Of all the large game on the American continent, the elk (_Cervus canadensis_) is the noblest, the grandest, the stateliest. I would detract nothing from the noble game qualities of the moose, caribou, deer, or mountain sheep. Each has its peculiar points of excellence which endear it to the heart of the sportsman, but the elk possesses more than any of the others. In size he towers far above all, except the moose. In sagacity, caution, cunning, and wariness he is the peer, if not the superior, of them all. He is always on the alert, his keen scent, his piercing eye, his acute sense of hearing, combining to render him a vigilant sentinel of his own safety.
His great size and powerful muscular construction give him almost unbounded endurance. When alarmed or pursued he will travel for twenty or thirty hours, at a rapid swinging trot, without stopping for food or rest. He is a proud, fearless ranger, and even when simply migrating from one range of mountains to another, will travel from seventy-five to a hundred miles without lying down. He is a marvelous mountaineer, and, considering his immense size and weight, often ascends to heights that seem incredible. He may often be found away up to timber line, and will traverse narrow passes and defiles, climbing over walls of rock and through fissures where it would seem impossible for so large an animal, with such massive antlers as he carries, to go. He chooses his route, however, with rare good judgment, and all mountaineers know that an elk trail is the best that can possibly be selected over any given section of mountainous country. His faculty of traversing dense jungles and windfalls is equally astonishing. If given his own time, he will move quietly and easily through the worst of these, leaping over logs higher than his back as gracefully and almost as lightly as the deer; yet let a herd of elk be alarmed and start on a run through one of these labyrinthine masses, and they will make a noise like a regiment of cavalry on a precipitous charge.
I have stood on the margin of a quaking-asp thicket and heard a large band of elk coming toward me that had been "jumped" and fired upon by my friend at the other side, and the frightful noise of their horns pounding the trees, their hoofs striking each other and the numerous rocks, the crashing of dead branches, with the snorting of the affrighted beasts, might well have struck terror to the heart of anyone unused to such sights and sounds, and have caused him to seek safety in flight. But by standing my ground I was enabled to get in a couple of shots at short range, and to bring down two of the finest animals in the herd.