1488 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



and rocks^ rushed toward him. The mighty 

 mass swept past him, and he looked about for 

 his late companions. Only eight were in sight. 

 Seven had been carried away by the avalanche, 

 and now were buried beneath hundreds of feet 

 of snow and ground-up trees in the gulch below. 



Early in the spring they started for the sum- 

 mer range; wading the great snow drifts, to get 

 to the alkali salt. In March, White Patch lost 

 one horn by the regular shedding process, and 

 he caught the other in the sage brush and pulled 

 it off. This summer White Patch and his few 

 remaining companions went higher in the moun- 

 tains, almost to their summits, where the snow 

 drifts lay on the ground nearly all summer. 

 Here they spent an inactive summer. They ate 

 the rich grass, drank the pure, sparkling water, 

 and made regular trips to the lick. His new 

 horns had commenced to grow and they were 

 now much heavier. There were five points on 

 each. His body was filling out, and he was get- 

 ting much stronger, and his tusks were nearly 

 mature. 



During the early fall, White Patch heard 

 again that terrible booming sound which every 

 elk fears and dreads. It was repeated; and 

 two of his companions fell. In his mad rush 

 from the place. White Patch got separated from 

 his companions and wandered alone for days. 



White Patch spent the winter in the snow; 

 and in the spring his old horns fell off and new 

 ones came. This time there came a pair of six 

 points, and they were also massive, and heavy. 

 With them he went forth in the early fall, no 

 longer a stripling. 



When he joined the herd he was met by an- 

 other bull elk, seemingly his equal. After a 

 fierce struggle, he conquered his adversary and 

 drove him off into the woods with a terrible 

 wound in his side. For the remainder of the 

 season he was supreme. He kept all other 

 males from his herd and when a cow started to 

 wander away he promptly and firmly herded 

 her back. 



White Patch spent the next winter near his 

 old iDlace in the canyon, at the head of the lower 

 valley, where the grass grew rank on the north 

 slope. Here, by pawing the snow down hill, it 

 was easy to uncover grass and eat his fill. In 

 the spring, when his old horns fell off his new 

 horns had seven points each. They were mas- 

 sive, of great length, and spread widely, such 

 as now are rarely seen; and when he joined the 

 herd in the fall his great size and grand wea- 

 pons commanded respect. He had no battles to 

 fight. All made way before him. 



At a certain camp-fire one night late in Sep- 

 tember, a guide remarked: "I saw old Broad- 

 Horn and his bunch again today. They are up 

 on Bike Mountain." 



"Is he really as big as you say.^" queried one 

 of the sportsmen. 



"Big!" exclaimed the guide, "He's a mon- 

 ster ! His horns have seven points on each side, 

 and the spread will measure fully 65 inches." 



"Tomorrow morning we will go for him," 

 said the sportsman. 



The next morning as the sun rose over the 

 eastern hills, the hunters reached the top of 

 Bike Mountain. It was a large table-land, with 

 pine and spruce timber in varying stages of 

 maturity. As the sun rose, they heard old 

 Broad-Horn bugle. There was no mistaking 

 that harsh, gruff voice. 



The hunters saw a swaying tree, and so lo- 

 cated the great elk, in the act of polishing his 

 horns. 



"Bang! bang! bang!" went the high powered 

 rifle. 



At one of the reports the big bull was seen 

 to stagger, but on his trail no blood could be 

 found. In fact, the bullet had gone through one 

 horn, cutting a clean hole at the entrance, and 

 knocking out a big piece. 



Several days later, on the north slope of Mt. 

 Lydia, that elk bunch was again seen by the 

 same guide, who had trailed it the entire dis- 

 tance. Camp was moved nearby, and just be- 

 fore sunset the great elk and his herd appeared 

 on the mountain-side above. It was in an 

 easy place to approach, and it looked bad for 

 old Broad-Horn; but just at that moment a 

 snow squall came up, and behind the thick cur- 

 tain of the storm the big bull again escaped. 

 That night his bunch of elk descended the 

 mountain below the snow, and there was no trail 

 to follow. 



That winter was very severe on the elk in 

 Jackson's Hole. A snow storm of considerable 

 depth, followed by rain, locked the elk's winter 

 range beneath a coating of ice. Sufficient hay 

 could not be procured to feed the starving ani- 

 mals, and the loss and suffering among them 

 was fearful. This unusual condition drove the 

 big bull from his favorite canyon into the feed- 

 yard with the other elk. 



Old Broad-Horn was king of the feed-yard, 

 as he was monarch of the woods and mountains. 

 He feared nothing but the author of that ter- 

 rible booming sound, and he could not help but 



