Part 18

My most successful attempt at elk was made the year following, when, after two weeks of stormy, bad weather, during which I had seen abundance of game, but had had no chance to photograph, I started off, with a pack-animal and one man, to make a quiet camp ten miles away, where I knew there were plenty of elk. When we had gone as far as we dared, we pitched camp in a little park, and picketing our pack-animals, started to reconnoiter. I found an abundance of fresh tracks and wallows, and finally saw two young bull elk feeding in the open. The only point which would enable me to get near them with a fair light, required me to get very nearly in line with the wind; but as there was nothing else to be done, I determined to chance it. When I arrived at this point, I found that in feeding they had walked farther away, and I was obliged to crawl over the intervening space. We had nearly accomplished this when the circling of the wind gave them an inkling of our presence, and put them on the alert. We remained quiet, hoping that the wind would change back; but it did not, and they stole away into the thicket.

About three o'clock we caught sight of a twelve-point bull coming out to drink. I could have snapped at him with a downward shot, as I was on the slope above him; but as the distance was great, I decided to try and get nearer. He walked in behind some willows and, as I discovered afterward, lay down in some water to take his mud-bath. While this was going on I began to slide down the hill, watching for his reappearance, when to my surprise and disgust I suddenly saw the head and horns of an elk that was lying down one hundred yards to my right and almost on a level with me. I did not want to disturb him, with a chance of startling all the other elk in the neighborhood before I had a chance to photograph them, and so decided to try and get a photograph of his head and horns. With my man George following at my heels, I finally crept up behind a low spruce-tree about seventy-five feet from his highness. I knew from experience, however, that his head and horns would be almost undistinguishable on the negative against the surrounding objects. Getting my camera ready, and leaning out from behind the bush, I told George to whistle so that the elk would get up. To my great surprise, he turned his head in our direction and, without rising, gave vent to a shrill blast of defiance or annoyance, as it seemed. After repeating these tactics several times, and finally shouting at him, only to meet with the same answer, I finally decided to stand up, in the hope that when he arose he would hesitate an instant and give me an opportunity. Upon performing my part of the program, he gave one look in my direction, sprang to his feet, and was off with such rapidity that, although I snapped the shutter, the resulting negative showed only an undistinguishable blur, due partly to his motion and partly to my haste in trying to make a quick exposure.

We then followed in the direction of the large band, the bulls of which were making a great deal of noise. I finally located them about half a mile away in the heavy timber. The shadows then were very long in the open space, and I knew there was no use of trying to photograph except in the open. As a forlorn hope I told George to hurry through the timber and get on the other side of the band, while I would stand in the open space, so that I might get a snap shot if they came through. In a short time I heard a commotion in the band, and a sharp stampede in different directions, accompanied by loud bugling by the head of the band, whose voice was so deep and sonorous that I readily recognized it as the one I had heard a few nights previous in the same locality. At that time my companion and I had christened him the "elk with the fog-horn." In the midst of the commotion, George gave vent to several startling yells, which I supposed were made in his effort to turn the band.

In a short time he returned, breathless and tired. As soon as he was able to speak, he recounted a tale of wonder which can readily be imagined by any of the readers of this chapter for whom George has acted in the multiple capacity of guide, cook, philosopher, and friend. He said that when the band got his wind, after several short stampedes, they dashed directly toward him, and as I had made him leave his rifle with me, he had no alternative except to climb a tree or jump out where he could be seen and swing his arms and yell. He said that this stopped the band, but the old bull with the fog-horn walked directly toward him until he thought he was going to charge, and looked for a convenient tree. After inspecting George, however, the bull walked off with his band, apparently not much alarmed. George and I returned to camp with nothing to show for a hard day's work, cooked our supper, and tumbled into our blankets.

A starlight night gave promise of a perfect day on the morrow, and we arranged to get up before daylight, so as to catch the elk before they had lain down. The next day the same experience was repeated: not a photographic shot came in our way, and about three o'clock we went back to camp weary and disgusted. As we had to be in the main camp that night, ready to start back home the next day, we loaded our pack-mule and were soon on the back trail. About half-past four we suddenly heard an elk whistle, not far to the left. We were going on a game-trail, through heavy timber, and I remarked to George, "This is our last chance." We quickly tied our animals and rushed in the direction of the call.

A few hundred yards brought us out on a little projection, and, cautiously looking over, we saw that the ground sloped up beyond through burned timber, and that there was a band of elk scattered around feeding. Adjusting my lens to the distance, which I judged to be one hundred yards, I made one exposure after another as rapidly as possible. The bull was not in sight, but we could hear him crashing around through the thicker timber, and bellowing in anger at another elk in the distance.

Suddenly, to my great delight, I saw his majesty come into the opening and walk rapidly across between the trees. There was only one opening large enough to show his whole body, and into this I pointed my camera; but as one of the cows had already got sight of us, I knew that my opportunities were short. As the bull entered the opening, I was as near an attack of buck-fever as ever before. The resulting picture shows a slight movement of the camera; but although the sun was very low, I succeeded with careful development in getting this and several other satisfactory negatives. I also had my small camera with me, and made several exposures; but the elk can be distinguished only by spots like the head of a pin, if at all. In the mean time one of the cows had fed up very close to us, and suddenly stopped in the shadow and looked at us. I made an exposure on her, but the negative showed nothing. A second more, and with a spring she was off, and suddenly the whole band dashed away in a tumult of crashing sticks and timber. Hurrying on in the direction of the other elk, I started to cross a stream under some dense alders, when suddenly a yearling cow started away and, running around, stopped directly in front of the opening, in an attitude of listening and looking back. I quickly reduced my lens to a shorter focus and made an exposure which gave a fair picture, although the position was an unusual one. This ended my opportunities for the day and trip.

These negatives show a remarkable blending in the color of the elk and their surroundings, and they would be quite difficult to distinguish were it not that some were in sunlight, with a shadowy background. One negative shows nine cows, nearly all feeding.

In photographing elk, I very soon learned that they do not like to come out into the openings during the middle of the day; consequently, when one gets opportunities, the light is so non-actinic that the results are apt to be very much undertimed. Ordinarily, a rapid shot is not needed for photographing game, as when there is any opportunity at all, they are either moving slowly or standing still. I should say just enough speed is required to neutralize any unavoidable motion of the camera which might take place during the exposure.

While trying to photograph the does and fawns which were continually jumping up and running away as we rode along from day to day, I observed a very curious habit which had never attracted my attention before: although they would often stop in the open, yet I shortly found that, photographically, they were not where they would make a negative. After several days, it dawned upon me that they always stopped in the shadow. Giving special attention to this point, I very soon found, on watching the deer which started up, that when they stopped for that moment of curiosity, as so often happens, it was almost invariably in the long shadows thrown by some trees across the park, or else in some shady part of the wood, and seldom by any chance where the sunlight shone directly upon them. This, while a matter of indifference to the hunter, is fatal to photographic success in this brilliant rarefied air, as it is almost impossible to get the details of any objects in the shadow without very much over-developing the high lights.

During the past season I found the elk very much wilder. They seemed to haunt the heavy timber, and to go to their wallows early in the morning or late in the evening, being scarcely ever seen in the open. I believe I should have succeeded much better had I waited till a month later, when the heavy snows would have driven them out of the higher country, as at that time they move in the daytime, and feed more in the open where the sun has bared the ground.

The game-photographer should always develop his own negatives, since the whole development is devoted to bringing out the details of the animals, regardless of the surrounding picture; and as these are so small, and blend so remarkably with the surrounding objects, the ordinary photographer is almost sure to overlook them.

In conclusion, let him who would get negatives rather than heads, possess his soul in patience, and carry all his energy and perseverance with him. If he is successful, his reward is ample from a sportsman's standpoint; if not, he will find a satisfaction in the chase not to be obtained by killing only.

W. B. Devereux.

Literature of American Big-Game Hunting

Throughout the pioneer stages of American history, big-game hunting was not merely a pleasure, but a business, and often a very important and in fact vital business. At different times many of the men who rose to great distinction in our after history took part in it as such: men like Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston, for instance. Moreover, aside from these pioneers who afterward won distinction purely as statesmen or soldiers, there were other members of the class of professional hunters--men who never became eminent in the complex life of the old civilized regions, who always remained hunters, and gloried in the title--who, nevertheless, through and because of their life in the wilderness, rose to national fame and left their mark on our history. The three most famous instances of this class are Daniel Boone, David Crockett, and Kit Carson: men who were renowned in every quarter of the Union for their skill as game-hunters, Indian-fighters, and wilderness explorers, and whose deeds are still stock themes in the floating legendary lore of the border. They stand for all time as types of the pioneer settlers who won our land: the bridge-builders, the road-makers, the forest-fellers, the explorers, the land-tillers, the mighty men of their hands, who laid the foundations of this great commonwealth.

Moreover, the class of men who follow hunting not as a business, but as the most exhilarating and health-giving of all pastimes, has always existed in this country from the very foundation of the republic. Washington was himself fond of the rifle and shot-gun, and a skilled backwoodsman; and he was also, when at his Mount Vernon home, devoted to the chase of the gray fox with horse, horn, and hound. From that time to this the sport-loving planters of the South have relished hunting deer, bear, fox, and wildcat with their packs of old-fashioned hounds; while many of the bolder spirits in the new West have always been fond of getting time for a hunt on the great plains or in the Rockies. In the Northeastern States there was formerly much less heed paid to, or love felt for, the wilder kind of sports; but the feeling in their favor has grown steadily, and indeed has never been extinct. Even in this part of the country, many men of note have been, like Webster, devotees of the fishing-rod, the shot-gun, or the rifle; and of late years there has been a constantly increasing number of those who have gone back to the old traditions of the American stock on this continent, and have taken delight in the wild sports of the wilderness.

Yet there have been fewer books written by Americans about life in the American wilderness and the chase of American big game than one would suppose,--or at least fewer books which are worth reading and preserving; for there does not exist a more dismal species of literature than the ordinary cheap sporting volume. This paucity of good books is, however, not unnatural. In a new country, where material needs are very pressing, the men who do the things are apt to be more numerous than those who can write well about them when done. This is as it should be. It is a good thing to write books, but it is a better thing still to do the deeds which are worth being written about. We ought to have both classes, and highest of all comes he who belongs to both; but if we had to choose between them, we would of course choose the doer rather than the writer.

Nevertheless the writer's position is very important; and there is no delusion more hopeless than the belief of many excellent people to the effect that the man who has done most is necessarily he who can write best. The best books are those written by the rare men who, having actually done the things, are also capable of writing well about them when done. It is as true of hunting-books as of those relating to graver matters, that in very many cases he whose experiences are best worth recording is himself wholly unable to record them. No amount of experience and observation can supply the lack of the literary gift. Many of the old hunters tried their hands at making books, but hardly a volume they produced is worth preserving, save possibly as material which some better writer may handle at a future time. Boone wrote, or rather allowed a small pedant to write for him, a little pamphlet on his early wanderings in Kentucky; but its only value is derived from the fact that for certain of the events in early Kentucky history it is the sole contemporaneous authority. The biography published by or for Davy Crockett is somewhat better, but it is hard to say what parts of it are authentic and what not. Of course a comparatively uneducated man may by some rare chance possess the true literary capacity; and the worst of all writers is the half-educated man, especially he who takes the newspapers as models whereon to found his style; while the mere pedant who takes his language solely from books and the school-room is but slightly better. But, taken as a rule, it may be stated that the man who writes well about life in the wilderness must not only have had long and thorough acquaintance with that life, but must also have had some good literary training.

There have been a few excellent books written by Americans upon the wilderness life and the wilderness game of this continent. Elliott's "South Carolina Field Sports" is a very interesting and entirely trustworthy record of the sporting side of existence on the old Southern plantations, and not only commemorates how the planters hunted bear, deer, fox, and wildcat in the cane-brakes, but also gives a unique description of harpooning the devil-fish in the warm Southern waters. General Marcy wrote several volumes upon life on the plains before the civil war, and in them devoted one or two chapters to different kinds of plains game. The best book upon the plains country, however, is Colonel Richard Irving Dodge's "Hunting Grounds of the Great West," which deals with the chase of most kinds of plains game proper.

Judge Caton, in his "Antelope and Deer of America," gave a full account of not only the habits and appearance, but the methods of chase and life histories of the prongbuck, and of all the different kinds of deer found in the United States. Dr. Allen, in his superb memoir on the bisons of America, and Hornaday, in his book upon the extermination of that species, have rendered similar service for the vast herds of shaggy-maned wild cattle which have vanished with such singular and melancholy rapidity during the lifetime of the present generation. Mr. Van Dyke's "Still-Hunter" is a noteworthy book which, for the first time, approaches the still-hunter and his favorite game, the deer, from what may be called the standpoint of the scientific sportsman. It is one of the few hunting-books which should really be studied by the beginner because of what he can learn therefrom in reference to the hunter's craft. The Century Co.'s magnificent volume "Sport with Gun and Rod" contains accounts of the chase of most of the kinds of American big game, although there are two or three notable omissions, such as the elk, the grizzly bear, and the white goat. Lieutenant Schwatka, in his "Nimrod in the North," has chapters on hunting the polar bear, the musk-ox, and the arctic reindeer.

All the above hunting-books should be in the library of every American lover of the chase. Aside from these volumes, which deal specifically with big-game hunting, there are others touching on kindred subjects connected with wild life and adventure in the wilderness which should also be mentioned. Of course all the records of the early explorers are of special and peculiar interest. Chief among the books of this sort are the volumes containing the records of the explorations of Lewis and Clarke; the best edition being that prepared by the ornithologist Coues, who has himself had much experience of life in the wilder regions of the West. Catlin's books have a special merit of their own. The faunal natural histories, from the days of Audubon and Bachman to those of Hart Merriam, must likewise be included; and, in addition, no lover of nature would willingly be without the works of those masters of American literature who have written concerning their wanderings in the wilderness, as Parkman did in his "Oregon Trail," and Irving in his "Tour on the Prairies"; while the volumes of Burroughs and Thoreau have of course a unique literary value for every man who cares for outdoor life in the woods and fields and among the mountains.

Our Forest Reservations

Few of the large animals of North America could exist save in a timbered country where shelter and hiding-places may be had. The wild creatures which live on the plains at once fall back before advancing settlements, and eventually, like the buffalo and the antelope, disappear; while the forest-inhabiting moose, deer, and elk, though in diminished numbers, still cling to their old-time retreats. The preservation of forests and of game go hand in hand. He who works for either works for both.

The preservation of our large game now has interest for a comparatively small class--the naturalist, the sportsman, and the lover of nature; while the preservation of forests, because of its direct bearing on the material prosperity of the country, is demanding more and more attention, and receiving a constantly growing appreciation. Intelligent action has been taken by National and State authorities in forest maintenance; public territories have been set aside as permanent possessions for the people. Since each new forest reservation means a new game refuge, a record of what has been done for public forests is a record of what has been done for game protection; and the review is one which affords abundant cause for satisfaction to all who are interested in the perpetuation of the large game of the continent.

A bill passed by Congress, March 3, 1891, contained a provision authorizing the President of the United States to set apart and reserve from time to time government lands wholly or in part covered with timber or undergrowth, as public reservations, and to declare by public proclamation the establishment of such reservations and their limits.

The passage of this law, while an essential step toward forest preservation, would have availed little unless acted on. Fortunately, General John W. Noble, who was Secretary of the Interior when the measure became a law, took a broad view of the importance of forest preservation. Early in his term of office he had recognized the great economic value of the Yellowstone Park as a source of water supply, and had given much attention to the protection of this reservation. The Yosemite Park also owes a great deal to his fostering care, and it was through him that the Grant and Sequoia Parks were set aside. When the enabling act of 1891 presented the opportunity, General Noble at once recommended the establishment of a number of forest reservations, and from time to time they have been set aside by presidential proclamation. Most of them include rough timbered mountain lands, unfit for cultivation or for settlement. They will serve by far their most useful purpose as timber reservations, natural reservoirs which will yield year after year a never-failing supply of water. Mr. Noble had the wisdom and the independence to lead public opinion rather than to follow it, and he set an example which it is hoped his successors will emulate.

Nor was he content to stop here. Realizing the rapidity with which commercial greed was sweeping out of existence important marine species of the Northwest, he caused Afognak Island, in Alaska, to be set aside as a perpetual reservation for salmon and sea-lions, and planned the establishment on Amak Island of a reservation for walrus, sea-otter, and sea-lions, and of still another on the Farallones for sea-lions and sea-fowl. These two refuges for the great marine mammals of our western seas have not yet been established, but the good work set on foot by Mr. Noble should be continued to completion with as little delay as possible.