1 62 The Wilderness Hunter. 



it is ordinarily a dangerous beast to hunt ; yet there are 

 instances in which wounded wapiti, incautiously approached 

 to within striking distance, have severely misused their 

 assailants, both with their antlers and their forefeet. I 

 myself knew one man who had been badly mauled in this 

 fashion. When tamed the bulls are dangerous to human 

 life in the rutting season. In a grapple they are of course 

 infinitely more to be dreaded than ordinary deer, because 

 of their great strength. 



However, the fiercest wapiti bull, when in a wild state, 

 flees the neighborhood of man with the same panic terror 

 shown by the cows ; and he makes no stand against a 

 grisly, though when his horns are grown he has little fear 

 of either wolf or cougar if on his guard and attacked fairly. 

 The chief battles of the bulls are of course waged with one 

 another. Before the beginning of the rut they keep by 

 themselves : singly, while the sprouting horns are still very 

 young, at which time they lie in secluded spots and move 

 about as little as possible ; in large bands, later in the 

 season. At the beginning of the fall these bands join with 

 one another and with the bands of cows and calves, which 

 have likewise been keeping to themselves during the late 

 winter, the spring, and the summer. Vast herds are thus 

 sometimes formed, containing, in the old days when wapiti 

 were plenty, thousands of head. The bulls now begin to 

 fight furiously with one another, and the great herd be- 

 comes split into smaller ones. Each of these has one 

 master bull, who has won his position by savage battle, 

 and keeps it by overcoming every rival, whether a solitary 

 bull, or the lord of another harem, who challenges him. 



