American Big Game in Its Haunts | Page 9

thousand head.
Most of the bands were above the snow line--some appearing away
back toward the ridge crests, and looking as small as mice. There was
one band well below the snow line, and toward this we rode. While the
elk were not shy or wary, in the sense that a hunter would use the
words, they were by no means as familiar as the deer; and this
particular band of elk, some twenty or thirty in all, watched us with
interest as we approached. When we were still half a mile off they
suddenly started to run toward us, evidently frightened by something.
They ran quartering, and when about four hundred yards away we saw
that an eagle was after them. Soon it swooped, and a yearling in the
rear, weakly, and probably frightened by the swoop, turned a complete
somersault, and when it recovered its feet, stood still. The great bird
followed the rest of the band across a little ridge, beyond which they
disappeared. Then it returned, soaring high in the heavens, and after
two or three wide circles, swooped down at the solitary yearling, its
legs hanging down. We halted at two hundred yards to see the end. But
the eagle could not quite make up its mind to attack. Twice it hovered
within a foot or two of the yearling's head--again flew off and again
returned. Finally the yearling trotted off after the rest of the band, and
the eagle returned to the upper air. Later we found the carcass of a
yearling, with two eagles, not to mention ravens and magpies, feeding

on it; but I could not tell whether they had themselves killed the
yearling or not.
Here and there in the region where the elk were abundant we came
upon horses which for some reason had been left out through the winter.
They were much wilder than the elk. Evidently the Yellowstone Park is
a natural nursery and breeding ground of the elk, which here, as said
above, far outnumber all the other game put together. In the winter, if
they cannot get to open water, they eat snow; but in several places
where there had been springs which kept open all winter, we could see
by the tracks they had been regularly used by bands of elk. The men
working at the new road along the face of the cliffs beside the
Yellowstone River near Tower Falls informed me that in October
enormous droves of elk coming from the interior of the Park and
traveling northward to the lower lands had crossed the Yellowstone just
above Tower Falls. Judging by their description the elk had crossed by
thousands in an uninterrupted stream, the passage taking many hours.
In fact nowadays these Yellowstone elk are, with the exception of the
Arctic caribou, the only American game which at times travel in
immense droves like the buffalo of the old days.
A couple of days after leaving Cottonwood Creek--where we had spent
several days--we camped at the Yellowstone Canon below Tower Falls.
Here we saw a second band of mountain sheep, numbering only
eight--none of them old rams. We were camped on the west side of the
canon; the sheep had their abode on the opposite side, where they had
spent the winter. It has recently been customary among some
authorities, especially the English hunters and naturalists who have
written of the Asiatic sheep, to speak as if sheep were naturally
creatures of the plains rather than mountain climbers. I know nothing of
old world sheep, but the Rocky Mountain bighorn is to the full as
characteristic a mountain animal, in every sense of the word, as the
chamois, and, I think, as the ibex. These sheep were well known to the
road builders, who had spent the winter in the locality. They told me
they never went back on the plains, but throughout the winter had spent
their days and nights on the top of the cliff and along its face. This cliff
was an alternation of sheer precipices and very steep inclines. When
coated with ice it would be difficult to imagine an uglier bit of climbing;
but throughout the winter, and even in the wildest storms, the sheep had

habitually gone down it to drink at the water below. When we first saw
them they were lying sunning themselves on the edge of the canyon,
where the rolling grassy country behind it broke off into the sheer
descent. It was mid-afternoon and they were under some pines. After a
while they got up and began to graze, and soon hopped unconcernedly
down the side of the cliff until they were half way to the bottom. They
then grazed along the sides, and spent some time licking at a place
where there was