7^ he Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk. 163 



When not fighting or love-making he is kept on the run, 

 chasing away the young bulls who venture to pay court to 

 the cows. He has hardly time to eat or sleep, and soon 

 becomes gaunt and worn to a degree. At the close of the 

 rut many of the bulls become so emaciated that they retire 

 to some secluded spot to recuperate. They are so weak 

 that they readily succumb to the elements, or to their 

 brute foes ; many die from sheer exhaustion. 



The battles between the bulls rarely result fatally. 

 After a longer or shorter period of charging, pushing, and 

 struggling the heavier or more enduring of the two begins 

 to shove his weaker antagonist back and round ; and the 

 latter then watches his chance and bolts, hotly, but as a 

 rule harmlessly, pursued for a few hundred yards. The 

 massive branching antlers serve as effective guards against 

 the most wicked thrusts. While the antagonists are head 

 on, the worst that can happen is a punch on the shoulder 

 which will not break the thick hide, though it may bruise 

 the flesh underneath. It is only when a beast is caught 

 while turning that there is a chance to deliver a possibly 

 deadly stab in the flank, with the brow prongs, the " dog- 

 killers " as they are called in bucks. Sometimes, but 

 rarely, fighting wapiti get their antlers interlocked and 

 perish miserably ; my own ranch, the Elkhorn, was named 

 from finding on the spot where the ranch house now 

 stands two splendid pairs of elk antlers thus interlocked. 



Wapiti keep their antlers until the spring, whereas 

 deer and moose lose theirs by midwinter. The bull's be- 

 havior in relation to the cow is merely that of a vicious 

 and brutal coward. He bullies her continually, and in 



