THE WAPITI 275 



done on the open plains or among low, rugged hills. The 

 wapiti that I shot when living at my Little Missouri 

 ranch were killed under exactly the same conditions as 

 mule-deer. When I built my ranch-house, wapiti were 

 still not uncommon, and their shed antlers were very nu- 

 merous both on the bottoms and in places among the hills. 

 There was one such place a couple of miles from my 

 ranch in a stretch of comparatively barren but very broken 

 hill-country in which there were many score of these shed 

 antlers. Evidently a few years before this had been a 

 great gathering-place for wapiti toward the end of win- 

 ter. My ranch itself derived its name, " The Elkhorn," 

 from the fact that on the ground where we built it were 

 found the skulls and interlocked antlers of two wapiti 

 bulls who had perished from getting their antlers fast- 

 ened in a battle. I never, however, killed a wapiti while 

 on a day's hunt from the ranch itself. Those that I killed 

 were obtained on regular expeditions, when I took the 

 wagon and drove off to spend a night or two on ground 

 too far for me to hunt it through in a single day from 

 the ranch. Moreover, the wapiti on the Little Missouri 

 had been so hunted that they had entirely abandoned the 

 diurnal habits of their kind, and it was a great advan- 

 tage to get on the ground early. This hunting was not 

 carried on amid the glorious mountain scenery which 

 marks the home of the wapiti in the Rockies; but the 

 surroundings had a charm of their own. All really wild 

 scenery is attractive. The true hunter, the true lover 

 of the wilderness, loves all parts of the wilderness, just 

 as the true lover of nature loves all seasons. There is 



