ONE OF THE FLEETEST

It was the most interesting thing! The big brother elk, who was just a year old, peered in through the branches, his ears pointed forward. His great soft eyes were shining, and his nostrils were quivering with excitement. There, on a bed of leaves in the mountain-thicket, lay a new little baby elk.

He looked like the big brother, except for the white spots on his satiny brown coat. With his slender legs doubled under him he lay perfectly still, not even twitching his ears, as old deer to catch the slightest sound. He was looking up at his big brown mother standing beside him.

The brother elk edged nearer and nearer, till a branch crackled under his hoofs. Instantly the old mother raised her head and pricked her ears in the direction of the sound. When she caught sight of the brother she drew back her lips from her teeth and squealed angrily. Her eyes gleamed. She began to walk toward him, squealing and shaking her head to drive him away. He was so surprised that he snorted out loud. Then backing off, first one foot and then the other, he hid among some trees close by.

He must have felt very lonesome as he waited there by himself on the mountain. He listened to every rustle of a leaf or crackle of a twig in the thicket where the baby was lying. Before this his mother had always been kind to him. He did not know why she drove him away,—when he was not doing any harm. The reason was because every little noise made her nervous. She was afraid wolves or panthers might come prowling around there, where the baby lay helpless on the leaves.

After a few days the baby scrambled to his feet and went staggering a bit unsteadily after his mother as she led the way out from the thicket. The big brother came timidly up to them. He smelled the little one very gently, nosing all over his soft dappled body. The mother did not pay much attention, and the baby was not afraid. He stood quite still, looking around with his shining eyes.

It was a beautiful world in May. All around him there were groves of aspens twinkling their silvery leaves in the early sunlight. Farther up the mountain-side dark evergreens grew thick among the rocks. Down the valley a brook splashed and gurgled over stones on its way to a lake lying in the cool shadow of the pines.

Very likely, although the baby elk could see well enough, he cared more for the things which he could smell. There was such a delicious fragrance everywhere of spicy evergreens and the damp sweet breath of mosses and blossoming flowers. Of course he was too young to taste the juicy grasses and tender twigs, but he surely enjoyed the tempting odor of it all. The world smelled very good to eat.

Like all little mammals he drank milk till his teeth cut through his gums later in the year. Like the buffaloes the older elk had horny pads instead of teeth in the front of their upper jaws. They tore off a mouthful of grass or leaves with a jerk of the head and swallowed it half chewed. Then, during the heat of the day, when they were lying down to rest in the shade, or standing in pools of water, they drew up the fodder from their stomachs and chewed it again.

The Elk.
“Grazing over the upland meadows.” Page 48.

All summer long the little elk lived in the mountains with his mother and brother. At night he slept nestled close to them in some safe thicket. In the daytime he trotted beside them as they roamed grazing over the upland meadows and along the brooks. Though they were fond of feeding near the water they did not care so much as some other kinds of deer to eat lily-leaves.

In the early part of the summer the mother and brother looked very ragged. Their thick winter coat began to fall out. It was so matted that it clung to the body like a torn blanket. Every time they rubbed against a bush or thorny tree their old hair was torn in long strips and tatters. When at last it had all been rubbed off their fresh short, summer fur shone out bright and glistening in the sunshine.

Little by little the white spots on the baby’s coat were fading. By the end of August he was all in plain brown like the older ones, with only a patch of white around his tail. Probably he did not notice the difference himself because he could not turn his head far enough to see many of the spots on his sides and neck.

Indeed he was astonished enough one day, while still in the spotted coat, to see another little spotted elk come timidly out of a thicket of aspens. At first both babies stood still, with their ears pricked forward and their big soft eyes wide open. Then the first one bravely walked up to the other and smelled him all over. After that they were friends and played together. They could both say ba-a-a, and drink milk, and gallop over the grass, with their little hoofs kicking out behind.

The next day another mother elk with a baby and a big brother joined the band. Then another family came, and another, till there were dozens and dozens of them all together. Such scampering frolics as the little ones enjoyed! While the old mothers were quietly grazing over the steep slopes the babies raced from one rock to another. Each one tried to push up first to the highest point, and then stand there, looking down at the others. Once the roughest little fellow butted another off a high rock and almost broke his leg.

When a baby butted with his round little head it did not hurt much. But the big brothers all had sharp antlers sprouting from their foreheads. In the spring the knobs above their eyes had begun to swell and grow out into bony spikes covered with a velvety network of skin and veins. These antlers were different from the horns worn by the buffaloes. Every buffalo had a pair of horns that lasted all his life. The mother buffaloes had horns, but the mother elk did not have antlers. The antlers were solid bone instead of hollow like the horns. Each of the father elks and the big brothers had a new pair every spring to replace the old pair that dropped off during the winter.

By mid-summer the antlers stopped growing. Then the big brothers in the band pounded and rubbed their antlers against bushes and young trees, so as to strip off the velvety covering. When they had sham fights they could butt hard enough to hurt. They bumped their heads together, and pushed with all their might to see which was the strongest.

Autumn was not far off now, and the band of mother elk and young ones began to move down from the mountains to the foot-hills. In winter the snow lay so deep in the high valleys that they could not walk far or find enough to eat. Farther and farther down they wandered every day. The babies were learning to eat grass like the older ones.

One morning the smallest baby elk was picking his steps along the edge of a cliff. He halted and raised his pretty head to look far up the canyon before him. There, away off against the pine-woods on the mountain-side, he caught sight of a spot of brown moving toward him. Nearer and nearer it came, till he saw that it was an animal even bigger than his mother. It was an old father elk coming down from his summer retreat in the highest gorges.

In all his short life the baby had never seen such a stately and beautiful creature. His mother was not nearly so large as this elk, and she wore no antlers at all. The big brother’s antlers were only short spikes without any prongs. On strode the newcomer, leaping over fallen trees and wading through the brooks to join the band. His long black mane was waving on his neck; his nostrils were quivering; his great eyes were flashing; his splendid antlers rose, branching high above his graceful head.

The fine stranger stalked among the others and smelled them, in their way of getting acquainted. Then he began to feed with them all. The mother elk and little ones followed meekly when he started to lead the band down the mountain. He did not pay much attention to the babies. Sometimes he pushed them out of his way, or drove them hither and thither, as he pleased. He was a selfish old fellow and never thought of taking care of the others. Whenever he found a delicious tuft of juicy grass he hurried to munch it all by himself.

As the frosty days passed by another father elk appeared, and then another and another. Each one wanted to be leader of the band. Many a snowy night the baby elk huddled close to his mother as he listened to the noise of the old father elk roaming through the woods. He could hear them snuffing the frosty air. They beat the bushes with their antlers and stamped on the crackling branches underfoot. The snow lay thick on their bristling manes. Now here in the valley, now there high on the ridge, the sound of their whistling came pealing down through the still white woods in the moonlight.

Often and often the baby trembled as he heard the shrill squealing of two old elk fighting together. Each one was trying to drive the other away from the band. They rushed together with a crash, and pushed and strained, with their antlers locked tight. Though the prongs could not cut through the tough skin of their shoulders, still the weaker one always had to give way and run. The other chased him off and then came back, whistling and barking in triumph, to be leader of the band.

In a few weeks the old elk became tired of fighting. The band settled down to spend a peaceful winter together. Their fur grew long and thick to keep out the cold. On they travelled mile after mile. They were looking for a sheltered spot to be their home during the coldest weather.

The old elk walked so fast that the babies had to gallop to keep from being left behind. Up hills and down gorges they went crashing through thickets and over the rocks. They climbed steep cliffs and went leaping down narrow trails. Even the little ones were sure-footed. They never stumbled or slipped as they bounded over the dead logs and tangled vines between the trees.

At last they found a wooded spot where the hills sheltered them from the bitterest winds. There was grass on the ground. There were plenty of young trees with twigs and buds and bark for them to eat. A swift little brook ran over the rocks not far away.

Here in this place the band of elk spent the winter. When the snow fell deeper they trod it into narrow paths by walking from tree to tree to feed. These paths led to and fro, criss-crossing, and around in uneven curves all through the yard, as it may be called. With every storm the snow beside the paths piled higher and higher, till the baby could not see over the edges, even when he stretched up his neck.

It must have been a dreary winter for the little fellow. Night after night he huddled beside his mother to keep warm. Sometimes the stars sparkled above the white earth, and sometimes the wind sifted the icy flakes over their brown bodies. Day after day of cold and storm he walked along the paths from tree to tree. Here he could reach a bunch of dead leaves, there a cluster of twig-ends, or a mouthful of bark.

The older elk were so much taller than he was that they could reach the higher branches by standing on their hind-legs and stretching out their necks. Often he went hungry, for the fodder near the paths was all eaten before spring. The snow was so deep outside the yard that he could not touch solid ground with his feet. Sometimes he pawed through the icy crust, and dug away the snow from over the grass.

Once a pack of wolves came prowling near and tried to drive the elk out into the deep snow. Though the elk, like all deer, are the fleetest of mammals, the wolves could run better over the snow, for their broad paws did not sink in so far as the elk’s slender hoofs. Instead of running away all the mother elk rushed squealing after the wolves and tried to stamp them to death. The mother elk were always very brave in taking care of their little ones. The cowardly old fathers were afraid to fight anything, now that they had lost their sharp antlers.

Spring came at last, and the snow melted from the hill-tops and then from the valleys. The first tender grass began to sprout in the meadows. The elk left their winter home and scattered over the plains in search of food. The sun shone and the soft winds blew.

The baby elk followed his mother, when she left the others, and started up toward the mountains. He wandered after her, grazing as he went, till he lost her in a mountain thicket. While he was looking for her he heard a rustling of twigs. He peered through the branches, and there he saw a new little baby elk lying on a bed of leaves. The old mother was standing over him, and licking his satiny spotted coat with her long red tongue.