CARD-CHEATING. WAPITTI COMBATS. 89 



its appearance was rutting, and like all the deer family 

 when in that state exceedingly dangerous. 



A month's residence with the New England schoolmaster 

 gave a considerable insight into his character ; he was 

 always trying to be good, very good, unless when tempta- 

 tion came in his way, and one of these, which he could not 

 resist, was to cheat at cards. At it I again and again 

 detected him, lectured him in consequence, asserting I 

 would not play further with him if it re- occurred, and in 

 the very next deal he would be guilty of the same mal- 

 practices; so at length we both agreed, our stakes being 

 nil, to cheat our darndest ; and from that time forth to see 

 how right and left bowers, aces, and kings, used to be 

 turned up in that peaceful, sequestered valley, was some- 

 thing awful, and that often to the tune of the Old 

 Hundred. 



During the rutting season terrific combats take place 

 between the claimants for the favour of the fair ones ; and 

 these battles royal are fought with such vim and deter- 

 mination that they not unfrequently result in the death 

 of one or both of the belligerents. Again, the antlers of 

 the contestants occasionally get locked together, so that 

 the owners find it impossible to disengage themselves, 

 when death overtakes them in the appalling form of star- 

 vation. I was once shown two grand heads of Wapitti 

 horns at Pembena which had been picked up on a tributary 

 of the Upper Missouri, that had become so interlaced that 

 no effort could disengage them in their entirety. 



The fawns are produced late in spring, and at two years 

 of age the young bucks exhibit knobs, which in six years 



