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 



