IN THE FAR WEST. 227 



defence, if necessary, with head and feet ; but the best pro- 

 tectors are the males. 



The latter wander away from the herd during the spring 

 and early summer, and secrete themselves in the thickest un- 

 derbrush while they are growing their antlers; and their 

 presence is then readily detected by the shaking of the under- 

 growth, against which they are almost constantly rubbing 

 their irritated frontal appendages. They may be easily 

 approached from the leeward during that time, as the swaying 

 of the shrubbery produces noise enough to drown the hunter's 

 footsteps, and the animals are lost to everything but the 

 alleviation of their irritation. Many skin- hunters, that is, 

 those who hunt them for the hide alone, kill numbers of them 

 while engaged in the " shaking,'' as hunters call it, and leave 

 the meat to rot on the ground, or to furnish food to carnivorous 

 birds and quadrupeds. 



The production of the horns makes a heavy drain on the 

 strength of the stag, and the result is that he is thinner and 

 weaker in July than the hind, which has been nursing her 

 young one for perhaps two months. By the latter end of 

 August he is in splendid condition, however, and his magni- 

 ficent antlers being then full grown, he roams through the 

 forest and over the plain in all his majesty, ever ready, like the 

 knight of old, to woo the gentle sex or to measure his strength 

 against every rival for the love of the deer ladies. How proudly 

 he struts ; how defiantly he stares at all foes except man ; and 

 how grandly he shows his strength and speed as lie takes his 

 long and measured paces over hill and dale, and through the 

 light coppice or dense forest ! During the running season he 

 seems ready to meet all enemies, not excepting man himself, 

 if pushed to it; and he generally comes off first best with any 

 quadruped of less importance than a grizzly. I saw a proud 

 fellow on one occasion engaged in mortal combat with a black 

 bear that must have weighed at least three hundred pounds; but 

 before the latter could use its great strength and powerful 

 claws to any advantage, the former pierced it with his magni- 

 ficent antlers, and after two or three charges left it dead on the 

 ground. Stamping upon it two or three times, with one of 



