154 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



The bucks do not seem to know that they can fight without 

 their antlers, and so the tables are completely turned. This 

 continues until the new horns grow out, the velvet dries and is 

 rubbed off, — and then quickly the tables are turned again. 



No other deer species of my personal acquaintance has ever 

 equaled the American elk of Wyoming in recognizing man's 

 protection and accepting his help in evil times. It is not only 

 a few wise ones, or a few half-domestic bands, but vast wild 

 herds of thousands that every winter rush to secure man's hay 

 in the Jackson Hole country, south of the Yellowstone Park. 

 No matter how shy they all are in the October hunting season, 

 in the bad days of January and February they know that the 

 annual armistice is on, and it means hay for them instead of 

 bullets. They swarm in the level Jackson Valley, around S. 

 N. Leek's famous ranch and others, until you can see a square 

 mile of solid gray-yellow living elk bodies. Mr. Leek once 

 caught about 2,500 head in one photograph, all hungry. They 

 crowd around the hay sleds like hungry horses. In their 

 greatest hunger they attack the ranchmen's haystacks, just as 

 far as the stout and high log fences will permit them to go, and 

 many a kind-hearted ranchman has robbed his own haystacks 

 to save the lives of starving and despairing elk. 



The Yellowstone Park elk know the annual shooting and 

 feeding seasons just as thoroughly as do the men of Jackson 

 Hole. 



Once there was a bold and hardy western man who trained 

 a bunch of elk to dive from a forty-foot high platform into a 

 pool of water. I say that he "trained" them, because it 

 really was that. The animals quickly learned that the plunge 

 did nothing more than to shock and wet them, and so they 

 submitted to the part they had to play, with commendable 

 resignation. Some deer would have fought the program every 

 step of the way, and soon worn themselves out; but elk, and 

 also horses, learn that the diving performance is all in the day's 

 work; which to me seems like good logic. A few persons believe 



