As the horns begin to harden the bulls thrash the velvet off against quaking asp, or ash, or even young spruce, splintering and battering the bushes and small trees. The cows and calves begin to assemble; the bulls seek them. But the bulls do not run the cows as among the smaller deer the bucks run the does. The time of the beginning of the rut varies in different places, but it usually takes place in September, about a month earlier than that of the deer in the same locality. The necks of the bulls swell and they challenge incessantly, for, unlike the smaller deer, they are very noisy. Their love and war calls, when heard at a little distance amid the mountains, have a most musical sound. Frontiersmen usually speak of their call as “whistling,” which is not an appropriate term. The call may be given in a treble or in a bass, but usually consists of two or three bars, first rising and then falling, followed by a succession of grunts. The grunts can only be heard when close up. There can be no grander or more attractive chorus than the challenging of a number of wapiti bulls when two great herds happen to approach one another under the moonlight or in the early dawn. The pealing notes echo through the dark valleys as if from silver bugles, and the air is filled with the wild music. Where little molested the wapiti challenge all day long. They can be easiest hunted during the rut, the hunter placing them, and working up to them, by the sound alone. The bulls are excessively truculent and pugnacious. Each big one gathers a herd of cows about him and drives all possible rivals away from his immediate neighborhood, although sometimes spike bulls are allowed to remain with the herd. Where wapiti are very abundant, however, many of these herds may join together and become partially welded into a mass that may contain thousands of animals. In the old days such huge herds were far from uncommon, especially during the migrations; but nowadays there only remain one or two localities in which wapiti are sufficiently plentiful ever to come together in bands of any size. The bulls are incessantly challenging and fighting one another, and driving around the cows and calves. Each keeps the most jealous watch over his own harem, treating its members with great brutality, and is selfishly indifferent to their fate the instant he thinks his own life in jeopardy. During the rut the erotic manifestations of the bull are extraordinary. [Illustration: THE PACK-TRAIN ]