rong, and at their heaviest. A burning ambition to
distinguish himself in war, and win favours from the shy ladies of his
kind, grows in him to a perfect insanity; goaded by desire, boiling with
animal force, and raging with war-lust, he mounts some ridge in the
valley and pours forth his very soul in a wild far-reaching battle-cry.
Beginning low and rising in pitch to a veritable scream of piercing
intensity, it falls to a rumbled growl, which broken into shorter growls
dies slowly away. This is the famed bugling of the Elk, and however
grotesque it may seem when heard in a zoo, is admitted by all who know
it in its homeland to be the most inspiring music in nature--because of
what it means. Here is this magnificent creature, big as a horse, strong
as a bull, and fierce as a lion, standing in all the pride and glory of
his primest prime, announcing to all the world: "I am out for a fight!
Do any of you want a F-I-G-H-T----!-!-!?" Nor does he usually have long
to wait. From some far mountainside the answer comes:

"Yes, yes, yes! _Yes, I Do_, Do, Do, Do!"

A few more bugle blasts and the two great giants meet; and when they do,
all the world knows it for a mile around, without it being seen. The
crashing of the antlers as they close, the roars of hate, the squeals of
combat, the cracking of breaking branches as they charge and charge, and
push and strive, and--_sometimes_ the thud of a heavy body going down.

Many a time have I heard them in the distant woods, but mostly at night.
Often have I gone forth warily hoping to see something of the fight, for
we all love to see a fight when not personally in danger; but luck has
been against me. I have been on the battlefield next morning to see
where the combatants had torn up an acre of ground, and trampled
unnumbered saplings, or tossed huge boulders about like pebbles, but the
fight I missed.

One day as I came into camp in the Shoshonees, east of the Park, an old
hunter said: "Say, you! you want to see a real old-time Elk fight? You
go up on that ridge back of the corral and you'll sure see a hull bunch
of 'em at it; not one pair of bulls, but _six_ of 'em."

I hurried away, but again I was too late; I saw nothing but the trampled
ground, the broken saplings, and the traces of the turmoil; the battling
giants were gone.

[Illustration]

Back I went and from the hunter's description made the sketch which I
give below. The old man said: "Well, you sure got it this ti