Still-Hunting Elk on the Mountain 297 



will always make a meal off one if he gets a chance ; 

 and against his ponderous weight and savage 

 prowess hoofs and antlers avail but little. Still he 

 is too clumsy and easily avoided ever to do very 

 much damage in the herds. Cougars, where they 

 exist, work more havoc. A bull elk in rutting sea- 

 son, if on his guard, would with ease beat off a 

 cougar; but the sly, cunning cat takes its quarry 

 unawares, and once the cruel fangs are fastened in 

 the game's throat or neck, no plunging or struggling 

 can shake it off. The gray timber wolves also join 

 in twos and threes to hunt down and hamstring 

 the elk, if other game is scarce. But these great 

 deer can hold their own and make head against 

 all their brute foes; it is only when pitted against 

 Man the Destroyer that they succumb in the 

 struggle for life. 



I have never shot any elk in the immediate neigh- 

 borhood of where my cattle range; but I have had 

 very good sport with them in a still wilder and more 

 western region ; and this I will now describe. 



During last summer we found it necessary to 

 leave my ranch on the Little Missouri and take 

 quite a long trip through the cattle country of 

 southeastern Montana and northern Wyoming; 

 and, having come to the foot of the Bighorn Moun- 

 tains, we took a fortnight's hunt through them after 

 elk and bear. 



We went into the mountains with a pack train, 

 leaving the ranch wagon at the place where we 

 began to go up the first steep rise. There were 



