THE CHALLENGE OF A BULL 173

The ‘‘ rutting”? season was in full swing, there were
bulls frequently to be heard sounding their challenges,
even during the middle of the day, and, as we trudged
along to rest our leg-weary horses, we had been passing
the time by whistling answers to the challenges, and also
by tinkling a small horse-bell: the latter seemed particularly
to rouse the deer’s ire. We had not gone out of our way
to look for the animals themselves, though we had chanced
on several cows and a couple of bulls, one of which carried
a nice set of horns, though nothing out of the ordinary.
Then, towards afternoon, we were attracted by the call
of a bull that sounded exceptionally loud and harsh.
He seemed to be coming in our direction, so we took our
horses back from the creek into the timber and tied them
up where they could not see or be seen. Then we watched
for the advent of what we expected would be an extra
large beast.

You must now be told that the challenge of a bull wapiti
is hard to describe; it is quite different from that of
moose or red deer. It varies according to the age of the
animal, but they all begin with from three to five flute-like
notes, the first being low and the others ascending the
scale. Young bulls whose voices are not fully developed
usually have to content themselves with these few notes,
but as they attain greater age their voices develop and
they increase the length of the call with more lower notes.
Old bulls give the finale with a regular deep bray, which
can be heard a long distanee. By the length and harshness
of the bray it is often possible to make a fair estimate
of the size and age of the beast.

Hardly had we left our horses and returned to the edge
of the bank than a lone cow hove into view. She was
striding along at a fast rate, right up the middle of the
river bed and coming directly towards us. When we
first saw ber she was about three hundred yards away.
Then, when the cow had cut the distance between us in
two, along came the finest bull it has ever been my good
fortune to lay eyes on. He was rolling fat ; his brownish,
cream-coloured body, with its lighter coloured rump