American Big Game in Its Haunts | Page 8

the northern band that I met. During
the winter time they are very stationary, each band staying within a
very few miles of the same place, and from their size and the open
nature of their habitat it is almost as easy to count them as if they were
cattle. From a spur of Bison Peak one day, Major Pitcher, the guide
Elwood Hofer, John Burroughs and I spent about four hours with the
glasses counting and estimating the different herds within sight. After
most careful work and cautious reduction of estimates in each case to
the minimum the truth would permit, we reckoned three thousand head
of elk, all lying or feeding and all in sight at the same time. An estimate
of some fifteen thousand for the number of elk in these northern bands
cannot be far wrong. These bands do not go out of the Park at all, but
winter just within its northern boundary. At the time when we saw

them, the snow had vanished from the bottom of the valleys and the
lower slopes of the mountains, but grew into continuous sheets further
up their sides. The elk were for the most part found up on the snow
slopes, occasionally singly or in small gangs--more often in bands of
from fifty to a couple of hundred. The larger bulls were highest up the
mountains and generally in small troops by themselves, although
occasionally one or two would be found associating with a big herd of
cows, yearlings, and two-year-olds. Many of the bulls had shed their
antlers; many had not. During the winter the elk had evidently done
much browsing, but at this time they were grazing almost exclusively,
and seemed by preference to seek out the patches of old grass which
were last left bare by the retreating snow. The bands moved about very
little, and if one were seen one day it was generally possible to find it
within a few hundred yards of the same spot the next day, and certainly
not more than a mile or two off. There were severe frosts at night, and
occasionally light flurries of snow; but the hardy beasts evidently cared
nothing for any but heavy storms, and seemed to prefer to lie in the
snow rather than upon the open ground. They fed at irregular hours
throughout the day, just like cattle; one band might be lying down
while another was feeding. While traveling they usually went almost in
single file. Evidently the winter had weakened them, and they were not
in condition for running; for on the one or two occasions when I
wanted to see them close up I ran right into them on horseback, both on
level plains and going up hill along the sides of rather steep mountains.
One band in particular I practically rounded up for John
Burroughs--finally getting them to stand in a huddle while he and I sat
on our horses less than fifty yards off. After they had run a little
distance they opened their mouths wide and showed evident signs of
distress.
[Illustration: WAPITI IN DEEP SNOW.]
We came across a good many carcasses. Two, a bull and a cow, had
died from scab. Over half the remainder had evidently perished from
cold or starvation. The others, including a bull, three cows and a score
of yearlings, had been killed by cougars. In the Park the cougar is at
present their only animal foe. The cougars were preying on nothing but
elk in the Yellowstone Valley, and kept hanging about the
neighborhood of the big bands. Evidently they usually selected some

outlying yearling, stalked it as it lay or as it fed, and seized it by the
head and throat. The bull which they killed was in a little open valley
by himself, many miles from any other elk. The cougar which killed it,
judging from its tracks, was a very large male. As the elk were
evidently rather too numerous for the feed, I do not think the cougars
were doing any damage.
[Illustration: OLD EPHRAIM.]
Coyotes are plentiful, but the elk evidently have no dread of them. One
day I crawled up to within fifty yards of a band of elk lying down. A
coyote was walking about among them, and beyond an occasional look
they paid no heed to him. He did not venture to go within fifteen or
twenty paces of any one of them. In fact, except the cougar, I saw but
one living thing attempt to molest the elk. This was a golden eagle. We
saw several of these great birds. On one occasion we had ridden out to
the foot of a great sloping mountain side, dotted over with bands and
strings of elk amounting in the aggregate probably to a