Elks

“ He waited until it was dark, and then, noiselessly flying back to the village of the Moose people, he silently entered the wigwam at the top, where there was now a wide opening, as it was in the warm summer time, very quickly exchanged the bag he had with him for the magic muskamoot, and returned to the village of the Elk people. It did not take him long to arrange his plans. The chief of the Elks had a beautiful daughter, and it was given out that a fine young chief from a far-away tribe had come to ask for her in marriage. ”

“ The great length of the legs gives a decidedly ungainly appearance to the elk. The muzzle is long and fleshy, with only a very small triangular naked patch below the nostrils; and the males have a peculiar sac, known as the bell, hanging from the neck. From the shortness of their necks, elks are unable to graze, and their chief food consists of young shoots and leaves of willow and birch. In North America during the winter one male and several females form a “moose-yard” in the forest, which they keep open by trampling the snow. ”

“ This "black elk," then, which the Feens used to hunt, was an animal of much greater size than the deer, on the testimony of these tales, told in the degenerate days when the "black elk" and its hunters had become only a memory. "These [tales] may date from the days when men hunted elks in Erin, as they now do in Scandinavia," says Mr. Campbell. [156] It is to be remembered, however, that at the battle of Gawra, and, indeed, long after that date, the Feens of Scandinavia were in association with those of Ireland and of Scotland ”

“ The Elks are anxious that as many citizens as possible be on the streets tonight while the parade is passing, to make the demonstration one that will prove that the Warren District will stand solidly behind the president and congress. ”

“ And of the rest of the deeds of the Master-Girl, and of her extreme wisdom, foresight and daring, what shall I say? Time would fail me to tell of her dealings with the White Wolves and the Beaver Totem, the Elks and the Red Clouds, and twenty tribes more; yea, and how she, moved thereto by memories of early humiliations, crossed the ranges in force and wiped out her old people the Little Moons; as to which grim deed I desire to express no opinion. Human nature, even nowadays, is queer, nor was it less queer in the Days of Ignorance. ”

“ It wouldn't be many hours now before the Red Fox231 Scouts could branch off for the railroad, and get aboard a train so as to make Salt Lake in time to connect with their party for the grand trip, and we Elks had three days yet in which to deliver the message to the Mayor of Green Valley.
For two or three hours we traveled as fast as we could, driving Sally and stepping on her tracks so as to cover them. We felt so good over our prospects—over being upon the open way and winning out at last—that we struck up songs:
"Oh, the Elk is our Medicine;
He makes us very strong—"
for us ”

“ I guess it’s time you learn such things once! You dare come, and I’ll show you how to do a little work. But why do you want to board when your folks live just in Lancaster?”
“Father and Mother are going to the Elks’ Convention and to California. They expect to be gone about a month. I was going to stay in Lancaster with my aunt, but I just thought how much nicer it would be to spend that time in the country.” ”

“ Scout Master Hall and the boys walked down to the edge of the lake to welcome their caller. They were glad to receive strangers at any time, and believing the man to be much older than he was, they stood ready to give him the help he might possibly need. But he required nothing of that nature.
Uncle Elk seemed to be surveying the group from under his shaggy brows, but he acted as if he saw them not. With the same regular sweep of the paddle, he held the boat to its course, gently checking it as the prow neared land, so that it impinged like a feather against the shingle. ”

“ Many years ago, in the northern part of Texas, lived a small band of Indians among whom were a young brave and a young maiden lost in love. For the sake of convenience, we shall call the young brave Running Elk and the maiden Laughing Water. She was the daughter of old Chief White Eagle, but in the veins of the warrior lover there was no royal blood, and the father refused to allow the marriage that both of the lovers so greatly desired.
The refusal was not, however, based primarily on the difference in rank. Running Elk was an ideal young brave. ”

“ Finally, Leader Chase said:
“We are willing to run the risk.”
“With your permission,” said the visitor, bowing toward Scout Master Hall, “I shall be glad if you see your way clear to my becoming an honorary member of your order. My name is Elkanah Sisum, more generally known as ‘Uncle Elk’; I live by myself a couple of miles inland from the lake” (indicating the point) ; “I have a comfortable home; my latchstring always hangs outside and I shall take it as an honor if you will come and see me often.” ”

“ Perhaps it was only the natural pride an Indian feels, and which prevents him from admitting to the palefaces that he is helpless to supply the wants of his people.
"Name Frank," he said, touching his breast "What call you?"
"Running Elk, chief among Crees. Long he lead them in the hunt and in battle. But a serpent come among my people and poison all against Running Elk. Now they think the half-breed Pierre La Motte best man to follow. Him talk, talk, all time, and warriors dream. Some day they wake up and know him for bad man. Then p'raps they ask Running Elk come back again. ”

“ Then Strongarm drew his knife, but when he went close to the great Elk, the beast threw him down with his antlers an’ put his forefoot on Strongarm an’ held him on the ground.
“Listen,” said the great Elk, an’ Strongarm listened because he couldn’t help it. “You have hunted my people far an’ near; an’ you can never get enough of their blood or their eye-teeth. I am the Big Medicine Elk an’ chief of the Elk people; an’ now for a vengeance against you, I shall change you from the hunter to the hunted, an’ you shall know how good it is to have fear an’ be an elk.” ”

“ Dick, who knew him better than his immediate chiefs, guessed that these failures did not worry Mr. Elk as much as people thought. Indeed, he often detected a glum pride in his inability to remember historical dates, and once, in a moment of astonishing confidence, Elk had confessed that promotion would be an embarrassment to a man of his limited educational attainments. For Elk’s everyday English was one of his weaknesses.
“There’s no rest for the wicked, Mr. Gordon,” he sighed as he sat down. ”

“ I hope now he won’t punish Young Elk for running away from me.”
“Why not?”
“Because I gave him enough. Anyway, whatever the father did to his boys has been already done, so we needn’t worry over it.”
“Mul-tal-la,” said George, “you haven’t any doubts left?”
“It is wrong to doubt; the words of Black Elk were true; he spoke with a single tongue. My brothers need not fear.”
“Why don’t those Shoshones of his come back and see us through the mountains? It strikes me that that is the right thing to do.”
“No; they will stay with the Cas-ta-ba-nas and hold them back if they try to do us harm. ”

“ He was bareheaded and his long hair and beard were of snowy whiteness. The picture was a striking one, with the curving prow of the pretty craft pointed straight toward the landing. The crystalline water was split into a gentle ripple by the bow, fashioned the same as the stern, and the sparkle of the blade looked as if he was lifting and tumbling liquid diamonds about for the party to admire.
You have been introduced to “Uncle Elk,” and do not need any further description of him. He and Mike Murphy were to meet some hours later not far away in the woods. ”

“ When the last scrap of meat, hide and hair had been devoured and the bones gnawed white and clean, Breed moved on in search of more.149
There were always some few stragglers that lagged behind the elk herds and failed to start for the winter range till after the passes were blocked with snow. These turned back and starved when the grass was buried deep and their feet were cut and worn from pawing through the crust to reach it; for the elk is strictly a grazing animal and cannot live entirely by browsing on the twigs and brush as do moose and deer. ”

“ The Elk is a four-footed beast commonly found in Scandinavia. His upper lip hangs out so long that he cannot eat but going backwards. He is subject to the falling sicknesse, the remedy he hath is to lift up the right claw of the hinder foot & put it to his left ear. It holds the same virtue if you cut it off. ”

“ So many elk did Strong-arm slay that his squaw, the Blossom, made for their little son, Feather-foot, a buckskin coat on which was sewed the eye-teeth of elk, two for each elk, until there were so many eye-teeth on Feather-foot’s buckskin coat it was like counting the leaves on a cottonwood to find how many there were. An’ the Blossom was proud of Feather-foot’s coat, for none among the Sioux had so beautiful a garment an’ the eye-teeth of the elk told how big a hunter was Strongarm. ”

“ Also, Ugly Elk gives Moh-Kwa that bowl of molasses of which Forked Tongue would cheat him.
The same day, Moh-Kwa brings the Firelight to the lodge of Ugly Elk, an’ she an’ Running Water are wed; an’ from that time she dwells in the tepee of Running Water, even unto the day when he is named Kill-Bear an’ made chief after Ugly Elk is no more.
“It is ever,” said the Jolly Doctor, beaming from one to another to observe if we enjoyed Sioux Sam’s story with as deep a zest as he did, “it is ever a wondrous pleasure to meet with these tales of a primitive people. ”

“ The art of calling elk has, happily, never been practised in Scandinavia, and as all the hunting takes place during daylight, and as, moreover, the inhabitants of the interior have a decided objection to being abroad during the dark hours of either evening or morning, this subject, like that of the horns, has probably not received from them much attention. You will find men who have passed all their lives in the wilds of Norway, and constantly hunted the elk, ready to swear that, with the exception of the ‘Lokton,’ neither sex utters any cry whatever. ”

“ I fancy that it is only of late years and since a small band of English sportsmen has devoted itself to the regular annual pursuit of the elk in Scandinavia, that the native hunter, the Norwegian at least, has been induced by example to exhibit any interest in the question of horns or to regard them as worthy of special attention: the size of the body and the amount of meat have always been to him of far greater importance. ”

“ Elk had not relaxed his gloomy silence since the bear's death. He scarcely spoke to any one; he sulked off by himself.
Bluebird had an errand at the trader's this morning. She was crossing the prairie to the fort when, glancing over to the west where the hills lay, she saw Elk disappearing into the cañon beside Flat Butte. She looked after the lonely figure with a sigh. ”

“ We have often heard that there is a certain amount of danger in the pursuit of the elk; if the hunter is always accompanied by a dog of this kind we can easily understand it. However, he was a very interesting animal, and if we had a National School at Memurudalen we should certainly have tried to buy him, as there is any amount of room for débris there. What a boon he would be in some of the thickly populated districts of England!
In the afternoon we paddled leisurely back to our camp and found it looking prettier than ever, but, alas! ”

“ I am inclined to believe, having never myself seen an elk in a fit, that now-a-days the remedy is invariably successful; but I find that the author of a small French book, entitled Nouveau voyage vers le Septentrion, and published in 1708, mentions that whilst hunting near Christiania [Pg 124] in the company of a Norwegian nobleman, he was fortunate enough to be an eye-witness of the death of the only two elk they found, both of which succumbed, after a severe run, to sudden epileptic attacks, otherwise they would certainly never have been overtaken! ”

“ But, although Running Elk was known as the bravest man of his tribe, he shook his head, as if to signify that he preferred not having anything to do with such a wonderful invention of the Evil Spirit.
Still, Dick had high hopes that the desire to make use of such a powerful agency against the foes of his tribe might yet influence Running Elk to spare the lives of his white prisoners. ”

“ Ugly Elk commands the Antelope, his runner, to hurry with word to the hunters to burn him to death who shall come first to them in the morning. Then he makes this word to Running Water that he must go to the hunters when the sun comes up an’ ask if they have killed an’ cooked the deer he sent them. Ugly Elk scowls like a cloud while he gives his directions to Running Water, but the boy does not see since his eyes are on the ground. ”

“ They may be the same elk that are found on the plains and in the Rocky Mountains, or they may be something quite different. I should like to be the man to bring out a skin of one of those animals and to have it compared with the elk that we know so well. I have seen two or three heads of the Island elk, and to me they don't look like the elk of the East, but it's a long time since I saw an eastern elk, and maybe I have forgotten just how it looks."
"Are those elk plenty?" asked Jack. ”