k Elk; she was fat and
hearty. She wasn't poisoned or doped, 'cause there's no possibility of
that. It wasn't a tame Elk, 'cause there ain't any, and, anyhow, we're
seventy miles from a house. Now what is the meaning of it?"

I replied solemnly: "Tom! I don't know any more than you do. I was as
much surprised as you were at everything but one, and that was when she
lay down. I didn't tell her to lie down till I saw she was going to do
it, or to get up either, or look the other way, and if you can explain
the incident, you've got the field to yourself."

THE MOOSE, THE BIGGEST OF ALL DEER

The Moose is one of the fine animals that have responded magnificently
to protection in Canada, Maine, Minnesota, and the Yellowstone Park.
Formerly they were very scarce in Wyoming and confined to the southwest
corner of the Reserve. But all they needed was a little help; and,
receiving it, they have flourished and multiplied. Their numbers have
grown by natural increase from about fifty in 1897 to some five hundred
and fifty to-day; and they have spread into all the southern half of the
Park wherever they find surroundings to their taste; that is, thick
level woods with a mixture of timber, as the Moose is a brush-eater,
and does not flourish on a straight diet of evergreen.

The first Deer, almost the only one I ever killed, was a Moose and that
was far back in the days of my youth. On the Yellowstone, I am sorry to
say, I never saw one, although I found tracks and signs in abundance
last September near the Lake.

MY PARTNER'S MOOSE-HUNT

Though I have never since fired at a Moose, I was implicated in the
killing of one a few years later.

It was in the fall of the year, in the Hunting Moon, I was in the
Kippewa Country with my partner and some chosen friends on a camping
trip. Our companions were keen to get a Moose; and daily all hands but
myself were out with the expert Moose callers. But each night the
company reassembled around the campfire only to exchange their stories
of failure.

[Illustration]

Moose there were in plenty, and good guides, Indian, halfbreed and
white, but luck was against them all. Without being a very expert caller
I have done enough of it to know the game and to pass for a "caller." So
one night I said in a spirit of half jest: "I'll have to go out and show
you men how to call a Moose." I cut a good piece of birch-bark and
fashioned carefully a horn. Disdaining all civilized materials as
"