SKI SNAPS

Lake Station, April 13.

Corporal Hope and I set out this morning from the Patrol Station, going after elk and buffalo pictures. Heading in the direction of Hayden Valley, we encountered two buffalo cows and their calves crossing a half-bare opening in the trees near the Mud Geyser. We had little difficulty in heading them as they tried to break away and driving them off on a course that offered me a favourable exposure. The calves were a month or more old, but tottered on their thin legs and seemed very weak, the consequence, no doubt, of continued inbreeding. The rapidly thinning herd is badly in need of an infusion of new blood.

We came upon the main herd farther down the valley, making some long-distance snap-shots on various individuals and sections of it as they went lunging off through the drifts at our approach. It was old "Tuskegee," reputed to be the largest specimen of the Bison Americanus in existence, whose picture I most cared for. The old fellow is estimated to weigh over 3000 pounds, is covered with a net-work of scars from his lifetime of fighting, and has only one eye and the remnant of a tail left. He has been seen to give battle to three pugnacious bull elk at once, and has killed numbers of them in single combat.

It was but a few summers ago that old "Tuskegee" left the herd, charged a coach full of tourists, goring one of the horses so badly that it had to be shot. The big vehicle was nearly overturned by the plunging horses, while its occupants—a party of New England school-teachers—were driven into frenzies of terror. Neither the bullets from a nickel-plated revolver in the hands of one of the schoolmarms, nor the long stinging whip of the driver, nor even his equally long and stinging oaths, affected "Tuskegee" in the least. He continued butting about among the frightened horses as though the wrecking of a six-in-hand coach was a regular part of his daily routine. At last, however, the sustained hysteria of the females seemed to get upon the old fellow's nerves. Wheeling about, he turned the stub of his tail to the swooning tourists and galloped, bellowing, over the hill.

An order was at once issued that "Tuskegee" should be shot on sight, and for a month a special detail from the Fort scoured the hills and valleys in search of the renegade. But all to no purpose. The old warrior, as though understanding that he was persona non grata with the authorities, retreated into the impenetrable fastnesses of the mountain spurs above Thorofare Plateau, and nothing was seen or heard of him for many months.

For two years there was an interregnum in buffalodom, during which the big herd gradually dropped to pieces and wandered about in leaderless fragments. Then, one day, a big bull elk was found, crushed and torn, trampled into the mud of Violet Springs, and the scouts told each other that the King had returned. A few days later a soldier of the game patrol, on a run through Hayden Valley, saw the reunited herd debouch from a canyon, with old "Tuskegee" puffing proudly in the lead. His tail was stubbier than ever, the grizzled red hair was more patchy on the rump and more matted on the neck, and a new set of scars was criss-crossed and etched into the old ones upon his flanks. The old fighting spirit still flamed, however, and the trooper owed his life to the fact that the snow was deep, the crust firm, the slope down and his ski well waxed. But a new superintendent was in charge, and his satisfaction at seeing the scattered herd once more united was so great that he stayed the order of execution. Since that time, strangely enough, "Tuskegee" has appeared to show his appreciation of this official clemency by behaving in a most exemplary manner. I was endeavouring to get a picture of the main herd before it broke up, when Hope espied old "Stub Tail" in the rear of a bunch of young cows who were heading away for the hills. Shouting for me to join him, he gave chase. We gained on them easily in the heavy snow of the valley, and almost overtook them where they floundered, belly-deep, on their erratic course. Then they struck the wind-swept slopes of the lower hills, where the agile cows drew away from us rapidly and scampered out of sight. But not so old "Tuskegee." Whether it was rheumatism in his stiff old joints that made him stop, or simple weariness, or, as is most likely, the unconquerable pride that would not permit him to turn his back upon an enemy, I shall not attempt to say. In any case, he wheeled and faced us, head low, hoofs pawing the moss, and snorting in angry defiance.

As he stood with his rugged form towering against the white background of the snowy hillside, two jets of steam rushing from his nostrils, his jaws flecked with bloody foam, his one eye gleaming green as the starboard light of a steamer, and his bellows of rage so deep that they seemed to come from beneath the earth, old "Tuskegee" might have been the vindictive incarnation of the spirit of all the geysers and hell holes in the Yellowstone bent on an errand of wrath and destruction. Right then and there I forgot what I came for, forgot the picture I had intended to take, forgot everything but that snorting colossus in front of me and the fact that the hillside sloped invitingly in the opposite direction. Wherefore I tried to swing around, and in swinging turned too short, crossed my ski, and fell in a heap with my face in the snow.

They say that an ostrich will snuggle its head contentedly into the sand and let a band of Arabs with drawn scimitars charge right into its tail feathers. This may be quite true. Perhaps the climate of the Sahara has something to do with it. But it won't work with a man, a bull buffalo and a snowdrift, particularly if the man is strapped to two ten-foot-six strips of hickory and the bull buffalo has a bad reputation.

The faith, folly, foolishness, or whatever it is of the ostrich would have saved me a lot of unpleasant apprehensions. Every moment of the time I struggled to unsocket my head from under the nose of one of my ski I was sure I was going to be gored the next. And I am certain I was down all of five minutes, notwithstanding Hope's assertion that he had me straightened out and on my feet inside of ten seconds.

"Steady, young feller," I heard him saying as I rubbed the snow from my eyes; "don't lose your head like that again." (I wonder if he meant that literally.) "Old 'Tusky' won't hurt a fly nowadays. He's just posing for his picture. Gimme that camera. Hold up there; tain't nothing to be scared of!

That last was shouted at me as I gave a push with my pole and began to slide off down the hill out of the danger zone. Swinging round to a reluctant standstill, I meekly unslung my camera as Hope came down for it. Then, all set for a start, I watched him as he zigzagged back up the hill toward the buffalo. "Tusky" was blowing like a young Vesuvius, but the nervy fellow, not a whit daunted, edged up to within twenty feet of the steaming monster, waited calmly for the sun to come out from behind a cloud, and snapped the camera. Then we coasted back to the valley—I well in the lead,—leaving the resolute old monster in full possession of the field.

Our chase of the fleet-footed wapita was attended by less excitement but more exertion than was our pursuit of the bison. Following a trail from Violet Springs, we were lucky in encountering a herd of from four to five hundred grazing where the spring sunshine was uncovering the grass on a broad expanse of southerly sloping upland. We circled to the higher hills in an endeavour to drive a portion of the herd to the deeper snow of the valley, where we could overtake them on our ski. In the course of our climb we came upon a fine young bull of two years or thereabouts, lying in an alder thicket badly wounded from fighting. One of his graceful horns was snapped squarely off a foot from the head, his sides were frightfully bruised and torn, and so weak was he from loss of blood that he took no notice whatever of our approach. Hope said that few bulls are killed outright in their fights, but that most of the badly wounded ones ultimately die from "scab."

Our efforts to turn the elk to the valley was only partially successful, for the main herd, as though divining our purpose, set off on a mad stampede for the mountains, and on a course which made it impossible to head them. Hope, however, at imminent risk of his neck, dropped like a meteor over the rim of the mesa, negotiated a precarious serpentine curve among the butts of a lot of deadfalls, and just succeeded in cutting off a large bunch of cows, half a dozen "spike" bulls, and a fine old fourteen-pointer.

The bulls were brave enough at the beginning of the chase, where the snow was light and the going easy. The old fellow in particular kept well to the rear of his flying family, stopping every now and then to brandish his horns and give voice to clear, penetrating cries of defiance and anger. But as the herd wallowed into the coulÉe that skirted the foot of the hills his courage deserted him. He, in turn, deserted his family, and it was sauve qui peut for the lot of them. By the time our glistening hickories pulled us up on the flank of the bunch of heaving, sobbing cows, old "Fourteen Points" was a good hundred yards ahead, with the "spikes" scattered in between.

We easily headed the frightened cows as they floundered shoulder-deep, and I snapped them several times without much trouble. Then we turned our attention to the big bull. He, in his terror, had charged straight on down the coulÉe, going into increasingly deep snow at every bound. His efforts were magnificent to behold. At times only the tips of his shining antlers were visible; again, he would break through with his fore feet and fall with his muzzle in the snow, only his hind quarters showing above the crust. At times he would be down fore and aft, disappearing completely from sight, only the sound of his mighty limbs as they churned the honey-combed snow telling the story of the struggle.

His agility was wonderful. Every ounce of bone, every shred of muscle, every fiber of nerve was strained to its utmost. Time and again I saw his rear hoofs drawn as far forward and as high as his shoulders in an effort to gain a solid footing. When the hold of his hind legs was lost he would reach out and bury his fore hoofs and nose in the sinking crust, and then, arching his back, try to drag his great body up to them.

As we pulled up close behind him he wallowed into the shadow of some tall pines where the crust, unexposed to the sun, was hard and firm. He struggled to the surface, tottered across the shadowed space and began to break through on the farther side. Backing up, he tried a fresh place, but only to break through with all fours. Finally, all his former courage seeming to return with a rush, he staggered back against a tree, lowered his head, and with a shrill trumpet of defiance dared us to come on.

That was just what we had hoped and planned for. Circling on the soft snow, well beyond the reach of a rush, I made several snaps before we coasted away and left him free to return to his family and explain his desertion as best he might. The grating of his teeth, as he ground them together in elk-ish fury, followed us for some distance as we slid away down the coulÉe.

My attempt to secure some mountain sheep pictures by following the same methods employed with the bison and elk was brought to a sudden termination by what came so near to proving a serious disaster to the quarry that it quite destroyed my zest for the new sport and made me decide with regret to give it up as incompatible with my career as a writer on game protection. This occurred on the mountains above the Gardiner River not long after I had returned to Mammoth Hot Springs from my circular tour on ski. Hope, whose time in the Army was about up, was my fellow culprit. Both of us doubtless deserved to be clapped in the guard-house, as we surely would have been had the true account of what happened come out at the time. Now, at the end of twenty years, probably it won't matter a lot. Certainly not to Hope in any event. After serving out three or four more re-enlistments, he was killed in the Argonne in one of the last actions of the war. I quote again from my diary.

Mammoth Hot Springs, April 23.

Hope and I came within a hair of wiping out the cream of the Yellowstone Park herd of Ovis Montana this morning while trying to take its picture. I took the picture all right, but as a consequence of it the herd took a header into the river. I think all of them got out, but it was a narrow squeeze at the best. If there is ever an official inquiry into our operations, I am afraid my reputation as a game protector will be gone beyond all hope. This was the way the thing happened: We had located with our glasses a large flock of fine animals several hundred yards below our lookout on Gardiner Mountain. Hope set off along the ridge to the windward of them, holding their interest so successfully in that direction that I was able to coast down from the opposite side and bring up almost in their midst before one of them knew what had happened. I had time for one hurried snap before they were off, and another when a swift quarter-mile coast brought me up almost on the heels of the vanguard of the flying flock.

Down a couple of hundred yards of easy slope I held even with the tail of the flock, and was manoeuvring for another exposure when they came out upon a stretch of almost level bench above the river and began to beat me three-to-one. The leaders had all but reached the shelter of the timber when Hope, brandishing his pole and whooping like a wild Indian, dropped with the suddenness of a thunderbolt from somewhere among the snowy cliffs above and turned them back. The unexpected appearance of a new enemy sent glimmering such wits as the grizzled old leader still had. With one frightened glance to where I came labouring down on him from the rear, he turned and went plunging over the rim of the cliff onto the honey-combed ice and snow that bridged the river torrent, the whole flock following in his wake. Hope, wide eyed with consternation, was peering over the edge of the cliff as I came up, and together we watched the various members of the flock pull themselves together, flounder through to the opposite bank and make off into the alder thicket beyond. The game struggle of the old patriarch was splendid. The first to leap, his unfortunate anatomy, half buried in the yielding snow, had received the impact of more than a few of the flying hoofs and horns that followed. For four or five long minutes after the last of his mates had struggled through to safety he lay, stunned and bleeding, on a slender peninsula of firm snow that jutted out over the surging stream. As the sound of our voices, loud and tense with guilty anxiety, floated down to him, he roused, pulled himself together, and at almost the first flounder broke through and went whirling off in the clutch of the angry current.

At the lower end of the cave-in his high-flung horns caught against the rim of soft ice, giving him a brief, but what we felt sure could be no more than a temporary, respite from an apparently certain fate. But we underrated the mettle of the brave old veteran, for even while his sturdy hind quarters drew down in the grip of the powerful undercurrent, one sharp fore hoof after the other gained hold on the trembling crust, and his sinewy body was almost lifted to safety before the sagging mass gave way again and left him struggling in the water. Twice, and then once again, was this same plucky manoeuvre repeated, but only to end each time in the same heart-breaking failure. Every fibre of rippling muscle seemed strained to the limit in his final effort, and when the soggy ice broke away it looked certain that the river was to be the victor after all.

And such, no doubt, would have been the end had not the last cave-in carried the resolute old patriarch to a submerged bar of shingle. Here, rallying his seemingly inexhaustible strength, he gathered himself and leaped cleanly to a solid stretch of crust. A moment later he was off in the wake of the rest of his flock.

With long-drawn breaths of relief we turned and tightened up the thongs of our ski for the climb out of the canyon. It was not until half an hour later, when we paused for rest on the mesa rim, that Hope's drawling voice broke the silence that had held between us.

"Young feller," he said jerkedly between breaths, "if the old one had drownded down there, the best thing you and I could do would be to jump in and be drownded with him. Even as it is, if the Super gets wind of that monkey show, it's me for a disonerable discharge and you for over the border." But as neither Hope nor I is inclined to do any talking, the chances seem good that we'll steer clear of the trouble we were so surely asking for. But no more ski-snapping for me, just the same.