Mainly of Elk 93 



Monday the fifths 



Snowing at daybreak, a bluff at clearing up shortly before 

 noon, and again snowing for the rest of the day, with twelve inches 

 on the level and the Camp Tepee bungalow fringed with icicles 

 from eaves to the ground, some over six feet long, is the weather 

 record for this day. 



The hobbled horses, grazing loose, are unable to rustle suffi- 

 cient feed through the snow. A pronouncement is made by the 

 colonel of the camp that unless the storm breaks and clears, the 

 camp must break, and move on the morrow to lower levels where 

 the horses can get feed. 



Jay and Counter went into the woods to dismember and bring 

 in the meat of yesterday's kill. In respect of elk horns Counter 

 handed out a rather interesting bit of information, viz. that in the 

 second year the young bull elk gets his first branches — the brow 

 spires, and thereafter an additional spire up to the fourth or fifth 

 year, after which the number of spires may vary; it having come 

 within his knowledge that a six-year-old bull carried only five 

 branches and cases having been reported to him of older bulls 

 having a still less number of branches. It is Counter's opinion 

 that the character of the winter may have effect upon the number 

 of branches, reasoning by analogy from the case of domestic cattle. 

 Herefords and Durhams for instance, according to him, when 

 corralled, sheltered and full fed in winter, develop small horns, but 

 turned loose on the range with only such food as they can pick up, 

 develop large and long horns. Counter disputes the avowal of 

 Mr. Roosevelt that the prairie antelope, as do the deer kind 

 generally, sheds its horns, inasmuch as he has never seen prairie 

 antelope with new horns in the velvet, or bare of horns, nor has 

 he ever seen a shed antelope horn. 



With a sketch of the interior of the camp by the artist, the 

 mending of hobbles and pack ropes by the guides, cards, the 

 savoring of elk meat for dinner, and a good deal of pleasant talk, 

 this day within doors passes swiftly to its end, with snow still 

 falling. 



