The Wapiti or Round- horned Elk 139 



One or two fawns are born, about May. In 

 the mountains the cow usually goes high up to 

 bring forth her fawn. Personally I have only had 

 a chance to observe the wapiti in the spring in 

 the neighborhood of my ranch in the Bad Lands 

 of the Little Missouri. Here the cow invariably 

 selected some wild lonely bit of very broken coun- 

 try in which there were dense thickets and some 

 water. There was one such patch some fifteen 

 miles from my ranch, in which for many years 

 wapiti regularly bred. The breeding cow lay by 

 herself, although sometimes the young of the pre- 

 ceding year would lurk in the neighborhood. For 

 the first few days the calf seemed not to leave the 

 bed, and would not move even when handled. 

 Then it began to follow the mother. In this 

 particular region the grass was coarse and rank, 

 save for a few patches in the immediate neighbor- 

 hood of little alkali springs. Accordingly, it was 

 not much visited by the cattle or by the cowboys. 

 Doubtless in the happier days of the past, when 

 man was merely an infrequent interloper, the 

 wapiti cows had made their nurseries in pleas- 

 anter and more fruitful valleys. But in my time 

 the hunted creatures had learned that their only 

 chance was to escape observation. I have known 

 not only cows with young calves, but cows when 

 the calves were out of the spotted coat, and even 

 yearlings, to try to escape by hiding the great 



