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Updated: June 9, 2025
The chances for the wapiti and elk and the western mule and black-tail deer are brighter, provided that we move promptly for their protection. The pronghorn is a wonderfully clever and adaptive animal, crawling under barb-wire fences, and thus avoiding one of the greatest enemies of Western life.
This last in some respects suggests a resemblance to the wapiti, but it is unlikely that the similarity is more than superficial, and as moose not distinguishable from the existing species are found in the same formation, it is improbable that Cervalces bore to AIces anything more than a collateral relationship.
Indeed, with the single exception of Judge Hepburn's garden, which was quite an elaborate affair, and which was said to have cost the Judge a "pile of money," there was none to compare with it in the village of Wapiti. Any garden on that bare, wind-swept prairie meant toil and infinite pains, but a garden like that of the Dunbars represented in addition something of genius.
At the sound of the shot my men struggled up the steep ascent and joined me. "Why did you shout 'A bear! a bear!?" I asked. "It was a bear, wasn't it? I saw a great brown rump for a moment, and I thought it was the bear." "No bear at all," I answered, "and I have been fool enough to shoot at a wapiti. . . . I think you will find it just in the hollow beneath the ridge."
I have told you about the round-horned Deer with the exception of the largest and noblest, Bugler the Elk. He is commonly called Elk, but his right name is Wapiti. "Bugler is found only in the great mountains of the Far West, but once, before hunters with terrible guns came, Elk were found in nearly all parts of this country excepting the Far South and the Far North even on the great plains.
I had climbed to the crest of the mountains enclosing the valley in which we were camped, and was working slowly down the rim of a deep ravine. In my soft leather moccasins I could walk over the springy moss without a sound, and suddenly saw a yellow-red form moving about in a luxurious growth of grass and tinted leaves. My heart missed a beat, for I thought it was a wapiti.
The deer was about the size of an American wapiti, or elk, and must have weighed at least seven hundred pounds, for it required eight men to lift it. The Chinese hunters were wild with excitement, but especially so when we began to eviscerate the animal, for they wished to save the blood which is considered of great medicinal value.
To the unthinking man a bison, a wapiti, a deer, a pronghorn antelope, is a matter of hide and meat; to the real nature lover, the true sportsman, the scientific student, each of these types is a subject of intense admiration. From the mechanical standpoint they represent an architecture more elaborate than that of Westminster Abbey, and a history beside which human history is as of yesterday.
For instance, our American moose, the wapiti or elk, Rocky Mountain sheep, the so-called mountain goat, and other animals are probably of Central Asian origin. Doubtless there were many contributing causes to the extensive wanderings of primitive tribes, but as they were primarily hunters, one of the most important must have been the movements of the game upon which they lived.
We had seven sheep, and the group was assured; therefore, we decided to shift camp to the wapiti country, fifty miles away hoping that by the time we reached there, we both would be fit again. Our destination was a village named Wu-tai-hai, but there appeared to be no possible place for a village in that narrow cañon.
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