ELK, WAPITI. 73 



of a band before the rest can get out of reach. It is a melancholy 

 sight to see as we have seen in a morning's march, half a dozen 

 fresh doe antelope carcasses stripped of their skins, with the milk 

 still trickling from their udders ; and it is sad to think that in ad- 

 cition two little kids must starve for each of these. 

 \ Mountain sheep and moose do not suffer to any considerable 

 extent from these skin hunters. They are too wary to be success- 

 fully pursued by these men, many of whom are vagabonds of the 

 most worthless description. There are some good hunters and 

 good fellows among them ; men who would gladly relinquish the 

 business could it be wholly stopped, but who think and say that 

 if the game is to be exterminated, they must make the most of it 

 while it lasts. Taken as a whole, however, they are a miserable 

 set, and many of them do not kill more than enough to keep them- 

 selves in provisions and ammunition from month to month. 



This skin hunting is quite a new thing in the territory, having 

 been initiated, as has been said, only three or four years ago. In 

 1872 or '73 a firm of Fort Benton traders, who have since achieved 

 an unenviable notoriety by selling arms and ammunition to the 

 hostile Sioux, conceived the idea of fitting out parties to kill game 

 for the hides, and the result was so successful that the trade in 

 wild hides has been increasing ever since. 



What now can be done to remedy this state of affairs ? Strin- 

 gent laws should be enacted, and not only enacted but enforced. 

 Game should not be killed except for food, and then only during 

 the autumn. In other words, no more game should be killed than 

 the hunter can use, and indiscriminate hunting at any and all sea- 

 sons should be prevented. But we know that legislative bodies 

 move slowly, and that knots in red tape are as difficult to untie as 

 that of Gordius of old. In the meantime much, very much, may 

 be done by the officers of the army who are stationed on the fron- 

 tier. The skin hunters who, of course, violate the laws of all the 

 territories which have game laws, may be warned off, arrested, and 

 so annoyed that they will in future sedulously avoid the vicinity of 

 posts where they have received such treatment. Action to this end 

 at Camp Baker, by Major H. Freeman, Seventh Infantry, has quite 

 driven the skin hunters out of the country. The little exertion en- 

 tailed by this course will be amply repaid by the increase of large 

 4 



