noon
three of them swam across the river a hundred yards above our camp. But
the characteristic animals of the region were the elk--the wapiti. They
were certainly more numerous than when I was last through the Park
twelve years before.

[Illustration: WHISKEY JACKS.]

In the summer the elk spread all over the interior of the Park. As
winter approaches they divide, some going north and others south. The
southern bands, which, at a guess, may possibly include ten thousand
individuals, winter out of the Park, for the most part in Jackson's
Hole--though of course here and there within the limits of the Park a
few elk may spend both winter and summer in an unusually favorable
location. It was the members of the northern band that I met. During
the winter time they are very stationary, each band staying within a
very few miles of the same place, and from their size and the open
nature of their habitat it is almost as easy to count them as if they
were cattle. From a spur of Bison Peak one day, Major Pitcher, the guide
Elwood Hofer, John Burroughs and I spent about four hours with the
glasses counting and estimating the different herds within sight. After
most careful work and cautious reduction of estimates in each case to
the minimum the truth would permit, we reckoned three thousand head of
elk, all lying or feeding and all in sight at the same time. An estimate
of some fifteen thousand for the number of elk in these northern bands
cannot be far wrong. These bands do not go out of the Park at all, but
winter just within its northern boundary. At the time when we saw them,
the snow had vanished from the bottom of the valleys and the lower
slopes of the mountains, but grew into continuous sheets further up
their sides. The elk were for the most part found up on the snow slopes,
occasionally singly or in small gangs--more often in bands of from fifty
to a couple of hundred. The larger bulls were highest up the mountains
and generally in small troops by themselves, although occasionally one
or two would be found associating with a big herd of cows, yearlings,
and two-year-olds. Many of the bulls had shed their antlers; many had
not. During the winter the elk had evidently done much browsing, but at
this time they were grazing almost exclusively, and seemed by preference
to seek out the patches of old grass which were last left bare by the
retreating snow. The bands moved about very little, and if one were
seen one day it was