Wild Animals at Home Part 6

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

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

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

for givin' the facts, that's away ahead of any photograph I ever seen."

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

SNAPPING A CHARGING BULL

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE HOODOO COW

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

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

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

About 10:30, when several miles farther in the wilderness, we sighted a cow Elk standing in a meadow with a Coyote sneaking around about one hundred yards away. "That's my Elk," I said, and we swung under cover.

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: XV. The first shots at the Hoodoo Cow _Photos by E. T. Seton_]

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

"Now," I said, "let's go and talk to her." We walked up to within ten yards. The Elk did not move, so I said: "Well, Bossie, you have callers.

Won't you please look this way?" She did so and I secured shot No. 7, Plate XVI.

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

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

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

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: XVI. The last shots at the Hoodoo Cow _Photos by E. T. Seton_]

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE MOOSE, THE BIGGEST OF ALL DEER

The Moose is one of the fine animals that have responded magnificently to protection in Canada, Maine, Minnesota, and the Yellowstone Park.

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

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

MY PARTNER'S MOOSE-HUNT

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

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

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: XVII. Elk on the Yellowstone: (a) In Billings Park; (b) Wild Cow Elk

_Photos by E. T. Seton_]

THE SIREN CALL