American Big Game in Its Haunts - Various
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[Illustration: MOUNTAIN SHEEP.]
Soon after leaving them we began to come across black-tail deer, singly,
in twos and threes, and in small bunches of a dozen or so. They were
almost as tame as the mountain sheep, but not quite. That is, they
always looked alertly at me, and though if I stayed still they would
graze, they kept a watch over my movements and usually moved slowly off
when I got within less than forty yards of them. Up to that distance,
whether on foot or on horseback, they paid but little heed to me, and on
several occasions they allowed me to come much closer. Like the bighorn,
the black-tails at this time were grazing, not browsing; but I
occasionally saw them nibble some willow buds. During the winter they
had been browsing. As we got close to the Hot Springs we came across
several white-tail in an open, marshy meadow.
They were not quite as tame as the black-tail, although without any
difficulty I walked up to within fifty yards of them. Handsome though
the black-tail is, the white-tail is the most beautiful of all deer when
in motion, because of the springy, bounding grace of its trot and
canter, and the way it carries its head and white flag aloft.
Before reaching the Mammoth Hot Springs we also saw a number of ducks in
the little pools and on the Gardiner. Some of them were rather shy.
Others--probably those which, as Major Pitcher informed me, had spent
the winter there--were as tame as barnyard fowls.
[Illustration: DEER ON THE PARADE GROUND.]
Just before reaching the post the Major took me into the big field where
Buffalo Jones had some Texas and Flat Head Lake buffalo--bulls and
cows--which he was tending with solicitous care. The original stock of
buffalo in the Park have now been reduced to fifteen or twenty
individuals, and the intention is to try to mix them with the score of
buffalo which have been purchased out of the Flat Head Lake and Texas
Panhandle herds. The buffalo were put within a wire fence, which, when
it was built, was found to have included both black-tail and white-tail
deer. A bull elk was also put in with them at one time--he having met
with some accident which made the Major and Buffalo Jones bring him in
to doctor him. When he recovered his health he became very cross. Not
only would he attack men, but also buffalo, even the old and surly
master bull, thumping them savagely with his antlers if they did
anything to which he objected. When I reached the post and dismounted
at the Major's house, I supposed my experiences with wild beasts for the
day were ended; but this was an error. The quarters of the officers and
men and the various hotel buildings, stables, residences of the civilian
officials, etc., almost completely surround the big parade ground at the
post, near the middle of which stands the flag-pole, while the gun used
for morning and evening salutes is well off to one side. There are large
gaps between some of the buildings, and Major Pitcher informed me that
throughout the winter he had been leaving alfalfa on the parade grounds,
and that numbers of black-tail deer had been in the habit of visiting it
every day, sometimes as many as seventy being on the parade ground at
once. As springtime came on the numbers diminished. However, in
mid-afternoon, while I was writing in my room in Major Pitcher's house,
on looking out of the window I saw five deer on the parade ground. They
were as tame as so many Alderney cows, and when I walked out I got up to
within twenty yards of them without any difficulty. It was most amusing
to see them as the time approached for the sunset gun to be fired. The
notes of the trumpeter attracted their attention at once. They all
looked at him eagerly. One then resumed feeding, and paid no attention
whatever either to the bugle, the gun or the flag. The other four,
however, watched the preparations for firing the gun with an intent
gaze, and at the sound of the report gave two or three jumps; then
instantly wheeling, looked up at the flag as it came down. This they
seemed to regard as something rather more suspicious than the gun, and
they remained very much on the alert until the ceremony was over. Once
it was finished, they resumed feeding as if nothing had happened. Before
it was dark they trotted away from the parade ground back to the
mountains.
The next day we rode off to the Yellowstone River, camping some miles
below Cottonwood Creek. It was a very pleasant camp. Major Pitcher, an
old friend, had a first-class pack train, so that we were as comfortable
as possible, and on such a trip there could be no pleasanter or more
interesting companion than John Burroughs--"Oom John," as we soon grew
to call him. Where our tents were pitched the bottom of the valley was
narrow, the mountains rising steep and cliff-broken on either
side. There were quite a number of black-tail in the valley, which were
tame and unsuspicious, although not nearly as much so as those in the
immediate neighborhood of the Mammoth Hot Springs. One mid-afternoon
three of them swam across the river a hundred yards above our camp. But
the characteristic animals of the region were the elk--the wapiti. They
were certainly more numerous than when I was last through the Park
twelve years before.
[Illustration: WHISKEY JACKS.]
In the summer the elk spread all over the interior of the Park. As
winter approaches they divide, some going north and others south. The
southern bands, which, at a guess, may possibly include ten thousand
individuals, winter out of the Park, for the most part in Jackson's
Hole--though of course here and there within the limits of the Park a
few elk may spend both winter and summer in an unusually favorable
location. It was the members of 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 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 evidently a mineral deposit. Before dark they all lay down
again on a steeply inclined jutting spur midway between the top and
bottom of the canyon.
[Illustration: MOUNTAIN SHEEP AT CLOSE QUARTERS.]
Next morning I thought I would like to see them close up, so I walked
down three or four miles below where the canyon ended, crossed the
stream, and came up the other side until I got on what was literally the
stamping ground of the sheep. Their tracks showed that they had spent
their time for many weeks, and probably for all the winter, within a
very narrow radius. For perhaps a mile and a half, or two miles at the
very outside, they had wandered to and fro on the summit of the canyon,
making what was almost a well-beaten path; always very near and usually
on the edge of the cliff, and hardly ever going more than a few yards
back into the grassy plain-and-hill country. Their tracks and dung
covered the ground. They had also evidently descended into the depths of
the canon wherever there was the slightest break or even lowering in the
upper line of basalt cliffs. Although mountain sheep often browse in
winter, I saw but few traces of browsing here; probably on the sheer
cliff side they always got some grazing. When I spied the band they
were lying not far from the spot in which they had lain the day before,
and in the same position on the brink of the canon. They saw me and
watched me with interest when I was two hundred yards off, but they let
me get up within forty yards and sit down on a large stone to look at
them, without running off. Most of them were lying down, but a couple
were feeding steadily throughout the time I watched them. Suddenly one
took the alarm and dashed straight over the cliff, the others all
following at once. I ran after them to the edge in time to see the last
yearling drop off the edge of the basalt cliff and stop short on the
sheer slope below, while the stones dislodged by his hoofs rattled down
the canon. They all looked up at me with great interest and then
strolled off to the edge of a jutting spur and lay down almost directly
underneath me and some fifty yards off. That evening on my return to
camp we watched the band make its way right down to the river bed, going
over places where it did not seem possible a four-footed creature could
pass. They halted to graze here and there, and down the worst places
they went very fast with great bounds. It was a marvelous exhibition of
climbing.
After we had finished this horseback trip we went on sleds and skis to
the upper Geyser Basin and the Falls of the Yellowstone. Although it was
the third week in April, the snow was still several feet deep, and only
thoroughly trained snow horses could have taken the sleighs along, while
around the Yellowstone Falls it was possible to move only on
snowshoes. There was very little life in those woods. We saw an
occasional squirrel, rabbit or marten; and in the open meadows around
the hot waters there were geese and ducks, and now and then a
coyote. Around camp Clark's crows and Stellar's jays, and occasionally
magpies came to pick at the refuse; and of course they were accompanied
by the whiskey acks with their usual astounding familiarity. At Norris
Geyser Basin there was a perfect chorus of bird music from robins,
purple finches, uncos and mountain bluebirds. In the woods there were
mountain chickadees and nuthatches of various kinds, together with an
occasional woodpecker. In the northern country we had come across a very
few blue grouse and ruffed grouse, both as tame as possible. We had seen
a pigmy owl no larger than a robin sitting on top of a pine in broad
daylight, and uttering at short intervals a queer un-owllike cry.
[Illustration: MAGPIES.]
The birds that interested us most were the solitaires, and especially
the dippers or water-ousels. We were fortunate enough to hear the
solitaires sing not only when perched on trees, but on the wing, soaring
over a great canon. The dippers are to my mind well-nigh the most
attractive of all our birds. They stay through the winter in the
Yellowstone because the waters are in many places open. We heard them
singing cheerfully, their ringing melody having a certain suggestion of
the winter wren's. Usually they sang while perched on some rock on the
edge or in the middle of the stream; but sometimes on the wing. In the
open places the western meadow larks were also uttering their singular
beautiful songs. No bird escaped John Burroughs' eye; no bird note
escaped his ear.
On the last day of my stay it was arranged that I should ride down from
Mammoth Hot Springs to the town of Gardiner, just outside the Park
limits, and there make an address at the laying of the corner stone of
the arch by which the main road is to enter the Park. Some three
thousand people had gathered to attend the ceremonies. A little over a
mile from Gardiner we came down out of the hills to the flat plain; from
the hills we could see the crowd gathered around the arch waiting for me
to come. We put spurs to our horses and cantered rapidly toward the
appointed place, and on the way we passed within forty yards of a score
of black-tails, which merely moved to one side and looked at us, and
within a hundred yards of half a dozen antelope. To any lover of nature
it could not help being a delightful thing to see the wild and timid
creatures of the wilderness rendered so tame; and their tameness in the
immediate neighborhood of Gardiner, on the very edge of the Park, spoke
volumes for the patriotic good sense of the citizens of Montana. Major
Pitcher informed me that both the Montana and Wyoming people were
co-operating with him in zealous fashion to preserve the game and put a
stop to poaching. For their attitude in this regard they deserve the
cordial thanks of all Americans interested in these great popular
playgrounds, where bits of the old wilderness scenery and the old
wilderness life are to be kept unspoiled for the benefit of our
children's children. Eastern people, and especially eastern sportsmen,
need to keep steadily in mind the fact that the westerners who live in
the neighborhood of the forest preserves are the men who in the last
resort will determine whether or not these preserves are to be
permanent. They cannot in the long run be kept as forest and game
reservations unless the settlers roundabout believe in them and heartily
support them; and the rights of these settlers must be carefully
safeguarded, and they must be shown that the movement is really in their
interest. The eastern sportsman who fails to recognize these facts can
do little but harm by advocacy of forest reserves.
[Illustration: A SILHOUETTE OF BLACKTAIL.]
It was in the interior of the Park, at the hotels beside the lake, the
falls, and the various geyser basins, that we would have seen the bears
had the season been late enough; but unfortunately the bears were still
for the most part hibernating. We saw two or three tracks, and found one
place where a bear had been feeding on a dead elk, but the animals
themselves had not yet begun to come about the hotels. Nor were the
hotels open. No visitors had previously entered the Park in the winter
or early spring--the scouts and other employees being the only ones who
occasionally traverse it. I was sorry not to see the bears, for the
effect of protection upon bear life in the Yellowstone has been one of
the phenomena of natural history. Not only have they grown to realize
that they are safe, but, being natural scavengers and foul feeders, they
have come to recognize the garbage heaps of the hotels as their special
sources of food supply. Throughout the summer months they come to all
the hotels in numbers, usually appearing in the late afternoon or
evening, and they have become as indifferent to the presence of men as
the deer themselves--some of them very much more indifferent. They have
now taken their place among the recognized sights of the Park, and the
tourists are nearly as much interested in them as in the geysers.
[Illustration: BLACK BEARS AT HOTEL GARBAGE HEAP.]
It was amusing to read the proclamations addressed to the tourists by
the Park management, in which they were solemnly warned that the bears
were really wild animals, and that they must on no account be either fed
or teased. It is curious to think that the descendants of the great
grizzlies which were the dread of the early explorers and hunters should
now be semi-domesticated creatures, boldly hanging around crowded hotels
for the sake of what they can pick up, and quite harmless so long as any
reasonable precaution is exercised. They are much safer, for instance,
than any ordinary bull or stallion, or even ram, and, in fact, there is
no danger from them at all unless they are encouraged to grow too
familiar or are in some way molested. Of course among the thousands of
tourists there is a percentage of thoughtless and foolish people; and
when such people go out in the afternoon to look at the bears feeding
they occasionally bring themselves into jeopardy by some senseless
act. The black bears and the cubs of the bigger bears can readily be
driven up trees, and some of the tourists occasionally do this. Most of
the animals never think of resenting it; but now and then one is run
across which has its feelings ruffled by the performance. In the summer
of 1902 the result proved disastrous to a too inquisitive tourist. He
was traveling with his wife, and at one of the hotels they went out
toward the garbage pile to see the bears feeding. The only bear in sight
was a large she, which, as it turned out, was in a bad temper because
another party of tourists a few minutes before had been chasing her cubs
up a tree. The man left his wife and walked toward the bear to see how
close he could get. When he was some distance off she charged him,
whereupon he bolted back toward his wife. The bear overtook him, knocked
him down and bit him severely. But the man's wife, without hesitation,
attacked the bear with that thoroughly feminine weapon, an umbrella, and
frightened her off. The man spent several weeks in the Park hospital
before he recovered. Perhaps the following telegram sent by the manager
of the Lake Hotel to Major Pitcher illustrates with sufficient clearness
the mutual relations of the bears, the tourists, and the guardians of
the public weal in the Park. The original was sent me by Major
Pitcher. It runs:
"Lake. 7-27-'03. Major Pitcher, Yellowstone: As many as seventeen bears
in an evening appear on my garbage dump. To-night eight or ten. Campers
and people not of my hotel throw things at them to make them run away. I
cannot, unless there personally, control this. Do you think you could
detail a trooper to be there every evening from say six o'clock until
dark and make people remain behind danger line laid out by Warden Jones?
Otherwise I fear some accident. The arrest of one or two of these
campers might help. My own guests do pretty well as they are told.
James Barton Key. 9 A.M."