192 The Wilderness Hunter 



ing away the young bulls who venture to pay court 

 to the cows. He has hardly time to eat or sleep, 

 and soon becomes gaunt and worn to a degree. At 

 the close of the rut many of the bulls become so 

 emaciated that they retire to some secluded spot to 

 recuperate. They are so weak that they readily suc- 

 cumb to the elements, or to their brute foes; many 

 die from sheer exhaustion. 



The battles between the bulls rarely result fatally. 

 After a longer or shorter period of charging, push- 

 ing, and struggling the heavier or more enduring 

 of the two begins to shove his weaker antagonist 

 back and round; and the latter then watches his 

 chance and bolts, hotly, but as a rule harmlessly, 

 pursued for a few hundred yards. The massive 

 branching antlers serve as effective guards against 

 the most wicked thrusts. While the antagonists are 

 head on, the worst that can happen is a punch on 

 the shoulder which will not break the thick hide, 

 though it may bruise the flesh underneath. It is 

 only when a beast is caught while turning that there 

 is a chance to deliver a possibly deadly stab in the 

 flank, with the brow prongs, the "dog-killers" as 

 they are called in bucks. Sometimes, but rarely, 

 fighting wapiti get their antlers interlocked and 

 perish miserably; my own ranch, the Elkhorn, was 

 named from finding on the spot where the ranch 

 house now stands two splendid pairs of elk antlers 

 thus interlocked. 



