-hound is a very formidable fight-
ing dog ; I saw one whip a big mastiff in short order, his
wonderful agility being of more account than his adver-
sary's superior weight.

The proper way to course, however, is to take the
dogs out in a wagon and drive them thus until the game
is seen. This prevents their being tired out. In my own
hunting, most of the antelope aroused got away, the dogs
being jaded when the chase began. But really fine grey-
hounds, accustomed to work together and to hunt this
species of game, will usually render a good account of a
prong-buck if two or three are slipped at once, fresh, and
within a moderate distance.

Although most Westerners take more kindly to the
rifle, now and then one is found who is a devotee of the
hound. Such a one was an old Missourian, who may be
called Mr. Cowley, whom I knew when he was living on
a ranch in North Dakota, west of the Missouri. Mr.
Cowley was a primitive person, of much nerve, which he
showed not only in the hunting field but in the startling
political conventions of the place and period. He was
quite well off, but he was above the niceties of personal
vanity. His hunting garb was that in which he also paid
his rare formal calls — calls throughout which he always

366 Tke Wilderness Hunter.

preserved the gravity of an Indian, though having a dis-
concerting way of suddenly tip-toeing across the room to
some unfamiliar object, such as a peacock screen or a
vase, feeling it gently with one forefinger, and returning
with noiseless gait to his chair, unmoved, and making no
comment. On the morning of a hunt he would always
appear on a stout horse, clad in a long linen duster, a
huge club in his hand, and his trousers working half-way
up his legs. He hunted everything on all possible occa-
sions ; and he never under any circumstances shot an
animal that the dogs could kill. Once when a skunk got
into his house, with the direful stupidity of its perverse
kind, he turned the hounds on it ; a manifestation of
sporting spirit which aroused the ire of even his long-
suffering wife. As for his dogs, provided they could run
and fight, he cared no more for their looks than for his
own ; he preferred the animal to be half greyhound, but
the other half could be fox-hound, colley, or setter, it
mattered nothing to him. They were a wicked, hard-
biting crew for all that, and Mr. Cowley, in his flapping
linen duster, was a first-class hunter and a good rider.
He went almost mad with excitement in every chase.
His pack usually hunted coyote, fox, jack-rabbit, and deer ;
and I have had more than one good run with it.

My own experience is too limited to allow me to pass
judgment with certainty as to the relative speed of the
different beasts of the chase, especially as there is so much
individual variation. I consider the antelope the fleetest
of all however ; and in this opinion I am sustained by
Col. Roger D. Williams, of Lexington. Kentucky, who,

Hunting with Hounds. 367

more than any other American, is entitled to speak upon
coursing, and especially upon coursing large game. Col.
Williams, like a true son of Kentucky, has bred his own
thoroughbred horses and thoroughbred hounds for many
years ; and during a series of long hunting trips extending
over nearly a quarter of a century he has tried his pack
on almost every game animal to be found among the
foot-hills of the Rockies and on the great plains. His
dogs, both smooth-haired greyhounds and rough-coated
deer-hounds, have been bred by him for generations with
a special view to the chase of big game — not merely of
hares ; they are large animals, excelling not only in
speed but in strength, endurance, and ferocious courage.
The survivors of his old pack are literally seamed all over
with the scars of innumerable battles. When several dogs
were together they would stop a bull-elk, and fearlessly
assail a bear or cougar. This pack scored many a
triumph over blacktail, whitetail, and prong-buck. For
a few hundred yards the deer were very fast ; but in a run
of any duration the antelope showed much greater speed,
and gave the dogs far more trouble, although always
overtaken in the end, if a good start had been obtained.
Col. Williams is a firm believer in the power of the
thoroughbred horse to outrun any animal that breathes,
in a long chase ; he has not infrequently run down deer,
when they were jumped some miles from cover ; and on
two or three occasions he ran down uninjured antelope,
but in each case only after a desperate ride of miles,
which in one instance resulted in the death of his gallant
horse.

368 The Wilderness Hunter.

This coursing on the prairie, especially after big game,
is an exceedingly manly and attractive sport ; the furious
galloping, often over rough ground with an occasional
deep washout or gully, the sight of the gallant hounds
running and tackling, and the exhilaration of the pure air
and wild surroundings, all combine to give it a peculiar
zest. But there is really less need of bold and skilful
horsemanship than in the otherwise less attractive and
more artificial sport of fox-hunting, or riding to hounds,
in a closed and long-settled country.

Those of us who are in part of southern blood have a
hereditary right to be fond of cross-country riding ; for
our forefathers in Virginia, Georgia, or the Carolinas,
have for six generations followed the fox with horse, horn,
and hound. In the long-settled Northern States the
sport has been less popular, though much more so now
than formerly ; yet it has always existed, here and there,
and in certain places has been followed quite steadily.

In no place in the Northeast is hunting the wild red
fox put on a more genuine and healthy basis than in the
Genesee Valley, in central New York. There has always
been fox-hunting in this valley, the farmers having good
horses and being fond of sport ; but it was conducted in
a very irregular, primitive manner, until some twenty
years ago Mr. Austin Wadsworth turned his attention to
it. He has been master of fox-hounds ever since, and no
pack in the country has yielded better sport than his, or
has brought out harder riders among the men and
stronger jumpers among the horses. Mr. Wadsworth
began his hunting by picking up some of the various

Hunting with Hounds. 369

trencher-fed hounds of the neighborhood, the hunting of
that period being managed on the principle of each
farmer bringing to the meet the hound or hounds he
happened to possess, and appearing on foot or horseback
as his fancy dictated. Having gotten together some of
these native hounds and started fox-hunting in localities
where the ground was so open as to necessitate following
the chase on horseback, Mr. Wadsworth imported a
number of dogs from the best English kennels. He
found these to be much faster than the American dogs
and more accustomed to work together, but less enduring,
and without such good noses. The American hounds
were very obstinate and self-willed. Each wished to
work out the trail for himself. But once found, they
would puzzle it out, no matter how cold, and would
follow it if necessary for a day and night. By a judicious
crossing of the two Mr. Wadsworth finally got his present
fine pack, which for its own particular work on its own
ground would be hard to beat. The country ridden over
is well wooded, and there are many foxes. The abun-
dance of cover, however, naturally decreases the number
of kills. It is a very fertile land, and there are few farm-
ing regions more beautiful, for it is prevented from being
too tame in aspect by the number of bold hills and deep
ravines. Most of the fences are high posts-and-rails or
"snake" fences, although there is an occasional stone
wall, haha, or water-jump. The steepness of the ravines
and the density of the timber make it necessary for a
horse to be sure-footed and able to scramble anywhere,
and the fences are so high that none but very good

370 The Wilderness Hunter.

jumpers can possibly follow the pack. Most of the horses
used are bred by the farmers in the neighborhood, or are
from Canada, and they usually have thoroughbred or
trotting-stock blood in them.

One of the pleasantest days I ever passed in the saddle
was after Mr. Wadsworth's hounds. I was staying with
him at the time, in company with my friend Senator Cabot
Lodge, of Boston. The meet was about twelve miles distant
from the house. It was only a small field of some twenty-
five riders, but there was not one who did not mean going.
I was mounted on a young horse, a powerful, big-boned
black, a great jumper, though perhaps a trifle hot-headed.
Lodge was on a fine bay, which could both run and jump.
There were two or three other New Yorkers' and Bostoni-
ans present, several men who had come up from Buffalo
for the run, a couple of retired army officers, a number of
farmers from the neighborhood ; and finally several
members of a noted local family of hard riders, who
formed a class by themselves, all having taken naturally
to every variety of horsemanship from earliest infancy.

It was a thoroughly democratic assemblage ; every one
was there for sport, and nobody cared an ounce how he or
anybody else was dressed. Slouch hats, brown coats,
corduroy breeches, and leggings, or boots, were the order
of the day. We cast off in a thick wood. The dogs
struck a trail almost immediately and were off with clam-
orous yelping, while the hunt thundered after them like a
herd of buffaloes. We went headlong down the hill-side
into and across a brook. Here the trail led straight up
a sheer bank. Most of the riders struck off to the left for

Hunting with Hounds. 37 *

an easier place, which was unfortunate for them, for the
eight of us who went straight up the side (one man's
horse falling back with him) were the only ones who kept
on terms with the hounds. Almost as soon as we got 4o
the top of the bank we came out of the woods over a low
but awkward rail fence, where one of our number, who
was riding a very excitable sorrel colt, got a fall. This
left but six, including the whip. There were two or three
large fields with low fences ; then we came to two high,
stiff doubles, the first real jumping of the day, the fences
being over four feet six, and so close together that the
horses barely had a chance to gather themselves. We
got over, however, crossed two or three stump-strewn
fields, galloped through an open wood, picked our way
across a marshy spot, jumped a small brook and two or
three stiff fences, and then came a check. Soon the
hounds recovered the line and swung off to the right, back
across four or five fields, so as to enable the rest of the
hunt, by making an angle, to come up. Then we jumped
over a very high board fence into the main road, out of it
again, and on over ploughed fields and grass land, sepa-
rated by stiff snake fences. The run had been fast and
the horses were beginning to tail. By the time we sud-
denly rattled down into a deep ravine and scrambled up
the other side through thick timber there were but four of
us left, Lodge and myself being two of the lucky ones.
Beyond this ravine we came to one of the worst jumps of
the day, a fence out of the wood, which was practicable
only at one spot, where a kind of cattle trail led up to a
panel. It was within an inch or two of five feet high

372 The Wilderness Hunter.

However, the horses, thoroughly trained to timber jump-
ing and to rough and hard scrambling in awkward places,
and by this time well quieted, took the bars without
mistake, each one in turn trotting or cantering up to
within a few yards, then making a couple of springs and
bucking over with a great twist of the powerful haunches.
I may explain that there was not a horse of the four that
had not a record of five feet six inches in the ring. We
now got into a perfect tangle of ravines, and the fox went
to earth ; and though we started one or two more in the
course of the afternoon, we did not get another really
first-class run.

At Geneseo the conditions for the enjoyment of this
sport are exceptionally favorable. In the Northeast gener-
ally, although there are now a number of well-established
hunts, at least nine out of ten runs are after a drag. Most
of the hunts are in the neighborhood of great cities, and
are mainly kept up by young men who come from them.
A few of these are men of leisure, who can afford to
devote their whole time to pleasure ; but much the
larger number are men in business, who work hard and
are obliged to make their sports accommodate themselves
to their more serious occupations. Once or twice a week
they can get off for an afternoon's ride across country,
and they then wish to be absolutely certain of having
their run, and of having it at the appointed time ; and the
only way to insure this is to have a drag-hunt. It is not
the lack of foxes that has made the sport so commonly
take the form of riding to drag-hounds, but rather the
fact that the majority of those who keep it up are hard-

Hunting with Hounds. 373

working business men who wish to make the most out of
every moment of the little time they can spare from their
regular occupations. A single ride across country, or an
afternoon at polo, will yield more exercise, fun, and excite--
ment than can be got out of a week's decorous and dull
riding in the park, and many young fellows have waked up
to this fact.

At one time I did a good deal of hunting with the
Meadowbrook hounds, in the northern part of Long
Island. There were plenty of foxes around us, both red
and gray, but partly for the reasons given above, and
partly because the covers were so large and so nearly con-
tinuous, they were not often hunted, although an effort
was always made to have one run every week or so after
a wild fox, in order to give a chance for the hounds to be
properly worked and to prevent the runs from becoming
a mere succession of steeple-chases. The sport was
mainly drag-hunting, and was most exciting, as the fences
were high and the pace fast. The Long Island country
needs a peculiar style of horse, the first requisite being that
he shall be a very good and high timber jumper. Quite a
number of crack English and Irish hunters have at dif-
ferent times been imported, and some of them have turned
out pretty well ; but when they first come over they are
utterly unable to cross our country, blundering badly at
the high timber. Few of them have done as well as the
American horses. I have hunted half a dozen times in
England, with the Pytchely, Essex, and North Warwick-
shire, and it seems to me probable that English thorough-
breds, in a grass country, and over the peculiar kinds of

374 The Wilderness Hunter.

obstacles they have on the other side of the water, would
gallop away from a field of our Long Island horses ; for
they have speed and bottom, and are great weight carriers.
But on our own ground, where the cross-country riding is
more like leaping a succession of five- and six-bar gates
than anything else, they do not as a rule, in spite of the
enormous prices paid for them, show themselves equal to
the native stock. The highest recorded jump, seven feet
two inches, was made by the American horse Filemaker,
which I saw ridden in the very front by Mr. H. L. Herbert,
in the hunt at Sagamore Hill, about to be described.

When I was a member of the Meadowbrook hunt,
most of the meets were held within a dozen miles or so of
the kennels : at Farmingdale, Woodbury, Wheatly, Locust
Valley, Syosset, or near any one of twenty other queer,
quaint old Long Island hamlets. They were almost
always held in the afternoon, the business men who had
come down from the city jogging over behind the hounds
to the appointed place, where they were met by the men
who had ridden over direct from their country-houses. If
the meet was an important one, there might be a crowd of
onlookers in every kind of trap, from a four-in-hand drag
to a spider-wheeled buggy drawn by a pair of long-tailed
trotters, the money value of which many times surpassed
that of the two best hunters in the whole field. Now
and then a breakfast would be given the hunt at some
country-house, when the whole day was devoted to the
sport ; perhaps after wild foxes in the morning, with a drag
in the afternoon.

Hunting with Hounds. 375

After one meet, at Sagamore Hill, I had the curiosity
to go on foot over the course we had taken, measuring
the jumps ; for it is very difficult to form a good estimate
of a fence's height when in the field, and five feet~of
timber seems a much easier thing to take when sitting
around the fire after dinner than it does when actually
faced while the hounds are running. On the particular
hunt in question we ran about ten miles, at a rattling
pace, with only two checks, crossing somewhat more than
sixty fences, most of them post-and-rails, stiff as steel, the
others being of the kind called " Virginia " or snake,
and not more than ten or a dozen in the whole lot under
four feet in height. The highest measured five feet and
half an inch, two others were four feet eleven, and nearly
a third of the number averaged about four and a half.
There were also several rather awkward doubles. When
the hounds were cast off some forty riders were present,
but the first fence was a savage one, and stopped all who
did not mean genuine hard going. Twenty-six horses
crossed it, one of them ridden by a lady. A mile or so
farther on, before there had been a chance for much tail-
ing, we came to a five-bar gate, out of a road — a jump
of just four feet five inches from the take-off. Up to this,
of course, we went one at a time, at a trot or hand-gallop,
and twenty-five horses cleared it in succession without a
single refusal and with but one mistake. Owing to the se-
verity of the pace, combined with the average height of the
timber (although no one fence was of phenomenally note-
worthy proportions), a good many falls took place, result-

376 The Wilderness Hunter.

ing in an unusually large percentage of accidents. The
master partly dislocated one knee, another man broke
two ribs, and another — the present writer — broke his arm.
However, almost all of us managed to struggle through
to the end in time to see the death.

On this occasion I owed my broken arm to the fact
that my horse, a solemn animal originally taken out of a
buggy, though a very clever fencer, was too coarse to
gallop alongside the blooded beasts against which he was
pitted. But he was so easy in his gaits, and so quiet,
being ridden with only a snaffle, that there was no diffi-
culty in following to the end of the run. I had divers
adventures on this horse. Once I tried a pair of so-called
" safety" stirrups, which speedily fell out, and I had to
ride through the run without any, at the cost of several
tumbles. Much the best hunter I ever owned was a
sorrel horse named Sagamore. He was from Geneseo,
was fast, a remarkably good jumper, of great endurance,
as quick on his feet as a cat, and with a dauntless heart.
He never gave me a fall, and generally enabled me to
see all the run.

It would be very unfair to think the sport especially
dangerous on account of the occasional accidents that
happen. A man who is fond of riding, but who sets a
good deal of value, either for the sake of himself, his
family, or his business, upon his neck and limbs, can hunt
with much safety if he gets a quiet horse, a safe fencer,
and does not try to stay in the front rank. Most acci-
dents occur to men on green or wild horses, or else to
those who keep in front only at the expense of pumping

Hunting with Hounds. 377

their mounts ; and a fall with a done-out beast is always
peculiarly disagreeable. Most falls, however, do no harm
whatever to either horse or rider, and after they have
picked themselves up and shaken themselves, the couple
ought to be able to go on just as well as ever. Of course
a man who wishes to keep in the first flight must expect
to face a certain number of tumbles ; but even he will
probably not be hurt at all, and he can avoid many a
mishap by easing up his horse whenever he can — that is,
by always taking a gap when possible, going at the lowest
panel of every fence, and not calling on his animal for all
there is in him unless it cannot possibly be avoided. It
must be remembered that hard riding is a very different
thing from good riding ; though a good rider to hounds
must also at times ride hard.

Cross-country riding in the rough is not a difficult
thing to learn ; always provided the would-be learner is
gifted with or has acquired a fairly stout heart, for a con-
stitutionally timid person is out of place in the hunting
field. A really finished cross-country rider, a man who
combines hand and seat, heart and head, is of course rare ;
the standard is too high for most of us to hope to reach.
But it is comparatively easy to acquire a light hand and a
capacity to sit fairly well down in the saddle ; and when
a man has once got these, he will find no especial difficulty
in following the hounds on a trained hunter.

Fox-hunting is a great sport, but it is as foolish to make
a fetish of it as it is to decry it. The fox is hunted merely
because there is no larger game to follow. As long as
wolves, deer, or antelope remain in the land, and in a country

The Wilderness Hunter.

where hounds and horsemen can work, no one would
think of following the fox. It is pursued because the big-
ger beasts of the chase have been killed out. In England
it has reached its present prominence only within two cen-
turies ; nobody followed the fox while the stag and boar
were common. At the present day, on Exmoor, where
the wild stag is still found, its chase ranks ahead of that of
the fox. It is not really the hunting proper which is the
point in fox-hunting. It is the horsemanship, the gallop-
ing and jumping, and the being out in the open air. Very
naturally, however, men who have passed their lives as fox-
hunters grow to regard the chase and the object of it alike
with superstitious veneration. They attribute almost
mythical characters to the animal. I know some of my
good Virginian friends, for instance, who seriously believe
that the Virginia red fox is a beast quite unparalleled for
speed and endurance no less than for cunning. This is
of course a mistake. Compared with a wolf, an antelope,
or even a deer, the fox's speed and endurance do not stand
very high. A good pack of hounds starting him close
would speedily run into him in the open. The reason that
the hunts last so long in some cases is because of the nature
of the ground which favors the fox at the expense of the
dogs, because of his having the advantage in the start, and
because of his cunning in turning to account everything
which will tell in his favor and against his pursuers. In
the same way I know plenty of English friends who speak
with bated breath of fox-hunting but look down upon rid-
ing to drag-hounds. Of course there is a difference in the
two sports, and the fun of actually hunting the wild beast

Hunting with Hounds. 379

in the one case more than compensates for the fact that in
the other the riding is apt to be harder and the jumping
higher ; but both sports are really artificial, and in their
essentials alike. To any man who has hunted big game
in a wild country the stress laid on the differences between
them seems a little absurd, in fact cockney. It is of course
nothing against either that it is artificial ; so are all sports
in long-civilized countries, from lacrosse to ice yachting.

It is amusing to see how natural it is for each man to
glorify the sport to which he has been accustomed at the
expense of any other. The old-school French sportsman,
for instance, who followed the boar, stag, and hare with his
hounds, always looked down upon the chase of the fox ;
whereas the average Englishman not only asserts but
seriously believes that no other kind of chase can compare
with it, although in actual fact the very points in which the
Englishman is superior to the continental sportsman — that
is, in hard and straight riding and jumping — are those which
drag-hunting tends to develop rather more than fox-hunt-
ing proper. In the mere hunting itself the continental
sportsman is often unsurpassed.

Once, beyond the Missouri, I met an expatriated German
baron, an unfortunate who had failed utterly in the rough
life of the frontier. He was living in a squalid little hut,
almost unfurnished, but studded around with the diminu-
tive horns of the European roebuck. These were the only
treasures he had taken with him to remind him of his
former life, and he was never tired of describing what fun
it was to shoot roebucks when driven by the little crooked-
legged dachshunds. There were plenty of deer and ante-

380 The Wilderness Hunter.

lope roundabout, yielding good sport to any rifleman, but
this exile cared nothing for them ; they were not roebucks,
and they could not be chased with his beloved dachshunds,
So, among my neighbors in the cattle country, is a gentle-
man from France, a very successful ranchman, and a thor-
oughly good fellow ; he cares nothing for hunting big
game, and will not go after it, but is devoted to shooting
cotton-tails in the snow, this being a pastime having much
resemblance to one of the recognized sports of his own
land.

However, our own people afford precisely similar in-
stances. I have met plenty of men accustomed to killing
wild tui keys and deer with small-bore rifles in the southern
forests who, when they got on the plains and in the Rock-
ies, were absolutely helpless. They not only failed to
become proficient in the art of killing big game at long
ranges with the large-bore rifle, at the cost of fatiguing
tramps, but they had a positive distaste for the sport and
would never allow that it equalled their own stealthy hunts
in eastern forests. So I know plenty of men, experts with
the shotgun, who honestly prefer shooting quail in the
East over well-trained setters or pointers, to the hardier,
manlier sports of the wilderness.

As it is with hunting, so it is with riding. The cow-
boy's scorn of every method of riding save his own is as
profound and as ignorant as is that of the school rider,
jockey, or fox-hunter. The truth is that each of these is
best in his own sphere and is at a disadvantage when made
to do the work of any of the others. For all-around rid-
ing and horsemanship, I think the West Point graduate is

Hunting with Hounds. 381

somewhat ahead of any of them. Taken as a class, how-
ever, and compared with other classes as numerous, and
not with a few exceptional individuals, the cowboy, like the
Rocky Mountain stage-driver, has no superiors anywhere
for his own work ; and they are fine fellows, these iron-
nerved reinsmen and rough-riders.

When Buffalo Bill took his cowboys to Europe they
made a practice in England, France, Germany, and Italy
of offering to break and ride, in their own fashion, any
horse given them. They were frequently given spoiled
animals from the cavalry services in the different countries
through which they passed, animals with which the trained
horse-breakers of the European armies could do nothing ;
and yet in almost all cases the cowpunchers and bronco-
busters with Buffalo Bill mastered these beasts as readily
as they did their own western horses. At their own work
of mastering and riding rough horses they could not be
matched by their more civilized rivals ; but I have great
doubts whether they in turn would not have been beaten
if they had essayed kinds of horsemanship utterly alien to
their past experience, such as riding mettled thorough-
breds in a steeple-chase, or the like. Other things being
equal (which, however, they generally are not), a bad, big
horse fed on oats offers a rather more difficult problem
than a bad little horse fed on grass. After Buffalo Bill's
men had returned, I occasionally heard it said that they
had tried cross-country riding in England and had shown
themselves pre-eminently skilful thereat, domg better than
the English fox-hunters, but this I take the liberty to dis-
believe. I was in England at the time, hunted occasion-

382 The Wilderness Hunter.

ally myself, and was with many of the men who were all
the time riding in the most famous hunts ; men, too, who
were greatly impressed with the exhibitions of rough riding
then being given by Buffalo Bill and his men, and who
talked of them much ; and yet I never, at the time, heard
of an instance in which one of the cowboys rode to hounds
with any marked success.* In the same way I have some-
times in New York or London heard of men who, it was
alleged, had been out West and proved better riders than
the bronco-busters themselves, just as I have heard of
similar men who were able to go out hunting in the Rockies
or on the plains and get more game than the western hun-
ters ; but in the course of a long experience in the West I
have yet to see any of these men, whether from the
eastern States or from Europe, actually show such
superiority or perform such feats.

It would be interesting to compare the performances of
the Australian stock-riders with those of our own cowpunch-
ers, both in cow-work and in riding. The Australians have
an entirely different kind of saddle, and the use of the rope
is unknown among them. A couple of years ago the famous
western rifle-shot, Carver, took some cowboys out to Aus-
tralia, and I am informed that many of the Australians
began themselves to practise with the rope after seeing
the way it was used by the Americans. An Australian
gentleman, Mr. A. J. Sage, of Melbourne, to whom I had
written asking how the saddles and styles of riding com-
pared, answered me as follows :

* It is, however, quite possible, now that Buffalo Bill's company has crossed the
water several times that a number of the cowboys have by practice become proficient
in riding to hounds, and in steeple-chasing.

Hunting with Hounds. 383

" With regard to saddles, here it is a moot question
which is the better, yours or ours, for buck-jumpers. Car-
ver's boys rode in their own saddles against our Victorians
in theirs, all on Australian buckers, and honors seemed
easy. Each was good in his own style, but the horses
were not what I should call really good buckers, such as
you might get on a back station, and so there was nothing
in the show that could unseat the cowboys. It is only
back in the bush that you can get a really good bucker.
I have often seen one of them put both man and saddle
off."

This last is a feat I have myself seen performed in the
West. I suppose the amount of it is that both the Amer-
ican and the Australian rough riders are, for their own
work, just as good as men possibly can be.

One spring I had to leave the East in the midst of the
hunting season, to join a round-up in the cattle country of
western Dakota, and it was curious to compare the totally
different styles of riding of the cowboys and the cross-
country men. A stock-saddle weighs thirty or forty
pounds instead of ten or fifteen, and needs an utterly dif-
ferent seat from that adopted in the East. A cowboy
rides with very long stirrups, sitting forked well down
between his high pommel and cantle, and depends upon
balance as well as on the grip of his thighs. In cutting
out a steer from a herd, in breaking a vicious wild horse,
in sitting a bucking bronco, in stopping a night stampede
of many hundred maddened animals, or in the perform-
ance of a hundred other feats of reckless and daring
horsemanship, the cowboy is absolutely unequalled ; and

384 The Wilderness Hunter.

when he has his own horse gear he sits his animal with
the ease of a centaur. Yet he is quite helpless the first
time he gets astride one of the small eastern saddles.
One summer, while purchasing cattle in Iowa, one of my
ranch foremen had to get on an ordinary saddle to ride
out of town and see a bunch of steers. He is perhaps the
best rider on the ranch, and will without hesitation mount
and master beasts that I doubt if the boldest rider in one
of our eastern hunts would care to tackle ; yet his
uneasiness on the new saddle was fairly comical. At first
he did not dare to trot, and the least plunge of the horse
bid fair to unseat him, nor did he begin to get accustomed
to the situation until the very end of the journey. In fact, the
two kinds of riding are so very different that a man only
accustomed to one, feels almost as ill at ease when he
first tries the other as if he had never sat on a horse's back
before. It is rather funny to see a man who only knows
one kind, and is conceited enough to think that that is
really the only kind worth knowing, when first he is
brought into contact with the other. Two or three times
I have known men try to follow hounds on stock-saddles,
which are about as ill-suited for the purpose as they well
can be ; while it is even more laughable to see some young
fellow from the East or from England who thinks he
knows entirely too much about horses to be taught by
barbarians, attempt in his turn to do cow-work with his
ordinary riding or hunting rig. It must be said, however,
that in all probability cowboys would learn to ride well
across country much sooner than the average cross-coun-
try rider would master the dashing and peculiar style of

Hunting with Hounds. 385

horsemanship shown by those whose life business is to
guard the wandering herds of the great western plains.

Of course, riding to hounds, like all sports in long
settled, thickly peopled countries, fails to develop in its
followers some of the hardy qualities necessarily incident
to the wilder pursuits of the mountain and the forest
While I was on the frontier I was struck by the fact that
of the men from the eastern States or from England who
had shown themselves at home to be good riders to hounds
or had made their records as college athletes, a larger
proportion failed in the life of the wilderness than was the
case among those who had gained their experience in such
rough pastimes as mountaineering in the high Alps,
winter caribou-hunting in Canada, or deer-stalking — not
deer-driving — in Scotland.

Nevertheless, of all sports possible in civilized countries,
riding to hounds is perhaps the best if followed as it should
be, for the sake of the strong excitement, with as much
simplicity as possible, and not merely as a fashionable
amusement. It tends to develop moral no less than
physical qualities ; the rider needs nerve and head ; he
must possess daring and resolution, as well as a good deal
of bodily skill and a certain amount of wiry toughness
and endurance.

CHAPTER XIX.

WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS.

THE wolf is the arch type of ravin, the beast of
waste and desolation. It is still found scattered
thinly throughout all the wilder portions of the
United States, but has everywhere retreated from the
advance of civilization.

Wolves show an infinite variety in color, size, physical
formation, and temper. Almost all the varieties inter-
grade with one another, however, so that it is very diffi-
cult to draw a hard and fast line between any two of
them. Nevertheless, west of the Mississippi there are
found two distinct types. One is the wolf proper, or big
wolf, specifically akin to the wolves of the eastern States.
The other is the little coyote, or prairie wolf. The coyote
and the big wolf are found together in almost all the
wilder districts from the Rio Grande to the valleys of the
upper Missouri and the upper Columbia. Throughout
this region there is always a sharp line of demarkation,
especially in size, between the coyotes and the big wolves
of any given district ; but in certain districts the big
wolves are very much larger than their brethren in other

386

Wolves and IV olf -Hounds. 387

districts. In the upper Columbia country, for instance,
they are very large ; along the Rio Grande they are small.
Dr. Hart Merriam informs me that, according to his ex-
perience, the coyote is largest in southern California. In
many respects the coyote differs altogether in habits from
its big relative. For one thing it is far more tolerant of
man. In some localities coyotes are more numerous
around settlements, and even in the close vicinity of large
towns, than they are in the frowning and desolate fast-
nesses haunted by their grim elder brother.

Big wolves vary far more in color than the coyotes do.
I have seen white, black, red, yellow, brown, gray, and
grizzled skins, and others representing every shade be-
tween, although usually each locality has its prevailing
tint. The grizzled, gray, and brown often have precisely
the coat of the coyote. The difference in size among
wolves of different localities, and even of the same locality,
is quite remarkable, and so, curiously enough, is the dif-
ference in the size of the teeth, in some cases even when
the body of one wolf is as big as that of another. I have
seen wolves from Texas and New Mexico which were
under-sized, slim animals with rather small tusks, in no
way to be compared to the long-toothed giants of their
race that dwell in the heavily timbered mountains of the
Northwest and in the far North. As a rule, the teeth of
the coyote are relatively smaller than those of the gray
wolf.

Formerly wolves were incredibly abundant in certain
parts of the country, notably on the great plains, where
they were known as buffalo wolves, and were regular at-

388 The Wilderness Hunter.

tendants on the great herds of the bison. Every traveller
and hunter of the old days knew them as among the most
common sights of the plains, and they followed the hunt-
ing parties and emigrant trains for the sake of the scraps
left in camp. Now, however, there is no district in which
they are really abundant. The wolfers, or professional
wolf-hunters, who killed them by poisoning for the sake of
their fur, and the cattle-men, who likewise killed them by
poisoning because of their raids on the herds, have doubt-
less been the chief instruments in working their decima-
tion on the plains. In the '/o's, and even in the early
'8o's, many tens of thousands of wolves were killed by the
wolfers in Montana and northern Wyoming and western
Dakota. Nowadays the surviving wolves of the plains
have learned caution ; they no longer move abroad at
midday, and still less do they dream of hanging on the
footsteps of hunter and traveller. Instead of being one
of the most common they have become one of the rarest
sights of the plains. A hunter may wander far and wide
through the plains for months nowadays and never see a
wolf, though he will probably see many coyotes. How-
ever, the diminution goes on, not steadily but by fits and
starts, and, moreover, the beasts now and then change
their abodes, and appear in numbers in places where they
have been scarce for a long period. In the present winter
of i892-'93 big wolves are more plentiful in the neighbor-
hood of my ranch than they have been for ten years, and
have worked some havoc among the cattle and young
horses. The cowboys have been carrying on the usual
vindictive campaign against them ; a number have been

Wolves and Wolf -Hounds. 389

poisoned, and a number of others have fallen victims to
their greediness, the cowboys surprising them when
gorged to repletion on the carcass of a colt or calf, and,
in consequence, unable to run, so that they are easily rid-
den down, roped, and then dragged to death.

Yet even the slaughter wrought by man in certain
localities does not seem adequate to explain the scarcity
or extinction of wolves, throughout the country at large.
In most places they are not followed any more eagerly
than are the other large beasts of prey, and they are
usually followed with less success. Of all animals the
wolf is the shyest and hardest to slay. It is almost or
quite as difficult to still-hunt as the cougar, and is far more
difficult to kill with hounds, traps, or poison ; yet it
scarcely holds its own as well as the great cat, and it does
not begin to hold its own as well as the bear, a beast cer-
tainly more readily killed, and one which produces fewer
young at a birth. Throughout the East the black bear
is common in many localities from which the wolf has
vanished completely. It at present exists in very scanty
numbers in northern Maine and the Adirondacks ; is
almost or quite extinct in Pennsylvania ; lingers here and
there in the mountains from West Virginia to east Ten-
nessee, and is found in Florida ; but is everywhere less
abundant than the bear. It is possible that this destruc-
tion of the wolves is due to some disease among them,
perhaps to hydrophobia, a terrible malady from which it
is known that they suffer greatly at times. Perhaps the
bear is helped by its habit of hibernating, which frees it
from most dangers during winter ; but this cannot be the

39° The Wilderness Hunter.

complete explanation, for in the South it does not hiber-
nate, and yet holds its own as well as in the North. What
makes it all the more curious that the American wolf
should disappear sooner than the bear is that the reverse
is the case with the allied species of Europe, where the
bear is much sooner killed out of the land.

Indeed the differences of this sort between nearly re-
lated animals are literally inexplicable. Much of the
difference in temperament between such closely allied
species as the American and European bears and wolves
is doubtless due to their surroundings and to the instincts
they have inherited through many generations ; but for
much of the variation it is not possible to offer any expla-
nation. In the same way there are certain physical dif-
ferences for which it is very hard to account, as the same
conditions seem to operate in directly reverse ways with
different animals. No one can explain the process of natural
selection which has resulted in the otter of America being
larger than the otter of Europe, while the badger is
smaller ; in the mink being with us a much stouter animal
than its Scandinavian and Russian kinsman, while the
reverse is true of our sable or pine marten. No one
can say why the European red deer should be a pigmy
compared to its giant brother, the American wapiti ; why
the Old World elk should average smaller in size than
the almost indistinguishable New World moose ; and yet
the bison of Lithuania and the Caucasus be on the whole
larger and more formidable than its American cousin. In
the same way no one can tell why under like conditions
some game, such as the white goat and the spruce grouse,

Wolves and Wo If -Hounds. 391

should be tamer than other closely allied species, like the
mountain sheep and ruffed grouse. No one can say why
on the whole the wolf of Scandinavia and northern Russia
should be larger and more dangerous than the average
wolf of the Rocky Mountains, while between the bears of
the same regions the comparison must be exactly reversed.

The difference even among the wolves of different
sections of our own country is very notable. It may be
true that the species as a whole is rather weaker and less
ferocious than the European wolf ; but it is certainly not
true of the wolves of certain localities. The great tim-
ber wolf of the central and northern chains of the Rockies
and coast ranges is in every way a more formidable crea-
ture than the buffalo wolf of the plains, although they
intergrade. The skins and skulls of the wolves of north-
western Montana and Washington which I have seen
were quite as large and showed quite as stout claws and
teeth as the skins and skulls of Russian and Scandinavian
wolves, and I believe that these great timber wolves are
in every way as formidable as their Old World kinsfolk.
However, they live where they come in contact with a
population of rifle-bearing frontier hunters, who are very
different from European peasants or Asiatic tribesmen ;
and they have, even when most hungry, a wholesome
dread of human beings. Yet I doubt if an unarmed man
would be entirely safe should he, while alone in the forest
in midwinter, encounter a fair-sized pack of ravenously
hungry timber wolves.

A full-grown dog-wolf of the northern Rockies, in
exceptional instances, reaches a height of thirty-two inches

392 The Wilderness Hunter.

and a weight of 130 pounds; a big buffalo-wolf of the
upper Missouri stands thirty or thirty-one inches at the
shoulder and weighs about no pounds; a Texan wolf
may not reach over eighty pounds. The bitch-wolves are
smaller ; and moreover there is often great variation even
in the wolves of closely neighboring localities.

The wolves of the southern plains were not often for-
midable to large animals, even in the days when they most
abounded. They rarely attacked the horses of the hunter,
and indeed were but little regarded by these experienced
animals. They were much more likely to gnaw off the
lariat with which the horse was tied, than to try to molest
the steed himself. They preferred to prey on young ani-
mals, or on the weak and disabled. They rarely molested
a full-grown cow or steer, still less a full-grown buffalo,
and, if they did attack such an animal, it was only when
emboldened by numbers. In the plains of the upper Mis-
souri and Saskatchewan the wolf was, and is, more danger-
ous, while in the northern Rockies his courage and
ferocity attain their highest pitch. Near my own ranch
the wolves have sometimes committed great depredations
on cattle, but they seem to have queer freaks of slaughter.
Usually they prey only upon calves and sickly animals ;
but in midwinter I have known one single-handed to at-
tack and kill a well-grown steer or cow, disabling its quarry
by rapid snaps at the hams or flanks. Only rarely have I
known it to seize by the throat. Colts are likewise a
favorite prey, ftut with us wolves rarely attack full-grown
horses. They are sometimes very bold in their assaults,
falling on the stock while immediately around the ranch

Wolves and Wolf -Hounds. 393

houses. They even venture into the hamlet of Medora
itself at night — as the coyotes sometimes do by day. In
the spring of '92 we put on some eastern two-year-old
steers ; they arrived, and were turned loose from the stock-
yards, in a snowstorm, though it was in early May. Next
morning we found that one had been seized, slain, and
partially devoured by a big wolf at the very gate of the
stockyard ; probably the beast had seen it standing near
the yard after nightfall, feeling miserable after its journey,
in the storm and its unaccustomed surroundings, and
had been emboldened to make the assault so near town
by the evident helplessness of the prey.

The big timber wolves of the northern Rocky Moun-
tains attack every four-footed beast to be found where
they live. They are far from contenting themselves with
hunting deer and snapping up the pigs and sheep of the
farm. When the weather gets cold and food scarce they
band together in small parties, perhaps of four or five in-
dividuals, and then assail anything, even a bear or a
panther. A bull elk or bull moose, when on its guard,
makes a most dangerous fight ; but a single wolf will
frequently master the cow of either animal, as well as
domestic cattle and horses. In attacking such large game,
however, the wolves like to act in concert, one springing
at the animal's head, and attracting its attention, while the
other hamstrings it. Nevertheless, one such big wolf will
kill an ordinary horse. A man I knew, who was engaged
in packing into the Cceur d' Alines, once witnessed such
a feat on the part of a wolf. He was taking his pack
train down into a valley when he saw a horse grazing

394 The Wilderness Hunter.

•

therein ; it had been turned loose by another packing out-
fit, because it became exhausted. He lost sight of it as
the trail went down a zigzag, and while it was thus out of
sight he suddenly heard it utter the appalling scream, unlike
and more dreadful than any other sound, which a horse
only utters in extreme fright or agony. The scream was
repeated, and as he came in sight again he saw that a
great wolf had attacked the horse. The poor animal had
been bitten terribly in its haunches and was cowering upon
them, while the wolf stood and looked at it a few paces
off. In a moment or two the horse partially recovered
and made a desperate bound forward, starting at full gal-
lop. Immediately the wolf was after it, overhauled it in
three or four jumps, and then seized it by the hock, while
its legs were extended, with such violence as to bring it
completely back on its haunches. It again screamed pit-
eously ; and this time with a few savage snaps the wolf
hamstrung and partially disembowelled it, and it fell over,
having made no attempt to defend itself. I have heard of
more than one incident of this kind. If a horse is a good
fighter, however, as occasionally, though not often, hap-
pens, it is a most difficult prey for any wild beast, and
some veteran horses have no fear of wolves whatsoever,
well knowing that they can either strike them down
with their fore-feet or repulse them by lashing out
behind.

Wolves are cunning beasts and will often try to lull
their prey into unsuspicion by playing round and cutting
capers. I once saw a young deer and a wolf-cub together
near the hut of the settler who had captured both. The

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds. 395

wolf was just old enough to begin to feel vicious and blood-
thirsty, and to show symptoms of attacking the deer. On
the occasion in question he got loose and ran towards it,
but it turned, and began to hit him with its fore-feet, seem-
ingly in sport ; whereat he rolled over on his back before
it, and acted like a puppy at play. Soon it turned and
walked off ; immediately the wolf, with bristling hair,
crawled after, and with a pounce seized it by the haunch,
and would doubtless have murdered the bleating, strug-
gling creature, had not the bystanders interfered.

Where there are no domestic animals, wolves feed on
almost anything from a mouse to an elk. They are re-
doubted enemies of foxes. They are easily able to over-
take them in fair chase, and kill numbers. If the fox can
get into the underbrush, however, he can dodge around
much faster than the wolf, and so escape pursuit. Some-
times one wolf will try to put a fox out of a cover while
another waits outside to snap him up. Moreover, the
wolf kills even closer kinsfolk than the fox. When pressed
by hunger it will undoubtedly sometimes seize a coyote,
tear it in pieces and devour it, although during most of
the year the two animals live in perfect harmony. I once
myself, while out in the deep snow, came across the re-
mains of a coyote that had been killed in this manner.
Wolves are also very fond of the flesh of dogs, and if they
get a chance promptly kill and eat any dog they can mas-
ter— and there are but few that they cannot. Neverthe-
less, I have been told of one instance in which a wolf struck
up an extraordinary friendship with a strayed dog, and the
two lived and hunted together for many months, being

396 The Wilderness Hunter.

frequently seen by the settlers of the locality. This
occurred near Thompson's Falls, Montana.

Usually wolves are found singly, in pairs, or in family
parties, each having a large beat over which it regularly
hunts, and also at times shifting its grounds and travelling
immense distances in order to take up a temporary abode
in some new locality — for they are great wanderers. It is
only under stress of severe weather that they band to-
gether in packs. They prefer to creep on their prey and
seize it by a sudden pounce, but, unlike the cougar, they
also run it down in fair chase. Their slouching, tireless
gallop enables them often to overtake deer, antelope, or
other quarry ; though under favorable circumstances,
especially if near a lake, the latter frequently escape.
Whether wolves run cunning I do not know ; but I think
they must, for coyotes certainly do. A coyote cannot run
down a jack-rabbit ; but two or three working together
will often catch one. Once I saw three start a jack, which
ran right away from them ; but they spread out, and fol-
lowed. Pretty soon the jack turned slightly, and ran near
one of the outside ones, saw it, became much frightened,
and turned at right angles, so as soon to nearly run into
the other outside one, which had kept straight on. This
happened several times, and then the confused jack lay
down under a sage-bush and was seized. So I have seen
two coyotes attempting to get at a newly dropped antelope
kid. One would make a feint of attack, and lure the dam
into a rush at him, while the other stole round to get at
the kid. The dam, as always with these spirited little
prong-bucks, made a good fight, and kept the assailants

Wolves and Wolf -Hounds. 397

at bay ; yet I think they would have succeeded in the end,
had I not interfered. Coyotes are bold and cunning in
raiding the settlers' barn-yards for lambs and hens ; and
they have an especial liking for tame cats. If there are
coyotes in the neighborhood a cat which gets into the
habit of wandering from home is surely lost.

Though, I have never known wolves to attack a man,
yet in the wilder portion of the far Northwest I have heard
them come around camp very close, growling so savagely
as to make one almost reluctant to leave the camp fire and
go out into the darkness unarmed. Once I was camped
in the fall near a lonely little lake in the mountains, by the
edge of quite a broad stream. Soon after nightfall three
or four wolves came around camp and kept me awake by
their sinister and dismal howling. Two or three times
they came so close to the fire that I could hear them snap
their jaws and growl, and at one time I positively thought
that they intended to try to get into camp, so excited were
they by the smell of the fresh meat. After a while they
stopped howling ; and then all was silent for an hour or
so. I let the fire go out and was turning into bed when
I suddenly heard some animal of considerable size come
down to the stream nearly opposite me and begin to splash
across, first wading, then swimming. It was pitch dark
and I could not possibly see, but I felt sure it was a wolf.
However after coming half-way over it changed its mind
and swam back to the opposite bank ; nor did I see or
hear anything more of the night marauders.

Five or six times on the plains or on my ranch I have
had shots at wolves, always obtained by accident and al-

398 The Wilderness Hunter.

ways, I regret to say, missed. Often the wolf when seen
was running at full speed for cover, or else was so far off
that though motionless my shots went wide of it. But
once have I with my own rifle killed a wolf, and this was
while travelling with a pack train in the mountains. We
had been making considerable noise, and I never under-
stood how an animal so wary permitted our near approach.
He did, nevertheless, and just as we came to a little stream
which we were to ford I saw him get on a dead log some
thirty yards distant and walk slowly off with his eyes
turned toward us. The first shot smashed his shoulders
and brought him down.

The wolf is one of the animals which can only be
hunted successfully with dogs. Most dogs however do
not take at all kindly to the pursuit. A wolf is a terrible
fighter. He will decimate a pack of hounds by rabid
snaps with his giant jaws while suffering little damage
himself ; nor are the ordinary big dogs, supposed to be
fighting dogs, able to tackle him without special training.
I have known one wolf to kill a bulldog which had rushed
at it with a single snap, while another which had entered
the yard of a Montana ranch house slew in quick succes-
sion both of the large mastiffs by which it was assailed.
The immense agility and ferocity of the wild beast, the
terrible snap of his long-toothed jaws, and the admirable
training in which he always is, give him a great advantage
over fat, small-toothed, smooth-skinned dogs, even though
they are nominally supposed to belong to the fighting
classes. In the way that bench competitions are arranged
nowadays this is but natural, as there is no temptation to

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds. 399

produce a worthy class of fighting dog when the rewards are
given upon technical points wholly unconnected with the
dog's usefulness. A prize-winning mastiff or bulldog may
be almost useless for the only purposes for which his kind
is ever useful at all. A mastiff, if properly trained and of
sufficient size, might possibly be able to meet a young or
undersized Texan wolf ; but I have never seen a dog of
this variety which I would esteem a match single-handed
for one of the huge timber wolves of western Montana.
Even if the dog was the heavier of the two, his teeth
and claws would be very much smaller and weaker and his
hide less tough. Indeed I have known of but one dog
which single-handed encountered and slew a wolf ; this
was the large vicious mongrel whose feats are recorded in
my Hunting Trips of a Ranchman.

General Marcy of the United States Army informed
me that he once chased a huge wolf which had gotten
away with a small trap on its foot. It was, I believe, in
Wisconsin, and he had twenty or thirty hounds with him,
but they were entirely untrained to wolf-hunting, and
proved unable to stop the crippled beast. Few of them
would attack it at all, and those that did went at it singly
and with a certain hesitation, and so each in turn was
disabled by a single terrible snap, and left bleeding on
the snow. General Wade Hampton tells me that in the
course of his fifty years' hunting with horse and hound in
Mississippi, he has on several occasions tried his pack of
fox-hounds (southern deer-hounds) after a wolf. He found
that it was with the greatest difficulty, however, that he
could persuade them to so much as follow the trail

400 The Wilderness Hunter.

Usually, as soon they came across it, they would growl,
bristle up, and then retreat with their tails between their
legs. But one of his dogs ever really tried to master a
wolf by itself, and this one paid for its temerity with its
life ; for while running a wolf in a canebrake the beast
turned and tore it to pieces. Finally General Hampton
succeeded in getting a number of his hounds so they
would at any rate follow the trail in full cry, and thus
drive the wolf out of the thicket, and give a chance to the
hunter to get a shot. In this way he killed two or three.
The true way to kill wolves, however, is to hunt them
with greyhounds on the great plains. Nothing more
exciting than this sport can possibly be imagined. It is
not always necessary that the greyhounds should be of
absolutely pure blood. Prize-winning dogs of high pedi-
gree often prove useless for the purposes. If by careful
choice, however, a ranchman can get together a pack
composed both of the smooth-haired greyhound and the
rough-haired Scotch deer-hound, he can have excellent
sport. The greyhounds sometimes do best if they have
a slight cross of bulldog in their veins ; but this is not
necessary. If once a greyhound can be fairly entered to
the sport and acquires confidence, then its wonderful
agility, its sinewy strength and speed, and the terrible
snap with which its jaws come together, render it a most
formidable assailant. Nothing can possibly exceed the
gallantry with which good greyhounds, when their blood
is up, fling themselves on a wolf or any other foe. There
does not exist, and there never has existed on the wide
earth, a more perfect type of dauntless courage than such

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds. 401

a hound. Not Gushing when he steered his little launch
through the black night against the great ram Albemarle,
not Custer dashing into the valley of the Rosebud to die
with all his men, not Farragut himself lashed in the
rigging of the Hartford as she forged past the forts to
encounter her iron-clad foe, can stand as a more perfect
type of dauntless valor.

Once I had the good fortune to witness a very exciting
hunt of this character among the foot-hills of the northern
Rockies. I was staying at the house of a friendly cow-
man, whom I will call Judge Yancy Stump. Judge Yancy
Stump was a Democrat who, as he phrased it, had fought
for his Democracy ; that is, he had been in the Confed-
erate Army. He was at daggers drawn with his nearest
neighbor, a cross-grained mountain farmer, who may be
known as old man Prindle. Old man Prindle had been
in the Union Army, and his Republicanism was of the
blackest and most uncompromising type. There was one
point, however, on which the two came together. They
were exceedingly fond of hunting with hounds. The
Judge had three or four track-hounds, and four of what
he called swift-hounds, the latter including one pure-bred
greyhound bitch of wonderful speed and temper, a dun-
colored yelping animal which was a cross between a grey-
hound and a fox-hound, and two others that were crosses
between a greyhound and a wire-haired Scotch deer-hound.
Old man Prindle's contribution to the pack consisted of
two immense brindled mongrels of great strength and
ferocious temper. They were unlike any dogs I have
ever seen in this country. Their mother herself was a

402 The Wilderness Hunter.

cross between a bull mastiff and a Newfoundland, while
the father was described as being a big dog that belonged
to a " Dutch Count." The " Dutch Count" was an out-
cast German noble, who had drifted to the West, and, after
failing in the mines and failing in the cattle country, had
died in a squalid log shanty while striving to eke out an
existence as a hunter among the foot-hills. His dog, I
presume, from the description given me, must have been
a boar-hound or Ulm dog.

As I was very anxious to see a wolf-hunt the Judge
volunteered to get one up, and asked old man Prindle to
assist, for the sake of his two big fighting dogs ; though
the very names of the latter, General Grant and Old Abe,
were gall and wormwood to the unreconstructed soul of
the Judge. Still they were the only dogs anywhere
around capable of tackling a savage timber wolf, and
without their aid the Judge's own high-spirited animals
ran a serious risk of injury, for they were altogether too
game to let any beast escape without a struggle.

Luck favored us. Two wolves had killed a calf and
dragged it into a long patch of dense brush where there
was a little spring, the whole furnishing admirable cover
for any wild beast. Early in the morning we started on
horseback for this bit of cover, which was some three
miles off. The party consisted of the Judge, old man
Prindle, a cowboy, myself, and the dogs. The Judge and
I carried our rifles and the cowboy his revolver, but
old man Prindle had nothing but a heavy whip, for he
swore, with many oaths, that no one should interfere with
his big dogs, for by themselves they would surely "make

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds. 403

the wolf feel sicker than a stuck hog." Our shaggy ponies
racked along at a five-mile gait over the dewy prairie
grass. The two big dogs trotted behind their master,
grim and ferocious. The track-hounds were tied Tn
couples, and the beautiful greyhounds loped lightly and
gracefully alongside the horses. The country was
fine. A mile to our right a small plains river wound in
long curves between banks fringed with cottonwoods.
Two or three miles to our left the foot-hills rose sheer and
bare, with clumps of black pine and cedar in their gorges.
We rode over gently rolling prairie, with here and there
patches of brush at the bottoms of the slopes around the
dry watercourses.

At last we reached a somewhat deeper valley, in which
the wolves were harbored. Wolves lie close in the day-
time and will not leave cover if they can help it ; and as
they had both food and water within we knew it was most
unlikely that this couple would be gone. The valley was
a couple of hundred yards broad and three or four times
as long, filled with a growth of ash and dwarf elm and
cedar, thorny underbrush choking the spaces between.
Posting the cowboy, to whom he gave his rifle, with two
greyhounds on one side of the upper end, and old man
Prindle with two others on the opposite side, while I was
left at the lower end to guard against the possibility of
the wolves breaking back, the Judge himself rode into
the thicket near me and loosened the track-hounds to let
them find the wolves' trail. The big dogs also were un-
coupled and allowed to go in with the hounds. Their
power of scent was very poor, but they were sure to be

404 The Wilderness Hunter.

guided aright by the baying of the hounds, and their pres-
ence would give confidence to the latter and make them
ready to rout the wolves out of the thicket, which they
would probably have shrunk from doing alone. There was
a moment's pause of expectation after the Judge entered
the thicket with his hounds. We sat motionless on our
horses, eagerly looking through the keen fresh morning
air. Then a clamorous baying from the thicket in which
both the horseman and dogs had disappeared showed that
the hounds had struck the trail of their quarry and were
running on a hot scent. For a couple of minutes we could
not be quite certain which way the game was going to
break. The hounds ran zigzag through the brush,
as we could tell by their baying, and once some yelping
and a great row showed that they had come rather closer
than they had expected upon at least one of the wolves.

In another minute, however, the latter found it too
hot for them and bolted from the thicket. My first notice
of this was seeing the cowboy, who was standing by the
side of his horse, suddenly throw up his rifle and fire,
while the greyhounds who had been springing high in the
air, half maddened by the clamor in the thicket below, for
a moment dashed off the wrong way, confused by the
report of the gun. I rode for all I was worth to where
the cowboy stood, and instantly caught a glimpse of two
wolves, grizzled-gray and brown, which having been turned
by his shot had started straight over the hill across the
plain toward the mountains three miles away. As soon
as I saw them I saw also that the rearmost of the couple
had been hit somewhere in the body and was lagging

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds. 405

behind, the blood running from its flanks, while the two
greyhounds were racing after it ; and at the same moment
the track-hounds and the big dogs burst out of the thicket,
yelling savagely as they struck the bloody trail. The
wolf was hard hit, and staggered as he ran. He did not
have a hundred yards' start of the dogs, and in less than
a minute one of the greyhounds ranged up and passed him
with a savage snap that brought him too ; and before he
could recover the whole pack rushed at him. Weakened as
he was he could make no effective fight against so many
foes, and indeed had a chance for but one or two rapid
snaps before he was thrown down and completely covered
by the bodies of his enemies. Yet with one of these snaps
he did damage, as a shrill yell told, and in a second an
over-rash track-hound came out of the struggle with a deep
gash across his shoulders. The worrying, growling, and
snarling were terrific, but in a minute the heaving mass
grew motionless and the dogs drew off, save one or two
that still continued to worry the dead wolf as it lay stark
and stiff with glazed eyes and rumpled fur.

No sooner were we satisfied that it was dead than the
Judge, with cheers and oaths and crackings of his whip,
urged the dogs after the other wolf. The two greyhounds
that had been with old man Prindle had fortunately not
been able to see the wolves when they first broke from
the cover, and never saw the wounded wolf at all, starting
off at full speed after the unwounded one the instant he
topped the crest of the hill. He had taken advantage of
a slight hollow and turned, and now the chase was cross-
ing us half a mile away. With whip and spur we flew

406 The Wilderness Hunter.

towards them, our two greyhounds stretching out in front
and leaving us as if we were standing still, the track-hounds
and big dogs running after them just ahead of the horses.
Fortunately the wolf plunged for a moment into a little
brushy hollow and again doubled back, and this gave us
a chance to see the end of the chase from nearby. The
two greyhounds which had first taken up the pursuit were
then but a short distance behind. Nearer they crept until
they were within ten yards, and then with a tremendous
race the little bitch ran past him and inflicted a vicious
bite in the big beast's ham. He whirled around like a
top and his jaws clashed like those of a sprung bear-trap,
but quick though he was she was quicker and just cleared
his savage rush. In another moment he resumed his
flight at full speed, a speed which only that of the grey-
hounds exceeded ; but almost immediately the second grey-
hound ranged alongside, and though he was not able to
bite, because the wolf kept running with its head turned
around threatening him, yet by his feints he delayed the
beast's flight so that in a moment or two the remaining
couple of swift hounds arrived on the scene. For a
moment the wolf and all four dogs galloped along in a
bunch ; then one of the greyhounds, watching his chance,
pinned the beast cleverly by the hock and threw him com-
pletely over. The others jumped on it in an instant ; but
rising by main strength the wolf shook himself free, catch-
ing one dog by the ear and tearing it half off. Then he
sat down on his haunches and the greyhounds ranged
themselves around him some twenty yards off, forming a
ring which forbade his retreat, though they themselves did

Wolves and Wolf -Hounds. 407

not dare touch him. However the end was at hand. In
another moment Old Abe and General Grant came run-
ning up at headlong speed and smashed into the wolf like
a couple of battering-rams. He rose on his hind-legs like
a wrestler as they came at him, the greyhounds also rising
and bouncing up and down like rubber balls. I could just
see the wolf and the first big dog locked together, as the
second one made good his throat-hold. In another mo-
ment over all three tumbled, while the greyhounds and one
or two of the track-hounds jumped in to take part in the
killing. The big dogs more than occupied the wolfs
attention and took all the punishing, while in a trice one
of the greyhounds, having seized him by the hind-leg,
stretched him out, and the others were biting his un-
defended belly. The snarling and yelling of the worry
made a noise so fiendish that it was fairly bloodcurdling ;
then it gradually died down, and the second wolf lay
limp on the plain, killed by the dogs unassisted. This
wolf was rather heavier and decidedly taller than either
of the big dogs, with more sinewy feet and longer fangs.
I have several times seen wolves run down and stopped
by greyhounds after a break-neck gallop and a wildly
exciting finish, but this was the only occasion on which I
ever saw the dogs kill a big, full-grown he-wolf unaided.
Nevertheless various friends of mine own packs that have
performed the feat again and again. One pack, formerly
kept at Fort Benton, until wolves in that neighborhood
became scarce, had nearly seventy-five to its credit, most
of them killed without any assistance from the hunter ;
killed moreover by the greyhounds alone, there being no

408 The Wilderness Hunter.

other dogs with the pack. These greyhounds were
trained to the throat-hold, and did their own killing in
fine style ; usually six or eight were slipped together.
General Miles informs me that he once had great fun in
the Indian Territory hunting wolves with a pack of grey-
hounds. They had with the pack a large stub-tailed mon-
grel, of doubtful ancestry but most undoubted fighting
capacity. When the wolf was started the greyhounds
were sure to overtake it in a mile or two ; they would
then bring it to a halt and stand around it in a ring until
the fighting dog came up. The latter promptly tumbled
on the wolf, grabbing him anywhere, and often getting a
terrific wound himself at the same time. As soon as
he had seized the wolf and was rolling over with him in
the grapple the other dogs joined in the fray and dis-
patched the quarry without much danger to themselves.

During the last decade many ranchmen in Colorado,
Wyoming, and Montana, have developed packs of grey-
hounds able to kill a wolf unassisted. Greyhounds trained
for this purpose always seize by the throat ; and the light
dogs used for coursing jack-rabbits are not of much service,
smooth or rough-haired greyhounds and deer-hounds
standing over thirty inches at the shoulder and weighing
over ninety pounds being the only ones that, together with
speed, courage, and endurance, possess the requisite power.

One of the most famous packs in the West was that of
the Sun River Hound Club, in Montana, started by the
stockmen of Sun River to get rid of the curse of wolves
which infested the neighborhood and worked very serious
damage to the herds and flocks. The pack was composed

IVofoes and Wolf-Hounds. 409

of both greyhounds and deer-hounds, the best being from
the kennels of Colonel Williams and of Mr. Van Hummel,
of Denver ; they were handled by an old plainsman and
veteran wolf-hunter named Porter. In the season oF'86
the astonishing number of 146 wolves were killed with
these dogs. Ordinarily, as soon as the dogs seized a wolf,
and threw or held it, Porter rushed in and stabbed it with
his hunting-knife ; one day, when out with six hounds, he
thus killed no less than twelve out of the fifteen wolves
started, though one of the greyhounds was killed, and all
the others were cut and exhausted. But often the wolves
were killed without his aid. The first time the two biggest
hounds — deer-hounds or wire-haired greyhounds — were
tried, when they had been at the ranch only three days,
they performed such a feat. A large wolf had killed and
partially eaten a sheep in a corral close to the ranch house,
and Porter started on the trail, and followed him at a jog-
trot nearly ten miles before the hounds sighted him.
Running but a few rods, he turned viciously to bay, and
the two great greyhounds struck him like stones hurled
from a catapult, throwing him as they fastened on his
throat ; they held him down and strangled him before he
could rise, two other hounds getting up just in time to
help at the end of the worry.

Ordinarily, however, no two greyhounds or deer-hounds
are a match for a gray wolf, but I have known of several
instances in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, in which
three strong veterans have killed one. The feat can only
be performed by big dogs of the highest courage, who all
act together, rush in at top speed, and seize by the

410 The Wilderness Hunter.

throat ; for the strength of the quarry is such that other-
wise he will shake off the dogs, and then speedily kill them
by rabid snaps with his terribly armed jaws. Where
possible, half a dozen dogs should be slipped at once, to
minimize the risk of injury to the pack ; unless this is
done, and unless the hunter helps the dogs in the worry,
accidents will be frequent, and an occasional wolf will
be found able to beat off, maiming or killing, a lesser
number of assailants. Some hunters prefer the smooth
greyhound, because of its great speed, and others the
wire-coated animal, the rough deer-hound, because of its
superior strength ; both, if of the right kind, are dauntless
fighters.

Colonel Williams' greyhounds have performed many
notable feats in wolf-hunting. He spent the winter of
1875 in the Black Hills, which at that time did not contain
a single settler, and fairly swarmed with game. Wolves
were especially numerous and very bold and fierce, so that
the dogs of the party were continually in jeopardy of their
lives. On the other hand they took an ample vengeance,
for many wolves were caught by the pack. Whenever
possible, the horsemen kept close enough to take an
immediate hand in the fight, if the quarry was a full-grown
wolf, and thus save the dogs from the terrible punishment
they were otherwise certain to receive. The dogs invari-
ably throttled, rushing straight at the throat, but the
wounds they themselves received were generally in the
flank or belly ; in several instances these wounds resulted
fatally. Once or twice a wolf was caught, and held by
two greyhounds until the horsemen came up ; but it took

Wolves and Wolf -Hounds. 41 1

at least five dogs to overcome and slay unaided a big
timber wolf. Several times the feat was performed by a
party of five, consisting of two greyhounds, one rough-
coated deer-hound, and two cross-bloods ; and once by a
litter of seven young greyhounds, not yet come to their
full strength.

Once or twice the so-called Russian wolf-hounds or
silky coated greyhounds, the " borzois," have been imported
and tried in wolf-hunting on the western plains ; but
hitherto they have not shown themselves equal, at either
running or fighting, to the big American-bred greyhounds of
the type produced by Colonel Williams and certain others
of our best western breeders. Indeed I have never known
any foreign greyhounds, whether Scotch, English, or from
continental Europe, to perform such feats of courage,
endurance, and strength, in chasing and killing dangerous
game, as the homebred greyhounds of Colonel Williams.

CHAPTER XX.

IN COWBOY LAND.

OUT on the frontier, and generally among those
who spend their lives in, or on the borders of,
the wilderness, life is reduced to its elemental
conditions. The passions and emotions of these grim
hunters of the mountains, and wild rough-riders of the
plains, are simpler and stronger than those of people
dwelling in more complicated states of society. As soon
as the communities become settled and begin to grow with
any rapidity, the American instinct for law asserts itself ;
but in the earlier stages each individual is obliged to be a
law to himself and to guard his rights with a strong hand.
Of course the transition periods are full of incongruities.
Men have not yet adjusted their relations to morality and
law with any niceness. They hold strongly by certain
rude virtues, and on the other hand they quite fail to
recognize even as shortcomings not a few traits that obtain
scant mercy in older communities. Many of the desper-
adoes, the man-killers, and road-agents have good sides to
their characters. Often they are people who, in certain
stages of civilization, do, or have done, good work, but

412

In Cowboy Land. 4J3

who, when these stages have passed, find themselves sur-
rounded by conditions which accentuate their worst qual-
ities, and make their best qualities useless. The average
desperado, for instance, has, after all, much the same
standard of morals that the Norman nobles had in the
days of the battle of Hastings, and, ethically and morally,
he is decidedly in advance of the vikings, who were the
ancestors of these same nobles — and to whom, by the way,
he himself could doubtless trace a portion of his blood.
If the transition from the wild lawlessness of life in the
wilderness or on the border to a higher civilization were
stretched out over a term of centuries, he and his descend-
ants would doubtless accommodate themselves by degrees
to the changing circumstances. But unfortunately in the
far West the transition takes place with marvellous abrupt-
ness, and at an altogether unheard-of speed, and many a
man's nature is unable to change with sufficient rapidity to
allow him to harmonize with his environment. In conse-
quence, unless he leaves for still wilder lands, he ends by
getting hung instead of founding a family which would
revere his name as that of a very capable, although not in
all respects a conventionally moral, ancestor.

Most of the men with whom I was intimately thrown
during my life on the frontier and in the wilderness were
good fellows, hard-working, brave, resolute, and truthful.
At times, of course, they were forced of necessity to do
deeds which would seem startling to dwellers in cities and
in old settled places ; and though they waged a very stern
and relentless warfare upon evil-doers whose misdeeds had
immediate and tangible bad results, they showed a wide

4*4 The Wilderness Hunter.

toleration of all save the most extreme classes of wrong, and
were not given to inquiring too curiously into a strong man's
past, or to criticising him over-harshly for a failure to dis-
criminate in finer ethical questions. Moreover, not a few
of the men with whom I came in contact — with some of
whom my relations were very close and friendly — had at
different times led rather tough careers. This fact was
accepted by them and by their companions as a fact, and
nothing more. There were certain offences, such as rape,
the robbery of a friend, or murder under circumstances of
cowardice and treachery, which were never forgiven ; but
the fact that when the country was wild a young fellow
had gone on the road — that is, become a highwayman, or
had been chief of a gang of desperadoes, horse-thieves,
and cattle-killers, was scarcely held to weigh against him,
being treated as a regrettable, but certainly not shameful,
trait of youth. He was regarded by his neighbors with
the same kindly tolerance which respectable mediaeval
Scotch borderers doubtless extended to their wilder young
men who would persist in raiding English cattle even in
time of peace.

Of course if these men were asked outright as to their
stories they would have refused to tell them or else would
have lied about them ; but when they had grown to regard
a man as a friend and companion they would often recount
various incidents of their past lives with perfect frankness,
and as they combined in a very curious degree both a de-
cided sense of humor, and a failure to appreciate that
there was anything especially remarkable in what they
related, their tales were always entertaining.

In Cowboy Land. 415

Early one spring, now nearly ten years ago, I was out
hunting some lost horses. They had strayed from the
range three months before, and we had in a roundabout way
heard that they were ranging near some broken country,
where a man named Brophy had a ranch, nearly fifty
miles from my own. When I started thither the weather
was warm, but the second day out it grew colder and a
heavy snowstorm came on. Fortunately I was able to
reach the ranch all right, finding there one of the sons of
a Little Beaver ranchman, and a young cowpuncher be-
longing to a Texas outfit, whom I knew very well. After
putting my horse into the corral and throwing him down
some hay I strode into the low hut, made partly of turf
and partly of cottonwood logs, and speedily warmed my-
self before the fire. We had a good warm supper, of bread,
potatoes, fried venison, and tea. My two companions
grew very sociable and began to talk freely over their
pipes. There were two bunks one above the other. I
climbed into the upper, leaving my friends, who occupied
the lower, sitting together on a bench recounting different
incidents in the careers of themselves and their cronies
during the winter that had just passed. Soon one of
them asked the other what had become of a certain horse,
a noted cutting pony, which I had myself noticed the
preceding fall. The question aroused the other to the
memory of a wrong which still rankled, and he began
(I alter one or two of the proper names) :

" Why, that was the pony that got stole. I had been
workin' him on rough ground when I was out with the
Three Bar outfit and he went tender forward, so I turned

4l6 The Wilderness Hunter.

him loose by the Lazy B ranch, and when I come back to
git him there was n't anybody at the ranch and I could n't
find him. The sheep-man who lives about two miles west,
under Red Clay butte, told me he seen a fellow in a wolf-
skin coat, ridin' a pinto bronco, with white eyes, leadin'
that pony of mine just two days before ; and I hunted round
till I hit his trail and then I followed to where I 'd reckoned
he was headin' for — the Short Pine Hills. When I got there
a rancher told me he had seen the man pass on towards
Cedartown, and sure enough when I struck Cedartown I
found he lived there in a 'dobe house, just outside the
town. There was a boom on the town and it looked
pretty slick. There was two hotels and I went into the
first, and I says, ' Where 's the justice of the peace ? ' says
I to the bartender.

" ' There ain't no justice of the peace,' says he, ' the
justice of the peace got shot.'

" ' Well, where 's the constable ?' says I.

«« < Why, it was him that shot the justice of the peace ! '
says he ; ' he 's skipped the country with a bunch of horses.'

" ' Well, ain't there no officer of the law left in this
town ? ' says I.

" ' Why, of course,' says he, ' there 's a probate judge ;
he is overtendin' bar at the Last Chance Hotel.'

"So I went over to the Last Chance Hotel and I
walked in there. ' Mornin',' says I.

" ' Mornin',' says he.

" ' You 're the probate judge ? ' says I.

" ' That 's what I am,' says he. ' What do you want ?'
says he.

In Cowboy Land. 417

" ' I want justice/ says I.

" ' What kind of justice do you want ? ' says he. ' What 's
it for?'

" ' It 's for stealin' a horse/ says I.

" ' Then by God you '11 git it/ says he. ' Who stole
the horse ? ' says he.

" ' It is a man that lives in a 'dobe house, just outside
the town there/ says I.

" ' Well, where do you come from yourself?' said he.

" ' From Medory/ said I.

" With that he lost interest and settled kind o' back,
and says he, ' There wont no Cedartown jury hang a Cedar-
town man for stealin' a Medory man's horse/ said he.

" ' Well, what am I to do about my horse ? ' says I.

" ' Do ? ' says he ; ' well, you know where the man lives,
don't you ? ' says he ; ' then sit up outside his house to-
night and shoot him when he comes in/ says he, * and
skip out with the horse.'

11 'All right/ says I, ' that is what I '11 do/ and I walked
off.

" So I went off to his house and I laid down behind
some sage-brushes to wait for him. He was not at home,
but I could see his wife movin' about inside now and then,
and I waited and waited, and it growed darker, and I
begun to say to myself, ' Now here you are lyin' out to shoot
this man when he comes home ; and it 's gettin' dark,
and you don't know him, and if you do shoot the next
man that comes into that house, like as not it won't be the
fellow you 're after at all, but some perfectly innocent
man a-comin' there after the other man's wife ! '

The Wilderness Hunter.

" So I up and saddled the broric' and lit out for home,"
concluded the narrator with the air of one justly proud of
his own self-abnegating virtue.

The " town " where the judge above-mentioned dwelt
was one of those squalid, pretentiously named little clusters
of makeshift dwellings which on the edge of the wild
country spring up with the rapid growth of mushrooms,
and are often no longer lived. In their earlier stages these
towns are frequently built entirely of canvas, and are
subject to grotesque calamities. When the territory pur-
chased from the Sioux, in the Dakotas, a couple of years
ago, was thrown open to settlement, there was a furious
inrush of men on horseback and in wagons, and various
ambitious cities sprang up overnight. The new settlers
were all under the influence of that curious craze which
causes every true westerner to put unlimited faith in the
unknown and untried ; many had left all they had in a far
better farming country, because they were true to their
immemorial belief that, wherever they were, their luck
would be better if they went somewhere else. They were
always on the move, and headed for the vague beyond.
As miners see visions of all the famous mines of history
in each new camp, so these would-be city founders saw
future St. Pauls and Omahas in every forlorn group of
tents pitched by some muddy stream in a desert of gumbo
and sage-brush ; and they named both the towns and the
canvas buildings in accordance with their bright hopes
for the morrow, rather than with reference to the mean
facts of the day. One of these towns, which when twenty-
four hours old boasted of six saloons, a " court-house,"

In Cowboy Land. 419

and an " opera house," was overwhelmed by early dis-
aster. The third day of its life a whirlwind came along
and took off the opera house and half the saloons ; and
the following evening lawless men nearly finished the
work of the elements. The riders of a huge trail-outfit
from Texas, to their glad surprise discovered the town and
abandoned themselves to a night of roaring and lethal
carousal. Next morning the city authorities were lament-
ing, with oaths of bitter rage, that " them hell-and-twenty
Flying A cowpunchers had cut the court-house up into
pants." It was true. The cowboys were in need of shaps,
and with an admirable mixture of adventurousness, fru-
gality, and ready adaptability to circumstances, had made
substitutes therefor in the shape of canvas overalls, cut
from the roof and walls of the shaky temple of justice.

One of my valued friends in the mountains, and one
of the best hunters with whom I ever travelled, was a man
who had a peculiarly light-hearted way of looking at con-
ventional social obligations. Though in some ways a true
backwoods Donatello, he was a man of much shrewdness
and of great courage and resolution. Moreover, he pos-
sessed what only a few men do possess, the capacity to
tell the truth. He saw facts as they were, and could tell
them as they were, and he never told an untruth unless
for very weighty reasons. He was pre-eminently a phi-
losopher, of a happy, sceptical turn of mind. He had no
prejudices. He never looked down, as so many hard
characters do, upon a person possessing a different code
of ethics. His attitude was one of broad, genial tolerance.
He saw nothing out of the way in the fact that he had

420 The Wilderness Hunter.

himself been a road-agent, a professional gambler, and a
desperado at different stages of his career. On the other
hand, he did not in the least hold it against any one that
he had always acted within the law. At the time that I
knew him he had become a man of some substance, and
naturally a staunch upholder of the existing order of
things. But while he never boasted of his past deeds, he
never apologized for them, and evidently would have been
quite as incapable of understanding that they needed an
apology as he would have been incapable of being guilty
of mere vulgar boastfulness. He did not often allude to
his past career at all. When he did, he recited its inci-
dents perfectly naturally and simply, as events, without
any reference to or regard for their ethical significance.
It was this quality which made him at times a specially
pleasant companion, and always an agreeable narrator.
The point of his story, or what seemed to him the point,
was rarely that which struck me. It was the incidental
sidelights the story threw upon his own nature and the
somewhat lurid surroundings amid which he had moved.

On one occasion when we were out together we killed
a bear, and after skinning it, took a bath in a lake. I
noticed he had a scar on the side of his foot and asked him
how he got it, to which he responded, with indifference :

" Oh, that ? Why, a man shootin' at me to make me
dance, that was all."

I expressed some curiosity in the matter, and he
went on :

" Well, the way of it was this : It was when I was
keeping a saloon in New Mexico, and there was a man

In Cowboy Land. 421

there by the name of Fowler, and there was a reward on
him of three thousand dollars -

" Put on him by the State ? "

" No, put on by his wife," said my friend ; "and there
was this "

" Hold on," I interrupted ; " put on by his wife did
you say ? "

"Yes, by his wife. Him and her had been keepin' a
faro bank, you see, and they quarrelled about it, so she
just put a reward on him, and so—

" Excuse me," I said " but do you mean to say that
this reward was put on publicly ? " to which my friend
answered, with an air of gentlemanly boredom at being
interrupted to gratify my thirst for irrelevant detail :

" Oh, no, not publicly. She just mentioned it to six or
eight intimate personal friends."

" Go on," I responded, somewhat overcome by this
instance of the primitive simplicity with which New
Mexican matrimonial disputes were managed, and he
continued :

" Well, two men come ridin' in to see me to borrow
my guns. My guns was Colt's self-cockers. It was a new
thing then, and they was the only ones in town. These
come to me, and ' Simpson,' says they, ' we want to
borrow your guns ; we are goin' to kill Fowler.'

" ' Hold on for a moment,' said I, ' I am willin' to lend
you them guns, but I ain't goin' to know what you Y goin'
to do with them, no sir ; but of course you can have the
guns. ' ' Here my friend's face lightened pleasantly, and
he continued :

422 The Wilderness Hunter.

" Well, you may easily believe I felt surprised next
day when Fowler come ridin' in, and, says he, ' Simpson,
here 's your guns ! ' He had shot them two men ! ' Well,
Fowler/ says I, ' if I had known them men was after you,
I 'd never have let them have them guns nohow,' says I.
That was n't true, for I did know it, but there was no
cause to tell him that." I murmured my approval of
such prudence, and Simpson continued, his eyes gradually
brightening with the light of agreeable reminiscence :

"Well, they up and they took Fowler before the
justice of the peace. The justice of the peace was a
Turk."

" Now, Simpson, what do you mean by that ? " I
interrupted :

" Well, he come from Turkey," said Simpson, and I
again sank back, wondering briefly what particular variety
of Mediterranean outcast had drifted down to New Mexico
to be made a justice of the peace. Simpson laughed and
continued.

" That Fowler was a funny fellow. The Turk, he
committed Fowler, and Fowler, he riz up and knocked
him down and tromped all over him and made him let
him go !"

" That was an appeal to a higher law," I observed.
Simpson assented cheerily, and continued :

" Well, that Turk, he got nervous for fear Fowler he
was goin' to kill him, and so he comes to me and offers
me twenty-five dollars a day to protect him from Fowler ;
and I went to Fowler, and ' Fowler,' says I, 'that Turk 's
offered me twenty-five dollars a day to protect him from

In Cowboy Land. 423

you. Now, I ain't goin' to get shot for no twenty-five
dollars a day, and if you are goin' to kill the Turk, just
say so and go and do it ; but if you ain't goin' to kill the
Turk, there 's no reason why I should n't earn that
twenty-five dollars a day ! ' and Fowler, says he, ' I ain't
goin' to touch the Turk ; you just go right ahead and
protect him.' ';

So Simpson " protected " the Turk from the imaginary
danger of Fowler, for about a week, at twenty-five dollars
a day. Then one evening he happened to go out and
met Fowler, " and," said he, " the moment I saw him I
knowed he felt mean, for he begun to shoot at my feet,"
which certainly did seem to offer presumptive evidence of
meanness. Simpson continued :

" I did n't have no gun, so I just had to stand there
and take it until something distracted his attention, and I
went off home to get my gun and kill him, but I wanted
to do it perfectly lawful ; so I went up to the mayor (he
was playin' poker with one of the judges), and says I to
him, ' Mr. Mayor,' says I, ' I am goin' to shoot Fowler.
And the mayor he riz out of his chair and he took me by
the hand, and says he, ' Mr. Simpson, if you do I will
stand by you ' ; and the judge, he says, ' I '11 go on your
bond.' "

Fortified by this cordial approval of the executive and
judicial branches of the government, Mr. Simpson started
on his quest. Meanwhile, however, Fowler had cut up
another prominent citizen, and they already had him in
jail. The friends of law and order feeling some little dis-
trust as to the permanency of their own zeal for righteous-

424 The Wilderness Hunter.

ness, thought it best to settle the matter before there was
time for cooling, and accordingly, headed by Simpson,
the mayor, the judge, the Turk, and other prominent
citizens of the town, they broke into the jail and hanged
Fowler. The point in the hanging which especially
tickled my friend's fancy, as he lingered over the reminis-
cence, was one that was rather too ghastly to appeal to
our own sense of humor. In the Turk's mind there still
rankled the memory of Fowler's very unprofessional
conduct while figuring before him as a criminal. Said
Simpson, with a merry twinkle of the eye : " Do you know
that Turk, he was a right funny fellow too after all. Just
as the boys were going to string up Fowler, says he,
' Boys, stop ; one moment, gentlemen, — Mr. Fowler,
good-by,' and he blew a kiss to him !"

In the cow-country, and elsewhere on the wild border-
land between savagery and civilization, men go quite as
often by nicknames as by those to which they are lawfully
entitled. Half the cowboys and hunters of my acquaint-
ance are known by names entirely unconnected with those
they inherited or received when they were christened.
Occasionally some would-be desperado or make-believe
mighty hunter tries to adopt what he deems a title suit-
able to his prowess ; but such an effort is never attempted
in really wild places, where it would be greeted with huge
derision ; for all of these names that are genuine are
bestowed by outsiders, with small regard to the wishes of
the person named. Ordinarily the name refers to some
easily recognizable accident of origin, occupation, or
aspect ; as witness the innumerable Dutcheys, Frencheys,

In Cowboy Land. 425

Kentucks, Texas Jacks, Bronco Bills, Bear Joes, Buck-
skins, Red Jims, and the like. Sometimes it is apparently
meaningless ; one of my cowpuncher friends is always
called "Sliver" or "Splinter" — why, I have no idea. At
other times some particular incident may give rise to the
title : a clean-looking cowboy formerly in my employ was
always known as " Muddy Bill," because he had once been
bucked off his horse into a mud hole.

The grewsome genesis of one such name is given in
the following letter which I have just received from an
old hunting-friend in the Rockies, who took a kindly
interest in a frontier cabin which the Boone and Crockett
Club was putting up at the Chicago World's Fair.

" Feb 1 6th 1893 ; Der Sir : I see in the newspapers that your club
the Daniel Boon and Davey Crockit you Intend to erect a fruntier
Cabin at the world's Far at Chicago to represent the erley Pianears of
our country I would like to see you maik a success I have all my life
been a fruntiersman and feel interested in your undertaking and I hoap
you wile get a good assortment of relicks I want to maik one sugges-
tion to you that is in regard to geting a good man and a genuine
Mauntanner to take charg of your haus at Chicago I want to recom-
mend a man for you to get it is Liver-eating Johnson that is the naim
he is generally called he is an olde mauntneer and large and fine look-
ing and one of the Best Story Tellers in the country and Very Polight
genteel to every one he meets I wil tel you how he got that naim Liver-
eating in a hard Fight with the Black Feet Indians thay Faught all
day Johnson and a few Whites Faught a large Body of Indians all day
after the fight Johnson cam in contact with a wounded Indian and
Johnson was aut of ammunition and thay faught it out with thar Knives
and Johnson got away with the Indian and in the fight cut the livver
out of the Indian and said to the Boys did thay want any Liver to eat
that is the way he got the naim of Liver-eating Johnson

"Yours truly" etc., etc.

Frontiersmen are often as original in their theories of
life as in their names ; and the originality may take the

426 The Wilderness Hunter.

form of wild savagery, of mere uncouthness, or of an odd
combination of genuine humor with simple acceptance of
facts as they are. On one occasion I expressed some
surprise at learning that a certain Mrs. P. had suddenly
married, though her husband was alive and in jail in a
neighboring town ; and received for answer : " Well, you
see, old man Pete he skipped the country, and left his
widow behind him, and so Bob Evans he up and married
her ! " — which was evidently felt to be a proceeding
requiring no explanation whatever.

In the cow-country there is nothing more refreshing
than the light-hearted belief entertained by the average
man to the effect that any animal which by main force
has been saddled and ridden, or harnessed and driven a
couple of times, is a " broke horse." My present foreman
is firmly wedded to this idea, as well as to its comple-
ment, the belief that any animals with hoofs, before any
vehicle with wheels, can be driven across any country.
One summer on reaching the ranch I was entertained with
the usual accounts of the adventures and misadventures
which had befallen my own men and my neighbors since
I had been out last. In the course of the conversation
my foreman remarked : " We had a great time out here
about six weeks ago. There was a professor from Ann
Arbor came out with his wife to see the Bad Lands, and
they asked if we could rig them up a team, and we said
we guessed we could, and Foley's boy and I did ; but it
ran away with him and broke his leg ! He was here for
a month. I guess he did n't mind it though." Of this I
was less certain, forlorn little Medora being a "busted"

In Cowboy Land. 427

cow-town, concerning which I once heard another of my
men remark, in reply to an inquisitive commercial traveller :
" How many people lives here? Eleven — counting the
chickens — when they 're all in town ! "

My foreman continued : " By George, there was some-
thing that professor said afterwards that made me feel
hot. I sent word up to him by Foley's boy that seein' as
how it had come out we would n't charge him nothin' for
the rig ; and that professor he answered that he was glad
we were showing him some sign of consideration, for
he 'd begun to believe he 'd fallen into a den of sharks,
and that we gave him a runaway team a purpose. That
made me hot, calling that a runaway team. Why, there
was one of them horses never could have run away
before ; it had n't never been druv but twice ! and the
other horse maybe had run away a few times, but there
was lots of times he had rit run away. I esteemed
that team full as liable not to run away as it was to run
away," concluded my foreman, evidently deeming this as
good a warranty of gentleness as the most exacting could
require.

The definition of good behavior on the frontier is even
more elastic for a saddle-horse than for a team. Last
spring one of the Three-Seven riders, a magnificent horse-
man, was killed on the round-up near Belfield, his horse
bucking and falling on him. " It was accounted a plumb
gentle horse too," said my informant, " only it sometimes
sulked and acted a little mean when it was cinched up
behind." The unfortunate rider did not know of this
failing of the "plumb gentle horse," and as soon as he

428 The Wilderness Hunter.

was in the saddle it threw itself over sideways with a great
bound, and he fell on his head, and never spoke again.

Such accidents are too common in the wild country to
attract very much attention ; the men accept them with
grim quiet, as inevitable in such lives as theirs — lives that
are harsh and narrow in their toil and their pleasure
alike, and that are ever-bounded by an iron horizon of
hazard and hardship. During the last year and a half
three other men from the ranches in my immediate neigh-
borhood have met their deaths in the course of their
work. One, a trail boss of the O X, was drowned while
swimming his herd across a swollen river. Another, one
of the fancy ropers of the W Bar, was killed while roping
cattle in a corral ; his saddle turned, the rope twisted
round him, he was pulled off, and was trampled to death
by his own horse.

The fourth man, a cowpuncher named Hamilton, lost
his life during the last week of October, 1891, in the first
heavy snowstorm of the season. Yet he was a skilled
plainsman, on ground he knew well, and just before stray-
ing himself, he successfully instructed two men who did
not know the country how to get to camp. They were
all three with the round-up, and were making a circle
through the Bad Lands ; the wagons had camped on the
eastern edge of these Bad Lands, where they merge into
the prairie, at the head of an old disused road, which led
about due east from the Little Missouri. It was a gray,
lowering day, and as darkness came on Hamilton's horse
played out, and he told his two companions not to wait,
as it had begun to snow, but to keep on towards the

In Cowboy Land. 429

north, skirting some particularly rough buttes, and as
soon as they struck the road to turn to the right and
follow it out to the prairie, where they would find camp ;
he particularly warned them to keep a sharp look-out, so
as not to pass over the dim trail unawares in the dusk and
the storm. They followed his advice, and reached camp
safely ; and after they had left him nobody ever again
saw him alive. Evidently he himself, plodding north-
wards, passed over the road without seeing it in the
gathering gloom ; probably he struck it at some point
where the ground was bad, and the dim trail in conse-
quence disappeared entirely, as is the way with these
prairie roads — making them landmarks to be used with
caution. He must then have walked on and on, over
rugged hills and across deep ravines, until his horse came
to a standstill ; he took off its saddle and picketed it to a
dwarfed ash. Its frozen carcass was found, with the
saddle near by, two months later. He now evidently
recognized some landmark, and realized that he had
passed the road, and was far to the north of the round-up
wagons ; but he was a resolute, self-confident man, and
he determined to strike out for a line camp, which he
knew lay about due east of him, two or three miles out
on the prairie, on one of the head branches of Knife
River. Night must have fallen by this time, and he missed
the camp, probably passing it within less than a mile ;
but he did pass it, and with it all hopes of life, and walked
wearily on to his doom, through the thick darkness and
the driving snow. At last his strength failed, and he lay
down in the tall grass of a little hollow. Five months

43° The Wilderness Hunter.

later, in the early spring, the riders from the line camp
found his body, resting face downwards, with the forehead
on the folded arms.

Accidents of less degree are common. Men break
their collar-bones, arms, or legs by falling when riding at
speed over dangerous ground, when cutting cattle or try-
ing to control a stampeded herd, or by being thrown or
rolled on by bucking or rearing horses ; or their horses,
and on rare occasions even they themselves, are gored by
fighting steers. Death by storm or in flood, death in
striving to master a wild and vicious horse, or in handling
maddened cattle, and too often death in brutal conflict
with one of his own fellows — any one of these is the not
unnatural end of the life of the dweller on the plains or
in the mountains.

But a few years ago other risks had to be run from
savage beasts, and from the Indians. Since I have been
ranching on the Little Missouri, two men have been killed
by bears in the neighborhood of my range ; and in the
early years of my residence there, several men living or
travelling in the country were slain by small war-parties
of young braves. All the old-time trappers and hunters
could tell stirring tales of their encounters with Indians.

My friend, Tazewell Woody, was among the chief
actors in one of the most noteworthy adventures of this
kind. He was a very quiet man, and it was exceedingly
difficult to get him to talk over any of his past experiences ;
but one day, when he was in high good-humor with me
for having made three consecutive straight shots at elk,
he became quite communicative, and I was able to get him

In Cowboy Land. 431

to tell me one story which I had long wished to hear from
his lips, having already heard of it through one of the
other survivors of the incident. When he found that I
already knew a good deal old Woody told me the rest.

It was in the spring of 1875, and Woody and two
friends were trapping on the Yellowstone. The Sioux
were very bad at the time and had killed many prospec-
tors, hunters, cowboys, and settlers ; the whites retaliated
whenever they got a chance, but, as always in Indian war-
fare, the sly, lurking, bloodthirsty savages inflicted much
more loss than they suffered.

The three men, having a dozen horses with them,
were camped by the river-side in a triangular patch of
brush, shaped a good deal like a common flat-iron. On
reaching camp they started to put out their traps ; and
when he came back in the evening Woody informed his
companions that he had seen a great deal of Indian sign,
and that he believed there were Sioux in the neighbor-
hood. His companions both laughed at him, assuring
him that they were not Sioux at all but friendly Crows,
and that they would be in camp next morning ; " and sure
enough," said Woody, meditatively, "they were in camp
next morning." By dawn one of the men went down the
river to look at some of the traps, while Woody started
out to where the horses were, the third man remaining in
camp to get breakfast. Suddenly two shots were heard
down the river, and in another moment a mounted Indian
swept towards the horses. Woody fired, but missed him,
and he drove off five while Woody, running forward,
succeeded in herding the other seven into camp. Hardly

43 2 The Wilderness Hunter.

had this been accomplished before the man who had gone
down the river appeared, out of breath with his desperate
run, having been surprised by several Indians, and just
succeeding in making his escape by dodging from bush
to bush, threatening his pursuers with his rifle.

These proved to be but the forerunners of a great
war party, for when the sun rose the hills around seemed
black with Sioux. Had they chosen to dash right in on
the camp, running the risk of losing several of their men
in the charge, they could of course have eaten up the
three hunters in a minute ; but such a charge is rarely
practised by Indians, who, although they are admirable
in defensive warfare, and even in certain kinds of
offensive movements, and although from their skill in
hiding they usually inflict much more loss than they suffer
when matched against white troops, are yet very reluctant
to make any movement where the advantage gained must
be offset by considerable loss of life. The three men
thought they were surely doomed, but being veteran
frontiersmen and long inured to every kind of hardship
and danger, they set to work with cool resolution to
make as effective a defence as possible, to beat off their
antagonists if they might, and if this proved impracticable,
to sell their lives as dearly as they could. Having
tethered the horses in a slight hollow, the only one which
offered any protection, each man crept out to a point of
the triangular brush patch and lay down to await events.

In a very short while the Indians began closing in on
them, taking every advantage of cover, and then, both
from their side of the river and from the opposite bank,

In Cowboy Land. 433

opened a perfect fusillade, wasting their cartridges with a
recklessness which Indians are apt to show when ex-
cited. The hunters could hear the hoarse commands of
the chiefs, the war-whoops, and the taunts in broken
English which some of the warriors hurled at them. Very
soon all of their horses were killed, and the brush was
fairly riddled by the incessant volleys ; but the three men
themselves, lying flat on the ground and well concealed,
were not harmed. The more daring young warriors then
began to creep toward the hunters, going stealthily from
one piece of cover to the next ; and now the whites in
turn opened fire. They did not shoot recklessly, as did
their foes, but coolly and quietly, endeavoring to make
each shot tell. Said Woody : " I only fired seven times
all day ; I reckoned on getting meat every time I pulled
trigger." They had an immense advantage over their
enemies, in that whereas they lay still and entirely con-
cealed, the Indians of course had to move from cover to
cover in order to approach, and so had at times to expose
themselves. When the whites fired at all they fired at a
man, whether moving or motionless, whom they could
clearly see, while the Indians could only shoot at the
smoke, which imperfectly marked the position of their
unseen foes. In consequence the assailants speedily
found that it was a task of hopeless danger to try in such
a manner to close in on three plains veterans, men of iron
nerve and skilled in the use of the rifle. Yet some of the
more daring crept up very close to the patch of brush, and
one actually got inside it, and was killed among the bed-
ding that lay by the smouldering camp-fire. The wounded
28

434 The Wilderness Hunter.

and such of the dead as did not lie in too exposed posi-
tions were promptly taken away by their comrades ; but
seven bodies fell into the hands of the three hunters. I
asked Woody how many he himself had killed. He said
he could only be sure of two that he got ; one he shot in
the head as he peeped over a bush, and the other he shot
through the smoke as he attempted to rush in. " My,
how that Indian did yell," said Woody, retrospectively ;
"he was no great of a Stoic." After two or three hours
of this deadly skirmishing, which resulted in nothing more
serious to the whites than in two of them being slightly
wounded, the Sioux became disheartened by the loss they
were suffering and withdrew, confining themselves there-
after to a long range and harmless fusillade. When it was
dark the three men crept out to the river bed, and taking
advantage of the pitchy night broke through the circle of
their foes ; they managed to reach the settlements with-
out further molestation, having lost everything except
their rifles.

For many years one of the most important of the
wilderness dwellers was the West Point officer, and no
man has played a greater part than he in the wild warfare
which opened the regions beyond the Mississippi to white
settlement. Since 1879, there has been but little regular
Indian fighting in the North, though there have been one
or two very tedious and wearisome campaigns waged
against the Apaches in the South. Even in the North,
however, there have been occasional uprisings which had
to be quelled by the regular troops.

After my elk hunt in September, 1891, I came out
through the Yellowstone Park, as I have elsewhere re-

In Cowboy Land, 435

lated, riding in company with a surveyor of the Burling-
ton and Quincy railroad, who was just coming in from
his summer's work. It was the first of October. There
had been a heavy snow-storm and the snow was still fall-
ing. Riding a stout pony each, and leading another
packed with our bedding, etc., we broke our way from
the upper to the middle geyser basin. Here we found
a troop of the ist Cavalry camped, under the com-
mand of old friends of mine, Captain Frank Edwards
and Lieutenant (now Captain) John Pitcher. They gave
us hay for our horses and insisted upon our stopping to
lunch, with the ready hospitality always shown by army
officers. After lunch we began exchanging stories. My
travelling companion, the surveyor, had that spring per*
formed a feat of note, going through one of the canyons
of the Big Horn for the first time. He went with an old
mining inspector, the two of them dragging a cottonwood
sledge over the ice. The walls of the canyon are so sheer
and the water so rough that it can be descended only
when the stream is frozen. However, after six days' labor
and hardship the descent was accomplished ; and the
surveyor, in concluding, described his experience in going
through the Crow Reservation.

This turned the conversation upon Indians, and it ap-
peared that both of our hosts had been actors in Indian
scrapes which had attracted my attention at the time they
occurred, as they took place among tribes that I knew
and in a country which I had sometime visited, either
when hunting or when purchasing horses for the ranch.
The first, which occurred to Captain Edwards, happened
late in 1886, at the time when the Crow Medicine Chief.

436 The Wilderness Hunter.

Sword-Bearer, announced himself as the Messiah of the
Indian race, during one of the usual epidemics of ghost
dancing. Sword-Bearer derived his name from always
wearing a medicine sword — that is, a sabre painted red.
He claimed to possess magic power, and, thanks to the
performance of many dextrous feats of juggling, and the
lucky outcome of certain prophecies, he deeply stirred the
Indians, arousing the young warriors in particular to the
highest pitch of excitement. They became sullen, began
to paint, and armed themselves ; and the agent and the
settlers nearby grew so apprehensive that the troops
were ordered to go to the reservation. A body of cavalry,
including Captain Edwards' troop, was accordingly
marched thither, and found the Crow warriors, mounted
on their war ponies and dressed in their striking battle-
garb, waiting on a hill.

The position of troops at the beginning of such an
affair is always peculiarly difficult. The settlers round-
about are sure to clamor bitterly against them, no matter
what they do, on the ground that they are not thorough
enough and are showing favor to the savages, while on
the other hand, even if they fight purely in self-defence, a
large number of worthy but weak-minded sentimentalists
in the East are sure to shriek about their having brutally
attacked the Indians. The war authorities always insist
that they must not fire the first shot under any circum-
stances, and such were the orders at this time. The
Crows on the hill-top showed a sullen and threatening
front, and the troops advanced slowly towards them and
then halted for a parley. Meanwhile a mass of black

In Cowboy Land. 437

thunder-clouds gathering on the horizon threatened one
of those cloudbursts of extreme seventy and suddenness
so characteristic of the plains country. While still trying
to make arrangements for a parley, a horseman started
out of the Crow ranks and galloped headlong down
towards the troops. It was the medicine chief, Sword*
Bearer. He was painted and in his battle-dress, wearing
his war-bonnet of floating, trailing eagle feathers, while
the plumes of the same bird were braided in the mane
and tail of his fiery little horse. On he came at a gallop
almost up to the troops and then began to circle around
them, calling and singing and throwing his crimson sword
into the air, catching it by the hilt as it fell. Twice he
rode completely around the soldiers, who stood in uncer-
tainty, not knowing what to make of his performance,
and expressly forbidden to shoot at him. Then paying
no further heed to them he rode back towards the Crows.
It appears that he had told them that he would ride
twice around the hostile force, and by his incantations
would call down rain from heaven, which would make the
hearts of the white men like water, so that they should
go back to their homes. Sure enough, while the arrange-
ments for the parley were still going forward, down came
the cloudburst, drenching the command and making the
ground on the hills in front nearly impassable ; and before
it dried a courier arrived with orders to the troops to go
back to camp.

This fulfilment of Sword-Bearer's prophecy of course
raised his reputation to the zenith and the young men of
the tribe prepared for war, while the older chiefs, who

438 The Wilderness Hunter.

more fully realized the power of the whites, still hung
back. When the troops next appeared they came upon
the entire Crow force, the women and children with their
tepees being off to one side beyond a little stream while
almost all the warriors of the tribe were gathered in front.
Sword-Bearer started to repeat his former ride, to the
intense irritation of the soldiers. Luckily, however, this
time some of his young men could not be restrained.
They too began to ride near the troops, and one of them
was unable to refrain from firing on Captain Edwards'
troop, which was in the van. This gave the soldiers their
chance. They instantly responded with a volley, and
Captain Edwards' troop charged. The fight lasted but a
minute or two, for Sword-Bearer was struck by a bullet
and fell, and as he had boasted himself invulnerable, and
promised that his warriors should be invulnerable also
if they would follow him, the hearts of the latter became
as water and they broke in every direction. One of the
amusing, though irritating, incidents of the affair was to
see the plumed and painted warriors race headlong for
the camp, plunge into the stream, wash off their war paint,
and remove their feathers ; in another moment they would
be stolidly sitting on the ground, with their blankets over
their shoulders, rising to greet the pursuing cavalry with
unmoved composure and calm assurances that they had
always been friendly and had much disapproved the con-
duct of the young bucks who had just been scattered on
the field outside. It was much to the credit of the dis-
cipline of the army that no bloodshed followed the fight
proper. The loss to the whites was small.

In Cowboy Land. 439

The other incident, related by Lieutenant Pitcher,
took place in 1890, near Tongue River, in northern
Wyoming. The command with which he was serving
was camped near the Cheyenne Reservation. One day
two young Cheyenne bucks, met one of the government
herders, and promptly killed him — in a sudden fit, half of
ungovernable blood lust, half of mere ferocious light-
heartedness. They then dragged his body into the brush
and left it. The disappearance of the herder of course at-
tracted attention, and a search was organized by the cav-
alry. At first the Indians stoutly denied all knowledge of
the missing man ; but when it became evident that the
search party would shortly find him, two or three of the
chiefs joined them, and piloted them to where the body
lay ; and acknowledged that he had been murdered by
two of their band, though at first they refused to give
their names. The commander of the post demanded
that the murderers be given up. The chiefs said that
they were very sorry, that this could not be done, but
that they were willing to pay over any reasonable number
of ponies to make amends for the death. This offer was
of course promptly refused, and the commander notified
them that if they did not surrender the murderers by a
certain time he would hold the whole tribe responsible
and would promptly move out and attack them. Upon
this the chiefs, after holding full counsel with the tribe, told
the commander that they had no power to surrender the
murderers, but that the latter had said that sooner than
see their tribe involved in a hopeless struggle they would
of their own accord come in and meet the troops any-

440 The Wilderness Hunter.

where the latter chose to appoint, and die fighting. To
this the commander responded : "All right ; let them come
into the agency in half an hour." The chiefs acquiesced,
and withdrew.

Immediately the Indians sent mounted messengers at
speed from camp to camp, summoning all their people to
witness the act of fierce self-doom ; and soon the entire
tribe of Cheyennes, many of them having their faces
blackened in token of mourning, moved down and took up
a position on the hill-side close to the agency. At the
appointed hour both young men appeared in their hand-
some war dress, galloped to the top of the hill near the
encampment, and deliberately opened fire on the troops.
The latter merely fired a few shots to keep the young
desperadoes off, while Lieutenant Pitcher and a score of
cavalrymen left camp to make a circle and drive them in ;
they did not wish to hurt them, but to capture and give
them over to the Indians, so that the latter might be
forced themselves to inflict the punishment. However,
they were unable to accomplish their purpose ; one of the
young braves went straight at them, firing his rifle and
wounding the horse of one of the cavalrymen, so that,
simply in self-defence, the latter had to fire a volley,
which laid low the assailant ; the other, his horse having
been shot, was killed in the brush, fighting to the last.
All the while, from the moment the two doomed braves
appeared until they fell, the Cheyennes on the hill-side
had been steadily singing the death chant. When the
young men had both died, and had thus averted the fate
which their misdeeds would else have brought upon the

In Cowboy Land. 441

tribe, the warriors took their bodies and bore them away
for burial honors, the soldiers looking on in silence.
Where the slain men were buried the whites never knew ;
but all that night they listened to the dismal wailing of
the dirges with which the tribesmen celebrated their
gloomy funeral rites.

Frontiersmen are not, as a rule, apt to be very super-
stitious. They lead lives too hard and practical, and have
too little imagination in things spiritual arid supernatural.
I have heard but few ghost stories while living on the
frontier, and these few were of a perfectly commonplace
and conventional type.

But I once listened to a goblin story which rather
impressed me. It was told by a grisled, weather-beaten
old mountain hunter, named Bauman, who was born and
had passed all his life on the frontier. He must have
believed what he said, for he could hardly repress a
shudder at certain points of the tale ; but he was of
German ancestry, and in childhood had doubtless been
saturated with all kinds of ghost and goblin lore, so that
many fearsome superstitions were latent in his mind ;
besides, he knew well the stories told by the Indian medi-
cine men in their winter camps, of the snow-walkers, and
the spectres, and the formless evil beings that haunt the
forest depths, and dog and waylay the lonely wanderer
who after nightfall passes through the regions where they
lurk ; and it may be that when overcome by the horror of
the fate that befell his friend, and when oppressed by the
awful dread of the unknown, he grew to attribute, both at
the time and still more in remembrance, weird and elfin

442 The Wilderness Hunter.

traits to what was merely some abnormally wicked and
cunning wild beast ; but whether this was so or not, no
man can say.

When the event occurred Bauman was still a young
man, and was trapping with a partner among the moun-
tains dividing the forks of the Salmon from the head of
Wisdom River. Not having had much luck, he and his
partner determined to go up into a particularly wild and
lonely pass through which ran a small stream said to con-
tain many beaver. The pass had an evil reputation be-
cause the year before a solitary hunter who had wandered
into it was there slain, seemingly by a wild beast, the half-
eaten remains being afterwards found by some mining pros-
pectors who had passed his camp only the night before.

The memory of this event, however, weighed very
lightly with the two trappers, who were as adventurous
and hardy as others of their kind. They took their two
lean mountain ponies to the foot of the pass, where they
left them in an open beaver meadow, the rocky timber-
clad ground being from thence onwards impracticable for
horses. They then struck out on foot through the vast,
gloomy forest, and in about four hours reached a little
open glade where they concluded to camp, as signs of
game were plenty.

There was still an hour or two of daylight left, and
after building a brush lean-to and throwing down and
opening their packs, they started up stream. The country
was very dense and hard to travel through, as there was
much down timber, although here and there the sombre
woodland was broken by small glades of mountain grass.

In Cowboy Land. 443

At dusk they again reached camp. The glade in which
it was pitched was not many yards wide, the tall, close-set
pines and firs rising round it like a wall. On one side was
a little stream, beyond which rose the steep mountain-
slopes, covered with the unbroken growth of the evergreen
forest.

They were surprised to find that during their short
absence something, apparently a bear, had visited camp,
and had rummaged about among their things, scattering
the contents of their packs, and in sheer wantonness
destroying their lean-to. The footprints of the beast were
quite plain, but at first they paid no particular heed to
them, busying themselves with rebuilding the lean-to, lay-
ing out their beds and stores, and lighting the fire.

While Bauman was making ready supper, it being
already dark, his companion began to examine the tracks
more closely, and soon took a brand from the fire to fol-
low them up, where the intruder had walked along a game
trail after leaving the camp. When the brand flickered
out, he returned and took another, repeating his inspec-
tion of the footprints very closely. Coming back to the
fire, he stood by it a minute or two, peering out into the
darkness, and suddenly remarked : " Bauman, that bear has
been walking on two legs." Bauman laughed at this, but
his partner insisted that he was right, and upon again
examining the tracks with a torch, they certainly did seem
to be made by but two paws, or feet. However, it was
too dark to make sure. After discussing whether the
footprints could possibly be those of a human being, and
coming to the conclusion that they could not be, the two

444 The Wilderness Hunter.

men rolled up in their blankets, and went to sleep under
the lean-to.

At midnight Bauman was awakened by some noise,
and sat up in his blankets. As he did so his nostrils were
struck by a strong, wild-beast odor, and he caught the
loom of a great body in the darkness at the mouth of the
lean-to. Grasping his rifle, he fired at the vague, threat-
ening shadow, but must have missed, for immediately
afterwards he heard the smashing of the underwood as the
thing, whatever it was, rushed off into the impenetrable
blackness of the forest and the night.

After this the two men slept but little, sitting up by
the rekindled fire, but they heard nothing more. In the
morning they started out to look at the few traps they had
set the previous evening and to put out new ones. By an
unspoken agreement they kept together all day, and
returned to camp towards evening.

On nearing it they saw, hardly to their astonishment,
that the lean-to had been again torn down. The visitor
of the preceding day had returned, and in wanton malice
had tossed about their camp kit and bedding, and destroyed
the shanty. The ground was marked up by its tracks, and
on leaving the camp it had gone along the soft earth by
the brook, where the footprints were as plain as if on snow,
and, after a careful scrutiny of the trail, it certainly did
seem as if, whatever the thing was, it had walked off on
but two legs.

The men, thoroughly uneasy, gathered a great heap of
dead logs, and kept up a roaring fire throughout the night,
one or the other sitting on guard most of the time. About

In Cowboy Land. 445

midnight the thing came down through the forest opposite,
across the brook, and stayed there on the hill-side for
nearly an hour. They could hear the branches crackle as
it moved about, and several times it uttered a harsh,
grating, long-drawn moan, a peculiarly sinister sound. Yet
it did not venture near the fire.

In the morning the two trappers, after discussing the
strange events of the last thirty-six hours, decided that
they would shouldei their packs and leave the valley that
afternoon. They were the more ready to do this because
in spite of seeing a good deal of game sign they had
caught very little fur. However, it was necessary first to
go along the line of their traps and gather them, and this
they started out to do.

All the morning they kept together, picking up trap
after trap, each one empty. On first leaving camp they
had the disagreeable sensation of being followed. In the
dense spruce thickets they occasionally heard a branch
snap after they had passed ; and now and then there were
slight rustling noises among the small pines to one side
of them.

At noon they were back within a couple of miles of
camp. In the high, bright sunlight their fears seemed
absurd to the two armed men, accustomed as they were,
through long years of lonely wandering in the wilderness
to face every kind of danger from man, brute, or element.
There were still three beaver traps to collect from a
little pond in a wide ravine nearby. Bauman volunteered
to gather these and bring them in, while his companion
went ahead to camp and made ready the packs.

446 The Wilderness Hunter.

On reaching the pond Bauman found three beaver in
the traps, one of which had been pulled loose and carried
into a beaver house. He took several hours in securing
and preparing the beaver, and when he started homewards
he marked with some uneasiness how low the sun was get-
ting. As he hurried towards camp, under the tall trees,
the silence and desolation of the forest weighed on him.
His feet made no sound on the pine needles, and the
slanting sun rays, striking through among the straight
trunks, made a gray twilight in which objects at a distance
glimmered indistinctly. There was nothing to break the
ghostly stillness which, when there is no breeze, always
broods over these sombre primeval forests.

At last he came to the edge of the little glade where
the camp lay, and shouted as he approached it, but got no
answer. The camp fire had gone out, though the thin
blue smoke was still curling upwards. Near it lay
the packs, wrapped and arranged. At first Bauman
could see nobody ; nor did he receive an answer to his
call. Stepping forward he again shouted, and as he did
so his eye fell on the body of his friend, stretched beside
the trunk of a great fallen spruce. Rushing towards it
the horrified trapper found that the body was still warm,
but that the neck was broken, while there were four great
fang marks in the throat.

The footprints of the unknown beast-creature, printed
deep in the soft soil, told the whole story.

The unfortunate man, having finished his packing, had
sat down on the spruce log with his face to the fire, and
his back to the dense woods, to wait for his companion.

In Cowboy Land. 447

While thus waiting, his monstrous assailant, which must
have been lurking nearby in the woods, waiting for a
chance to catch one of the adventurers unprepared, came
silently up from behind, walking with long, noiseless steps,
and seemingly still on two legs. Evidently unheard, it
reached the man, and broke his neck by wrenching his
head back with its forepaws, while it buried its teeth in
his throat. It had not eaten the body, but apparently
had romped and gambolled round it in uncouth, ferocious
glee, occasionally rolling over and over it ; and had then
fled back into the soundless depths of the woods.

Bauman, utterly unnerved, and believing that the
creature with which he had to deal was something either
half human or half devil, some great goblin-beast, aban-
doned everything but his rifle and struck off at speed down
the pass, not halting until he reached the beaver meadows
where the hobbled ponies were still grazing. Mounting,
he rode onwards through the night, until far beyond the
reach of pursuit.

CHAPTER XXI.

HUNTING LORE.

IT has been my good-luck to kill every kind of game
properly belonging to the United States : though one
beast which I never had a chance to slay, the jaguar,
from the torrid South, sometimes comes just across the
Rio Grande ; nor have I ever hunted the musk-ox and
polar bear in the boreal wastes where they dwell, sur-
rounded by the frozen desolation of the uttermost North.
I have never sought to make large bags, for a hunter
should not be a game butcher. It is always lawful to kill
dangerous or noxious animals, like the bear, cougar, and
wolf ; but other game should only be shot when there is
need of the meat, or for the sake of an unusually fine
trophy. Killing a reasonable number of bulls, bucks, or
rams does no harm whatever to the species ; to slay half
the males of any kind of game would not stop the natural
increase, and they yield the best sport, and are the legiti-
mate objects of the chase. Cows, does, and ewes, on the
contrary, should only be killed (unless barren) in case of
necessity ; during my last five years' hunting I have killed
but five — one by a mischance, and the other four for the

table.

448

Hunting Lore. 449

From its very nature, the life of the hunter is in most
places evanescent ; and when it has vanished there can
be no real substitute in old settled countries. Shooting
in a private game preserve is but a dismal parody ; the
manliest and healthiest features of the sport are lost with
the change of conditions. We need, in the interest of the
community at large, a rigid system of game laws rigidly
enforced, and it is not only admissible, but one may
almost say necessary, to establish, under the control of
the State, great national forest reserves, which shall also
be breeding grounds and nurseries for wild game ; but I
should much regret to see grow up in this country a sys-
tem of large private game preserves, kept for the enjoy-
ment of the very rich. One of the chief attractions of
the life of the wilderness is its rugged and stalwart democ-
racy ; there every man stands for what he actually is, and
can show himself to be.

There are, in different parts of our country, chances
to try so many various kinds of hunting, with rifle or with
horse and hound, that it is nearly impossible for one man
to have experience of them all. There are many hunts I
long hoped to take, but never did and never shall ; they
must be left for men with more time, or for those whose
homes are nearer to the hunting grounds. I have never
seen a grisly roped by the riders of the plains, nor a black
bear killed with the knife and hounds in the southern
canebrakes ; though at one time I had for many years a
standing invitation to witness this last feat on a plantation
in Arkansas. The friend who gave it, an old backwoods

planter, at one time lost almost all his hogs by the nu-
29

45° The Wilderness Hunter.

merous bears who infested his neighborhood. He took
a grimly humorous revenge each fall by doing his winter
killing among the bears instead of among the hogs they
had slain ; for as the cold weather approached he regu-
larly proceeded to lay in a stock of bear-bacon, scouring
the canebrakes in a series of systematic hunts, bringing
the quarry to bay with the help of a big pack of hard-
fighting mongrels, and then killing it with his long,
broad-bladed bowie.

Again, I should like to make a trial at killing peccaries
with the spear, whether on foot or on horseback, and with
or without dogs. I should like much to repeat the expe-
rience of a friend who cruised northward through Bering
Sea, shooting walrus and polar bear; and that of two
other friends who travelled with dog-sleds to the Barren
Grounds, in chase of the caribou, and of that last survivor
of the Ice Age, the strange musk-ox. Once in a while it
must be good sport to shoot alligators by torchlight in
the everglades of Florida or the bayous of Louisiana.

If the big-game hunter, the lover of the rifle, has a
taste for kindred field sports with rod and shotgun, many
are his chances for pleasure, though perhaps of a less in-
tense kind. The wild turkey really deserves a place beside
the deer ; to kill a wary old gobbler with the small-bore
rifle, by fair still-hunting, is a triumph for the best sports-
man. Swans, geese, and sandhill cranes likewise may
sometimes be killed with the rifle ; but more often all
three, save perhaps the swan, must be shot over decoys.
Then there is prairie-chicken shooting on the fertile grain
prairies of the middle West, from Minnesota to Texas ;

Hunting Lore. 45 l

and killing canvas-backs from behind blinds, with the help
of that fearless swimmer, the Chesapeake Bay dog. In
Californian mountains and valleys live the beautiful
plumed quails, and who does not know their cousin bob-
white, the bird of the farm, with his cheery voice and
friendly ways ? For pure fun, nothing can surpass a
night scramble through the woods after coon and possum.

The salmon, whether near Puget Sound or the St.
Lawrence, is the royal fish ; his only rival is the giant of the
warm Gulf waters, the silver-mailed tarpon ; while along
the Atlantic coast the great striped bass likewise yields
fine sport to the men of rod and reel. Every hunter of
the mountains and the northern woods knows the many
kinds of spotted trout ; for the black bass he cares less ;
and least of all for the sluggish pickerel, and his big brother
of the Great Lakes, the muscallonge.

Yet the sport yielded by rod and smooth-bore is really
less closely kin to the strong pleasures so beloved by the
hunter who trusts in horse and rifle than are certain other
outdoor pastimes, of the rougher and hardier kind. Such
a pastime is snow-shoeing, whether with webbed rackets,
in the vast northern forests, or with skees, on the bare
slopes of the Rockies. Such is mountaineering, especially
when joined with bold exploration of the unknown.
Most of our mountains are of rounded shape, and though
climbing them is often hard work, it is rarely difficult or
dangerous, save in bad weather, or after a snowfall. But
there are many of which this is not true ; the Tetons, for
instance, and various glacier-bearing peaks in the North-
west ; while the lofty, snow-clad ranges of British Colum-

45 2 The Wilderness Hunter.

bia and Alaska offer one of the finest fields in the world
for the daring cragsman. Mountaineering is among the
manliest of sports ; and it is to be hoped that some of
our young men with a taste for hard work and adventure
among the high hills will attempt the conquest of these
great untrodden mountains of their own continent. As
with all pioneer work, there would be far more discom-
fort and danger, far more need to display resolution, hardi-
hood, and wisdom in such an attempt than in any expedi-
tion on well known and historic ground like the Swiss
Alps ; but the victory would be a hundred-fold better
worth winning.

The dweller or sojourner in the wilderness who most
keenly loves and appreciates his wild surroundings, and
all their sights and sounds, is the man who also loves and
appreciates the books which tell of them.

Foremost of all American writers on outdoor life is
John Burroughs ; and I can scarcely suppose that any
man who cares for existence outside the cities would will-
ingly be without anything that he has ever written. To
the naturalist, to the observer and lover of nature, he is
of course worth many times more than any closet sys-
tematist ; and though he has not been very much in really
wild regions, his pages so thrill with the sights and sounds
of outdoor life that nothing by any writer who is a mere
professional scientist or a mere professional hunter can
take their place, or do more than supplement them — for
scientist and hunter alike would do well to remember that
before a book can take the highest rank in any particular
line it must also rank high in literature proper. Of

Hunting Lore. 453

course, for us Americans, Burroughs has a peculiar charm
that he cannot have for others, no matter how much they,
too, may like him ; for what he writes of is our own, and
he calls to our minds memories and associations that are
very dear. His books make us homesick when we read
them in foreign lands ; for they spring from our soil as
truly as Snowbound or The Biglow Papers?

As a woodland writer, Thoreau comes second only to
Burroughs.

For natural history in the narrower sense there are
still no better books than Audubon and Bachman's Mam-
mals and Audubon's Birds. There are also good works
by men like Coues and Bendire ; and if Hart Merriam,
of the Smithsonian, will only do for the mammals of the
United States what he has already done for those of the
Adirondacks, we shall have the best book of its kind in
existence. Nor, among less technical writings, should
one overlook such essays as those of Maurice Thompson
and Olive Thorne Miller.

There have been many American hunting-books ; but
too often they have been very worthless, even when the
writers possessed the necessary first-hand knowledge, and
the rare capacity of seeing the truth. Few of the old-

J I am under many obligations to the writings of Mr. Burroughs (though there
are one or two of his theories from which I should dissent) ; and there is a piece of
indebtedness in this very volume of which I have only just become aware. In my
chapter on the prong-buck there is a paragraph which will at once suggest to any lover
of Burroughs some sentences in his essay on " Birds and Poets." Ldid not notice the
resemblance until happening to reread the essay after my own chapter was written,
and at the time I had no idea that I was borrowing from anybody, the more so as I
was thinking purely of western wilderness life and western wilderness game, with
which I knew Mr. Burroughs had never been familiar. I have concluded to leave the
paragraph in with this acknowledgment.

454 The Wilderness Hunter.

time hunters ever tried to write of what they had seen
and done ; and of those who made the effort fewer still
succeeded. Innate refinement and the literary faculty—
that is, the faculty of writing a thoroughly interesting and
readable book, full of valuable information — may exist
in uneducated people ; but if they do not, no amount of
experience in the field can supply their lack. However,
we have had some good works on the chase and habits
of big game, such as Caton's Deer and Antelope of
America, Van Dyke's Still-Hunter, Elliott's Carolina
Sports, and Dodge's Hunting Grounds of the Great
West, besides the Century Company's Sport with Rod
and Gun. Then there is Catlin's book, and the journals
of the explorers from Lewis and Clarke down ; and occa-
sional volumes on outdoor life, such as Theodore Win-
throp's Canoe and Saddle, and Clarence King's Mountain-
eering in the Sierra Nevada.

Two or three of the great writers of American liter-
ature, notably Parkman in his Oregon Trail and, with
less interest, Irving in his Trip on the Prairies have
written with power and charm of life in the American
wilderness ; but no one has arisen to do for the far west-
ern plainsmen and Rocky Mountain trappers quite what
Hermann Melville did for the South Sea whaling folk in
Omoo and Moby Dick. The best description of these
old-time dwellers among the mountains and on the plains
is to be found in a couple of good volumes by the Eng-
lishman Ruxton. However, the backwoodsmen proper,
both in their forest homes and when they first began to
venture out on the prairie, have been portrayed by a master

Hunting Lore. 455

hand. In a succession of wonderfully drawn characters,
ranging from " Aaron Thousandacres " to " Ishmael
Bush," Fenimore Cooper has preserved for always the
likenesses of these stark pioneer settlers and backwoods
hunters ; uncouth, narrow, hard, suspicious, but with all
the virile virtues of a young and masterful race, a race of
mighty breeders, mighty fighters, mighty commonwealth
builders. As for Leatherstocking, he is one of the undy-
ing men of story ; grand, simple, kindly, pure-minded,
staunchly loyal, the type of the steel-thewed and iron-
willed hunter-warrior.

Turning from the men of fiction to the men of real life,
it is worth noting how many of the leaders among our
statesmen and soldiers have sought strength and pleasure
in the chase, or in kindred vigorous pastimes. Of course
field sports, or at least the wilder kinds, which entail the
exercise of daring, and the endurance of toil and hardship,
and which lead men afar into the forests and mountains,
stand above athletic exercises ; exactly as among the lat-
ter, rugged outdoor games, like football and lacrosse, are
much superior to mere gymnastics and calisthenics.

With a few exceptions the men among us who have
stood foremost in political leadership, like their fellows who
have led our armies, have been of stalwart frame and sound
bodily health. When they sprang from the frontier folk,
as did Lincoln and Andrew Jackson, they usually hunted
much in their youth, if only as an incident in the prolonged
warfare waged by themselves and their kinsmen against
the wild forces of nature. Old Israel Putnam's famous
wolf-killing feat comes strictly under this head. Doubtless

456 The Wilderness Hunter.

he greatly enjoyed the excitement of the adventure ; but
he went into it as a matter of business, not of sport. The
wolf, the last of its kind in his neighborhood, had taken
heavy toll of the flocks of himself and his friends ; when
they found the deep cave in which it had made its den it
readily beat off the dogs sent in to assail it ; and so Putnam
crept in himself, with his torch and his flint-lock musket,
and shot the beast where it lay.

When such men lived in long settled and thickly peopled
regions, they needs had to accommodate themselves to the
conditions and put up with humbler forms of sport. Web-
ster, like his great rival for Whig leadership, Henry Clay,
cared much for horses, dogs, and guns; but though an
outdoor man he had no chance to develop a love for big-
game hunting. He was, however, very fond of the rod and
shotgun. Mr. Cabot Lodge recently handed me a letter
written to his grandfather by Webster, and describing a
day's trout fishing. It may be worth giving for the sake
of the writer, and because of the fine heartiness and zest
in enjoyment which it shows :

SANDWICH, June 4,
Saturday mor'g

6 o'clock
DEAR SIR :

I send you eight or nine trout, which I took yesterday, in that chief
of all brooks, Mashpee. I made a long day of it, and with good success,
for me. John was with me, full of good advice, but did not fish — nor
carry a rod.

I took 26 trouts, all weighing . . . lylb. i2oz.
The largest (you have him) weighed at Crokers 2 " 4 "

The 5 largest 3 " 5 "

The eight largest 1 1 " 8 "

I got these by following your advice ; that is, by careful & thorough
fishing of the difficult places, which others do not fish. The brook is

Hunting Lore. 457

fished, nearly every day. I entered it, not so high up as we sometimes
do, between 7 & 8 o'clock, & at 12 was hardly more than half "way down
to the meeting house path. You see I did not hurry. The day did not
hold out to fish the whole brook properly. The largest trout I took at
3 P.M. (you see I am precise) below the meeting house, under a bush on
the right bank, two or three rods below the large beeches. It is singular,
that in the whole day, I did not take two trouts out of the same hole. I
found both ends, or parts of the Brook about equally productive. Small
fish not plenty, in either. So many hooks get every thing which is not
hid away in the manner large trouts take care of themselves. I hooked
one, which I suppose to be larger than any which I took, as he broke
my line, by fair pulling, after I had pulled him out of his den, & was
playing him in fair open water.

Of what I send you, I pray you keep what you wish yourself, send
three to Mr. Ticknor, & three to Dr. Warren ; or two of the larger ones,
to each will perhaps be enough — & if there be any left, there is Mr.
Callender & Mr. Blake, & Mr. Davis, either of them not " averse to fish."
Pray let Mr. Davis see them — especially the large one. — As he promised
to come, & fell back, I desire to excite his regrets. I hope you will
have the large one on your own table.

The day was fine — not another hook in the Brook. John steady as
a judge — and every thing else exactly right. I never, on the whole, had
so agreeable a day's fishing tho the result, in pounds or numbers, is
not great ; — nor ever expect such another.

Please preserve this letter • but rehearse not these particulars to the
uninitiated.

I think the Limerick not the best hook. Whether it pricks too soon,
or for what other reason, I found, or thought I found, the fish more
likely to let go his hold, from this, than from the old fashioned hook.

Yrs.
H. CABOT, Esq. D. WEBSTER.

The greatest of Americans, Washington, was very fond
of hunting, both with rifle or fowling-piece, and especially
with horse, horn, and hound. Essentially the representative
of all that is best in our national life, standing high as a
general, high as a statesman, and highest of all as a man,
he could never have been what he was had he not taken
delight in feats of hardihood, of daring, and of bodily

458 The Wilderness Hunter.

prowess. He was strongly drawn to those field sports
which demand in their follower the exercise of the manly
virtues — courage, endurance, physical address. As a young
man, clad in the distinctive garb of the backwoodsman, the
fringed and tasselled hunting-shirt, he led the life of a
frontier surveyor ; and like his fellow adventurers in wil-
derness exploration and Indian campaigning, he was often
forced to trust to the long rifle for keeping his party in
food. When at his home, at Mount Vernon, he hunted
from simple delight in the sport.

His manuscript diaries, preserved in the State Depart-
ment at Washington, are full of entries concerning his
feats in the chase ; almost all of them naturally falling in
the years between the ending of the French war and the
opening of the Revolutionary struggle against the British,
or else in the period separating his service as Command-
er-in-chief of the Continental armies from his term of
office as President of the Republic. These entries are
scattered through others dealing with his daily duties in
overseeing his farm and mill, his attendance at the Vir-
ginia House of Burgesses, his journeys, the drill of the
local militia, and all the various interests of his many-sided
life. Fond though he was of hunting, he was wholly in-
capable of the career of inanity led by those who make
sport, not a manly pastime, but the one serious business
of their lives

The entries in the diaries are short, and are couched
in the homely vigorous English, so familiar to the readers
of Washington's journals and private letters. Sometimes
they are brief jottings in reference to shooting trips ; such

Hunting Lore. 459

as : " Rid out with my gun " ; " went pheasant hunting " ;
" went ducking," and " went a gunning up the Creek." But
far more often they are : " Rid out with my hounds," " went
a fox hunting," or "went a hunting." In their perfect
simplicity and good faith they are strongly characteristic
of the man. He enters his blank days and failures as
conscientiously as his red-letter days of success ; recording
with equal care on one day, " Fox hunting with Captain
Posey — catch a Fox," and another, " Went a hunting with
Lord Fairfax . . . catched nothing."

Occasionally he began as early as August and contin-
ued until April ; and while he sometimes made but eight
or ten hunts in a season, at others he made as many in a
month. Often he hunted from Mt. Vernon, going out
once or twice a week, either alone or with a party of his
friends and neighbors ; and again he would meet with
these same neighbors at one of their houses, and devote
several days solely to the chase. The country was still
very wild, and now and then game was encountered with
which the fox-hounds proved unable to cope ; as witness
entries like: "found both a Bear and a Fox, but got
neither " ; " went a hunting . . . started a Deer & then a
Fox but got neither"; and "Went a hunting and after
trailing a fox a good while the Dogs Raized a Deer & ran
out of the Neck with it & did not some of them at least
come home till the next day." If it was a small animal, how-
ever, it was soon accounted for. " Went a Hunting . . .
catched a Rakoon but never found a Fox."

The woods were so dense and continuous that it was
often impossible for the riders to keep close to the hounds

460 The Wilderness Hunter.

throughout the run ; though in one or two of the best
covers, as the journal records, Washington " directed
paths to be cut for Fox Hunting." This thickness of the
timber made it difficult to keep the hounds always under
control ; and there are frequent allusions to their going
off on their own account, as "Joined some dogs that were
self hunting." Sometimes the hounds got so far away
that it was impossible to tell whether they had killed or
not, the journal remarking " catched nothing that we know
of," or " found a fox at the head of the blind Pocoson which
we suppose was killed in an hour but could not find it."

Another result of this density and continuity of cover
was the frequent recurrence of days of ill success. There
are many such entries as : " Went Fox hunting, but started
nothing"; "Went a hunting, but catched nothing";
"found nothing"; "found a Fox and lost it." Often
failure followed long and hard runs: "Started a Fox,
run him four hours, took the Hounds off at night";
" found a Fox and run it 6 hours and then lost " ; " Went
a hunting above Darrells . . . found a fox by two
Dogs but lost it upon joining the Pack." In the season
of 1772-73 Washington hunted eighteen days and killed
nine foxes ; and though there were seasons when he was
out much more often, this proportion of kills to runs was
if anything above the average. At the beginning of 1 768
he met with a series of blank days which might well have
daunted a less patient and persevering hunter. In Jan-
uary and the early part of February he was out nine
times without getting a thing ; but his diary does not con-
tain a word of disappointment or surprise, each successive

Hunting Lore. 461

piece of ill-luck being entered without comment, even
when one day he met some more fortunate friends "who
had just catched 2 foxes." At last, on February i2th,_he
himself " catched two foxes" ; the six or eight gentlemen
of the neighborhood who made up the field all went home
with him to Mt. Vernon, to dine and pass the night, and
in the hunt of the following day they repeated the feat of
a double score. In the next seven days' hunting he killed
four times.

The runs of course varied greatly in length ; on one
day he " found a bitch fox at Piney Branch and killed it in
an hour" ; on another he " killed a Dog fox after having
him on foot three hours & hard running an hour and a
qr." ; and on yet another he " catched a fox with a bobd
Tail & cut ears after 7 hours chase in which most of the
Dogs were worsted." Sometimes he caught his fox in
thirty-five minutes, and again he might run it nearly the
whole day in vain ; the average run seems to have been
from an hour and a half to three hours. Sometimes
the entry records merely the barren fact of the run ; at
others a few particulars are given, with homespun, telling
directness, as : " Went a hunting with Jacky Custis and
catched a Bitch Fox after three hours chace — founded it
on ye. ck. by I. Soals " ; or " went a Fox hunting with Lund
Washington — took the drag of a fox by Isaac Gates &
carrd. it tolerably well to the old Glebe then touched now
and then upon a cold scent till we came into Col. Fair-
faxes Neck where we found about half after three upon the
Hills just above Accotinck Creek — after running till quite
Dark took off the Dogs and came home."

462 The Wilderness Hunter.

The foxes were doubtless mostly of the gray kind, and
besides going to holes they treed readily. In January,
1770, he was out seven days, killing four foxes ; and two
of the entries in the journal relate to foxes which treed ;
one, on the loth, being, " I went a hunting in the Neck
and visited the plantn. there found and killed a bitch fox
after treeing it 3 t. chasg. it abt. 3 hrs.," and the other, on
the 23d : " Went a hunting after breakfast & found a Fox
at muddy hole & killed her (it being a bitch) after a
chase of better than two hours and after treeing her twice
the last of which times she fell dead out of the Tree after
being therein sevl. minutes apparently." In April, 1769,
he hunted four days, and on every occasion the fox treed.
April 7th, " Dog fox killed, ran an hour & treed twice."
April i ith, " Went a fox hunting and took a fox alive after
running him to a Tree — brot him home." April i2th,
"Chased the above fox an hour & 45 minutes when he
treed again after which we lost him." April i3th,
"Killed a dog fox after treeing him in 35 minutes."

Washington continued his fox-hunting until, in the
spring of 1 775, the guns of the minute-men in Massachusetts
called him to the command of the Revolutionary soldiery.
When the eight weary years of campaigning were over,
he said good-by to the war-worn veterans whom he had
led through defeat and disaster to ultimate triumph, and
became once more a Virginia country gentleman. Then
he took up his fox-hunting with as much zest as ever.
The entries in his journal are now rather longer, and go
more into detail than formerly. Thus, on December 1 2th,
1785, he writes that after an early breakfast he went on a

Hunting Lore. 463

hunt and found a fox at half after ten, " being first plagued
with the dogs running hogs," followed on his drag for some
time, then ran him hard for an hour, when there came a
fault ; but when four dogs which had been thrown out
rejoined the pack they put the fox up afresh, and after
fifty minutes' run killed him in an open field, " every Rider
& every Dog being present at the Death." With his
usual alternations between days like this, and days of ill-
luck, he hunted steadily every season until his term of
private life again drew to a close and he was called to the
headship of the nation he had so largely helped to found.

In a certain kind of fox-hunting lore there is much
reference to a Warwickshire squire who, when the Parlia-
mentary and Royalist armies were forming for the battle
at Edgehill, was discovered between the hostile lines,
unmovedly drawing the covers for a fox. Now, this placid
sportsman should by rights have been slain offhand by
the first trooper who reached him, whether Cavalier or
Roundhead. He had mistaken means for ends, he had
confounded the healthful play which should fit a man for
needful work with the work itself ; and mistakes of this
kind are sometimes criminal. Hardy sports of the field
offer the best possible training for war ; but they become
contemptible when indulged in while the nation is at
death-grips with her enemies.

It was not in Washington's strong nature to make such
an error. Nor yet, on the other hand, was he likely to
undervalue either the pleasure, or the real worth of out-
door sports. The qualities of heart, mind, and body,
which made him delight in the hunting-field, and which

464 The Wilderness Hunter.

he there exercised and developed, stood him in good stead
in many a long campaign and on many a stricken field ;
they helped to build that stern capacity for leadership in
war which he showed alike through the bitter woe of the
winter at Valley Forge, on the night when he ferried his
men across the half-frozen Delaware to the overthrow of
the German mercenaries at Trenton, and in the brilliant
feat of arms whereof the outcome was the decisive victory
of Yorktown.

APPENDIX.

IN this volume I have avoided repeating what was contained
in either of my former books, the Hunting Trips of a
Ranchman and Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail. For
many details of life and work in the cattle country I must
refer the reader to these two volumes ; and also for more full
accounts of the habits and methods of hunting such game as deer
and antelope. As far as I know, the description in my Ranch
Life of the habits and the chase of the mountain sheep is the
only moderately complete account thereof that has ever been
published. The five game-heads figured in this volume are
copied exactly from the originals, now in my home ; the animals
were, of course, shot by myself.

There have been many changes, both in my old hunting-
grounds and my old hunting-friends, since I first followed the
chase in the far western country. Where the buffalo and the
Indian ranged, along the Little Missouri, the branded herds of
the ranchmen now graze ; the scene of my elk-hunt at Two Ocean
Pass is now part of the National Forest Reserve ; settlers and
miners have invaded the ground where I killed bear and moose ;
and steamers ply on the lonely waters of Kootenai Lake. Of my
hunting companions some are alive ; others — among them my
staunch and valued friend, Will Dow, and crabbed, surly old
Hank Griffen — are dead ; while yet others have drifted away,
and I know not what has become of them.

I have made no effort to indicate the best kind of camp kit
for hunting, for the excellent reason that it depends so much

465

466 The Wilderness Hunter.

upon the kind of trip taken, and upon the circumstances of the
person taking it. The hunting trip may be made with a pack-
train, or with a wagon, or with a canoe, or on foot ; and the
hunter may have half a dozen attendants, or he may go abso-
lutely alone. I have myself made trips under all of these circum-
stances. At times I have gone with two or three men, several
tents, and an elaborate apparatus for cooking, cases of canned
goods, and the like. On the other hand, I have made trips on
horseback, with nothing whatsoever beyond what I had on, save
my oil-skin slicker, a metal cup, and some hardtack, tea, and salt
in the saddle pockets; and I have gone for a week or two's
journey on foot, carrying on my shoulders my blanket, a frying-
pan, some salt, a little flour, a small chunk of bacon, and a
hatchet. So it is with dress. The clothes should be stout, of a
neutral tint ; the hat should be soft, without too large a brim ; the
shoes heavy, and the soles studded with small nails, save when
moccasins or rubber-soled shoes are worn ; but within these limits
there is room for plenty of variation. Avoid, however, the so-
called deer-stalker's cap, which is an abomination ; its peaked
brim giving no protection whatsoever to the eyes when facing
the sun quartering, a position in which many shots must be taken.
In very cold regions, fur coats, caps, and mittens, and all-wool
underclothing are necessary. I dislike rubber boots when they
can possibly be avoided. In hunting in snow in the winter I use
the so-called German socks and felt overshoes where possible.
One winter I had an ermine cap made. It was very good for
peeping over the snowy ridge crests when game was on the other
side ; but, except when the entire landscape was snow-covered,
it was an unmitigated nuisance. In winter, webbed snow-shoes
are used in the thick woods, and skees in the open country.

There is an endless variety of opinion about rifles, and all
that can be said with certainty is that any good modern rifle will
do. It is the man behind the rifle that counts, after the weapon
has reached a certain stage of perfection. One of my friends

Appendix. 467

invariably uses an old Government Springfield, a 45-calibre, with
an ounce bullet. Another cares for nothing but the 40-90 Sharps',
a weapon for which I myself have much partiality. Another
uses always the old 45-calibre Sharps', and yet another the~4f-
calibre Remington. Two of the best bear and elk hunters I know
prefer the 32- and 38-calibre Marlin's, with long cartridges,
weapons with which I myself would not undertake to produce
any good results. Yet others prefer pieces of very large calibre.
The amount of it is that each one of these guns possesses some
excellence which the others lack, but which is in most cases
atoned for by some corresponding defect. Simplicity of mechan-
ism is very important, but so is rapidity of fire ; and it is hard to
get both of them developed to the highest degree in the same
piece. In the same way, flatness of trajectory, penetration, range,
shock, and accuracy are all qualities which must be attained ; but
to get one in perfection usually means the sacrifice of some of
the rest. For instance, other things being equal, the smallest
calibre has the greatest penetration, but gives the least shock ;
while a very flat trajectory, if acquired by heavy charges of pow-
der, means the sacrifice of accuracy. Similarly, solid and hollow
pointed bullets have, respectively, their merits and demerits.
There is no use of dogmatizing about weapons. Some which
prove excellent for particular countries and kinds of hunting are
useless in others.

There seems to be no doubt, judging from the testimony of
sportsmen in South Africa and in India, that very heavy calibre
double-barrelled rifles are best for use in the dense jungles and
against the thick-hided game of those regions ; but they are of
very little value with us. In 1882 one of the buffalo hunters on
the Little Missouri obtained from some Englishman a double-
barrelled ten-bore rifle of the kind used against rhinoceros, buffalo,
and elephant in the Old World ; but it proved very inferior to
the 40- and 45-calibre Sharps' buffalo guns when used under the
conditions of American buffalo hunting, the tremendous shock

468

The Wilderness Hunter.

given by the bullet not compensating for the gun's great relative
deficiency in range and accuracy, while even the penetration was
inferior at ordinary distances. It is largely also a matter of indi-
vidual taste. At one time I possessed a very expensive double-
barrelled 500 Express, by one of the crack English makers ; but
I never liked the gun, and could not do as well with it as with
my repeater, which cost barely a sixth as much. So one day I
handed it to a Scotch friend, who was manifestly ill at ease with
a Winchester exactly like my own. He took to the double-barrel
as naturally as I did to the repeater, and did excellent work with
it. Personally, I have always preferred the Winchester. I now
use a 45-90, with my old buffalo gun, a 40-90 Sharps', as spare
rifle. Both, of course, have specially tested barrels, and are
stocked and sighted to suit myself.

INDEX

Accidents to the ranch wagon, 46 ; to Beaver Dick, 182

cowboys, 427

Americans in the wilderness, 44
American, the, wilderness, I ; hunting-
books, 454

Animal, 143 ; superstition of, 145
Animals, legitimate killing of, 448
Antelope, 4, 17, 56, 62 ; enemies of, 73 ;
curiosity of, 74 ; winter haunts of, 76 ;
characteristics of, 95
Army, the regular, and hunting, 13

Bad Lands, view of the, 28

Battle ground, 112

Bauman's goblin story, 441

Bear, the black, 17 ; the grisly, 17
charged by a, 138 ; shooting a, 138
species of, 267 ; old hunters on, 266
cattle-killing by, 273 ; prey on each
other, 280

Bear (the black), where found, 255 ;
hunted with dogs, 257 ; trapping, 260 ;
feed of, 262 ; size of, 264

Bear (the grisly), 265 ; size of, 269 ; hab-
its of, 270 ; fond of fish, 281 ; food of,
282 ; haunts of, 285 ; rutting season,
286 ; cubs, 287 ; hunting with dogs,
290 ; stalking, 294 ; hunting, 296 ;
charged by, 305 ; a dangerous antago-
nist, 307 ; ways of fighting, 314

Bears, modes of hunting, 287 ; shooting
trapped, 289 ; attacks by, 327, 330 ;
lassoing, 332

Bear-trapper, danger to, 290

Big Hole Basin, climate of, 113

Bighorn, sheep, 17, 49 ; tracks of the,
103 ; of the Bad Lands, 104 ; rutting
season of, 104 ; haunts of, 104 ; re,
quirements of a hunter of the, 104 ;
stalking, 106-109 » wariness of, 109

Bison, tracking a band of, 250 ; shooting
a bull, 253

Boone, Daniel, 6

Branding cattle, 25

Bucker, a bad, 41

Buffalo Bill's cowboys, 381

Buffalo, the American, last herd of, II,
13, 14 ; vast herds of, 230 ; slaughter
of, 231 ; stampede of, 241 ; stalking,
240 ; charge of, 243 ; mountain, 247

Buffalo hunt of Elliott Roosevelt, 232

Buffaloes, Gen. W. H. Walker's experi-
ence with, 245

Burroughs, John, 452

Bull-dog flies, 1 1 5

Calf wrestlers, 26

California Joe, 319

Camp, gossip of a, 58 ; returning to, 151

Camping out, 48

Camp-kit, a good, 180

" Calling," hunting by, 218

Caribou, the woodland, 16 ; signs of the,
147 ; tracks of the, 148 ; shooting a,
150; the author's first hunt for, 152;
the habits of the, 154 ; hide of, 214

Carson, Kit, 9

469

470

Index.

Cattle, guarding of, at night, 59 ; brand-
ing of, 25 ; killing by bears, 273 ; the
pursuit of wild, 350

Cheyenne Indians, death of two, 440

Chickaree, the, 172

Chipmunk, the, 172

" Circle riding," 61

Clarke, George Rogers, 7

Clay, Col. Cecil, 220

Cock, the chaparral, 349

Columbian, the, blacktail, 53 ; haunts of,

54

Cougar, the, 17 ; difficulty in hunting,
335 ; should be hunted with dogs, 338 ;
habits of, 341, 343 ; haunts of, 342 ;
seldom attacks man, 343 ; cases of at-
tacks on man, 345 ; Trescott on, 346,

347

Cowboys, dress of, 58 ; salutation of,
58 ; general character of, 413 ; acci-
dents to, 427

Cowley, Mr., 366

Coyote, see Wolf

Crockett, Davy, 8

Crow, Clarke's, 173; Indians, 436

"Crusting," 225

«' Cut," the, 25

Deer, the whitetail, 16, 37, 50, 53 ; the
blacktail, or mule, 16, 29-31, 33, 35 ;
tracks of, 16 ; lying close, 31 ; Eu-
ropean red, 170

Desert region, 2

Dow, George, 312

Dow, Will, 168

Dugout, a night at a, 80

Eagle, the war, 70-72

Edwards, Capt. Frank, 436

Elk, venison as a diet, 175 ; the smell of,

190 ; stalking a bull elk, 191 ; hint on

shooting, 192 ; a giant, 192
Elk-hunting the most attractive of sports,

201

Elk-trails, peculiarity of, 189
Emigrant train, an, 82

Famine, a meat, 34

Fare, the, at the ranch house, 20

Farmers, the frontier, 12

Ferguson, Robert Munro, 34, 48. 83, 193

Ferret, the plains, 70

Ferris, Sylvane, 35, 48, 49

" Filemaker," jump of, 374

Fire, a prairie, 83

Fire hunting, 38

Fisher, the, 172

Fool-hen, the, see Spruce Grouse

Forest, sounds in the, 146

Fowl, sage, 112

Fox-hunting as a sport, 377

Frio, a ranch on the, 349

Frontiersmen not superstitious, 441

Game found in American wilderness, 4 ;
a comparison of, 169 ; game country,
177

Goat-herder, a Mexican, 355

Goat, the White, 17, in ; shooting a,
119, 124 ; flavor of, 125 ; modes of
hunting, 125 ; stupidity of, 126 ; ap-
pearance of, 127 ; habits of, 127 ; not
decreasing in numbers, 129 ; an easy
prey, 129 ; haunts of, 130

Goblin story, a, 441

Griffin, Hank, 206, 302

Grouse, spruce, 116 ; ruffled, 117 ; snow,
124

Hampton, Gen. Wade, a bear killer,
258, 399

Herbert, Mr. H. L., 374

Hofer, Elwood, 179, 280

Hornaday, Mr., 220, 249

Horses, driving loose, 56

Hounds, not used by early hunters, 361 ;
the greyhound, 362 ; scratch packs of,
363 ; hunting with, 364 ; Col. Wil-
liams' pack of, 367 ; Wadsworth's
hounds, 369 ; a run with, 370 ; Mead-
owbrook, 373 ; Russian wolf, 411

Houston, Gen. Sam, 8

Hunter, an old, 76, 78, 79 ; requirements
of a wilderness, 19 ; the real, 178 ;
dress, 466

Hunters', old, opinions on bears, 266

Hunting-ground, the finest, 18 ; hunting
on the Little Missouri, 18

Index,

47'

Hunting, from the ranch house, 30 ; on
foot, 31 ; with track hounds, 40 ; trip,
duration of a, 46 ; the pronghorn, 74,
8 1 ; trip to the antelope winter haunts,
77, 80 ; trip, provisions on a, 102 ;
hardships met with in, 114 ; modes of,
bears, 287 ; retrospect, 200

Indians catching eagles, 72

Jackson's, General " Red," encounter

with a grisly, 334
Javalina, see Peccary
Jones, Colonel James, 220

Kentucky, the settlement of, 6

King, Clarence, 246, 275

Kootenai Lake, 131 ; camping by, 132

Lamoche's, Baptiste, adventure with a

bear, 328

Landscape, a dreary, 56
Lark, meadow, 64, 65 ; plains, 64
"Latigo Strap," 59, 60
Lavishness of nature on the Pacific

slope, 5

Laws, game, needed, 449
Letter from an old hunter, 425
Lewis' woodpecker, 174
Little Missouri, hunting on, 18 ; wapiti

on the, 167
Lucivee, the, 171 ; food of the, 171 ;

easily killed with dogs, 171
Lynx, northern, see Lucivee

Marcy, General, 399

Maverick bulls, 26 ; lassoing of, 27

McMaster, Prof. J. Bache, 109

Meadowbrook hounds, hunting with, 373

Merriam, Dr. Hart, 264

Merrill, Dr. James C., 310

Mexican wild hog, see Peccary

Miller's fight with a bear, 320

Mocking-bird, the, 66, 68, 349

Moore, Mr. John, 348

Moose-bird, the, see Whisky- jack

Moose, the, 14 ; giant of deer, 203 ;
haunts of, 204, 214 ; fruitless hunting
of, 205 ; stalking a bull moose, 207 ;

not found in herds, 215 ; food of, 216 j
easily tamed, 216 ; bulls during the
rut, 217 ; able to defend itself, 217 ;
footprints of, 211 ; flesh of, 214 ; hide,
214 ; gait, 220 ; will attack a hunter,
221

Mountain buffalo, 247

Mountain ptarmigan, see Snow grouse

Nicknames, 424
Nightingale, the, 66
Nut-pine, northern, 190

" Old Ephraim," see Grisly bear
Old Ike, killed by a bear, 317
" Old Manitou," 102, 105
OX, the, a steer outfit, 21, 24

Pack-animals, hunters', 179 ; perversity
of, 181

Packing, skill required in, 178 ; in the
rain, 185

Pack-rats, 69

Peccary, 18 ; where found in the United
States, 348 ; unprovoked attacks by,
351 ; a band of, 357 ; how hunted,
358 ; at bay, 358 ; food of, 359

Peculiarity of elk-trails, 189

Perkins' adventure with a bear, 323

Phillips, William H., 280

Picturesque country, a, 182

Pingree killed by a moose, 229

Pitcher, Lieutenant John, 435, 439

Plains country, the, 2

Plains, the, weather of, 90

Porcupine, the, 172

Prindle, Old Man, 401 ; his hounds, 401

Prong-bucks in rutting season, 94

Pronghorn, see Antelope

Rabbits, snow-shoe, 190
Ranch house, the, shut up, 51
Ranch life during the fall months, 20
Riding, cross-country, 377 ; of cowboys,

383 ; of Australians, 382
Rockhill, Mr., 271
Rogers, Archibald, 309 ; E. P., 220

472

Index.

Roosevelt's, Elliott, buffalo hunt, 232;

his diary, 233

Roosevelt, West, 35 ; John, 232
Round-up, the, starting for, 22 ; at work,

24, 43, 100 ; loss of sleep at, 55
Rutting, the, season, 30, 94

Unsportsmanlike killing of deer, 37
Upper Geyser Basin, 200

Valley, a lovely, 103
Venison of elk as a diet, 175
Visitor at the ranch, a, 43

Sage, Mr. A. J., 382

Sage fowl, 112

Settling of the West, 12

Sheep, bighorn, see Bighorn

Shapes taken by American wilderness,

1-3
Shooting, poor, 36 ; running game, 42 ;

a caribou, 150 ; hints on, 192
Shoshone Indians, hunting-party of, 194 ;

their method of hunting, 195
Silver thaw, a, 155
Sioux, a fight with, 431
Slough, stuck in a, 112
Snow-shoes, hunting on, 225 ; two kinds

used, 226

Soldiery of the backwoods, 7
Sounds, in the wilderness, 68, 69 ; in the

forest, 146
Stalking, antelope, 62, 63 ; the bighorn,

106-109 ; a bull elk, 191 ; buffalo, 240
Stalk, an early, 165
Stampede of buffalo, 241
Start for a hunt, the, 40
Striking camp in bad weather, 199
Stump, Judge Yancy, 401 ; his hounds,

401
Sword-Bearer, the Crow medicine chief,

436

Tale of western life, a, 420

Tepee or wigwam of an old hunter, 77 ;

a tepee, 179

Tompkins, Old Man, 47, 168
** Town," a new western, 418
Track-hounds, 40
Trappers, the early, 10
Travelling, difficult, 113, 119, 134, 157
Trout, an abundance of, 175
Two-Ocean Pass, 186

Wadsworth, Mr. Austin, 369

Walker, General W. H., and the

buffaloes, 245
Wapiti (bull), habits of, 162 ; cowardice

of, 163 ; fight between two, 159
Wapiti, the, 4, 15 ; Pugnacity of, 161 ;

ways of fighting, 163 ; the "whistling"

of the, 164 ; gait of, 167 ; on the Little

Missouri, 167 ; antlers of the, 170 ;

noblest of his kind, 202
Washington as a sportsman, 457
Water-ousel, 135
Water-shrew, capture of a, 136
Water-wren, the 174
Waters, Wilbur, 257
Whisky-jack, the, 175
Whitney, Caspar W., 323
Wildcat, the, often hunted with hounds,

171

Wilderness, the American, i
Williams, Colonel Roger D., 366, 410
Willis, John, in, 131, 156
Wolfers, the, 388
Wolf, the, 17 ; where found in United

States, 386, 389 ; varieties of, 386 ;

colors of, 387 ; wholesale killing of,

388 ; scarcity of, 388 ; difficult to hunt,

389 ; size of, 391 ; attacks cattle, 392 ;
cunning of, 394 ; food of, 395 ; rarely
attacks man, 397 ; should be hunted
with dogs, 398 ; hunting the, 402 ;
killed by hounds, 407

Wolverine Pass, 195

Wood buffalo, 247

Woods on fire, the, 133

Woody, Tazewell, no, 179, 187, 196,

3", 431
Wranglers, night- and day-, 23, 58

"Yard, "a, 223

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