1 68 The Elk of the Pacific Coast 



the great expanse were about as swift of foot and 

 even more wild. 



But the miners soon created a demand for meat, 

 and travelling bands of explorers also murdered 

 everything in sight much as the white man always 

 does. Even the great novelist Dumas turned 

 market hunter as soon as he landed here in 1849, 

 and one of his first performances was to kill an 

 elk in the Sacramento Valley, on whose wide 

 plains bands were roaming the same as cattle. 



It was but a short time before the newcomers 

 began to make great corrals with wings of miles 

 in length, into which they drove wild cattle and 

 horses, for there were thousands that had never 

 felt the branding iron and no one claimed. Along 

 with them went antelope and elk in great numbers, 

 and their fate was the same. Some of the meat was 

 sold fresh and some dried, but waste and destruc- 

 tion was the rule ; and the big bands of elk began 

 to seek the cover of the great tule marshes along 

 the streams and lagoons. The tule is a spongy, 

 round reed, some fifteen feet long, growing from 

 shallow water, and so dense that half a dozen 

 stalks to the square foot, an inch to an inch and 

 a half in diameter, are common. Back of this, on 

 the dryer ground, are cattails and flag, very rank 

 and tall, so that the whole is about equal to the 

 heaviest canebrake, though not quite as stiff in the 

 individual stalk. Most of the lakes and sloughs 



