The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations

For several days nothing occurred; but all the while Black Beauty was biding his time and watching for an opportunity. At last it came. As Apache lay dozing and ruminating on a sunny hill-side, his beaten rival quietly drifted around his resting-place, stealthily secured a good position, and, without a second's warning plunged his sharp horns deep into the lungs of the reclining bull. With the mad energy of pent-up and superheated fury, the assassin delivered stab after stab into the unprotected side of the helpless victim, and before Apache could gain his feet he had been gored many times. He lived only a few minutes. It was foul murder, fully premeditated; and had Black Beauty been my personal property, he would have been executed for the crime, without any objections, or motions, or appeals, or far-fetched certificates of unreasonable doubt. During the past twenty years a number of persons have been treacherously murdered by animals they had fed and protected. One of the most deplorable of these tragedies occurred late in 1906, near Montclair, New Jersey. Mr. Herbert Bradley was the victim. While walking through his deer park, he was wantonly attacked by a white-tailed buck and murdered on the spot. At Helena, Montana, a strong man armed with a pitchfork was killed by a bull elk. There have been several other fatalities from elk. The greater number of such crimes as the above have been committed by members of the Deer Family (deer, elk, moose and caribou). The hollow-horned ruminants seem to be different. I believe that toward their keepers the bison, buffaloes and wild cattle entertain a certain measure of respect that in members of the Deer Family often is totally absent. But there are exceptions; and a very sad and notable case was the murder of Richard W. Rock, of Henry's Lake, Idaho, in 1903.