Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 295 



I ever known of a hunter being regularly charged 

 by one of these great deer. He had struck a band 

 of elk and wounded an old bull, which, after going 

 a couple of miles, received another ball and then 

 separated from the rest of the herd and took refuge 

 in a dense patch of small timber. The hunter went 

 in on its trail and came upon it lying down; it 

 jumped to its feet and, with hair all bristling, made 

 a regular charge upon its pursuer, who leaped out 

 of the way behind a tree just in time to avoid it. 

 It crashed past through the undergrowth without 

 turning, and he killed it with a third and last shot. 

 But this was a very exceptional case, and in most 

 instances the elk submits to death with hardly an 

 effort at resistance; it is by no means as dangerous 

 an antagonist as is a bull moose. 



The elk is unfortunately one of those animals 

 seemingly doomed to total destruction at no distant 

 date. Already its range has shrunk to far less than 

 one-half its former size. Originally it was found 

 as far as the Atlantic sea-board; I have myself 

 known of several sets of antlers preserved in the 

 house of a Long Island gentleman, whose ancestors 

 had killed the bearers shortly after the first settle 

 ment of New York. Even so late as the first years 

 of this century elk were found in many mountain 

 ous and densely wooded places east of the Missis 

 sippi; in New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ken 

 tucky, Tennessee, and all of what were then the 

 Northwestern States and Territories. The last in 

 dividual of the race was killed in the Adirondacks 



