Part 12

It is hard not to yield to further temptation, not to transcribe from that diary of 1892 much more about the appearance and customs of the strange wild country through which I now passed on my way to the goat. Some of the landscape was the worst, the forlornest, the most worthless that I know, far outstripping Nevada in sheer meanness, and as desolate as Arizona, without Arizona’s magic splendor and fascination. Great deserts without grandeur, great valleys without charm, great rocks without dignity, mere lonely ugliness everywhere; that is the Big Bend country; and the river Columbia itself, when you finally descend to it from the parched bare dust and the strewn black boulders of the table-land, is a sweeping, sullen, shadeless flood, the most unlovely river that ever I have seen.

I like, when I can, to bring support to my opinions. On a later day, in the middle of the Big Bend, I came upon a desolate sign-post, placed there no doubt to cheer up the wayfarer’s discouraged heart. This post announced that Central Ferry was thirty-five miles distant; and below this a wayfarer had scrawled his personal comment:--

Forty-five miles to water.

And a subsequent wayfarer had added:--

Seventy-five miles to wood.

And a final wayfarer:--

Two and one-half miles to hell.

Ah, the dauntless, invaluable spirit of man! Those few words scrawled by a hand that I should like to shake, made the desert blossom with humor, and I continued on my journey with a smiling heart.

Three nights out from the cockroaches, and I was sleeping in the open, among pleasant hills. An old ragged fiddler, with hair hanging grizzled to his shoulders, had kept me listening late to all sorts of old-fashioned tunes and dances. He had fiddled his way across our continent, and had taken his lifetime to do so. Here he was, with silvering hair, up in the Cascade Mountains. I spread my blankets a hundred yards from his cabin, where he lived alone. He was perfectly blithe-hearted and perfectly penniless. I don’t know his name; I never saw him but that once; I suppose he is dead; but his discourse and his fiddle gave me an evening of entertainment over which I still sometimes dwell. Had I found no goat, the characters that I met, such as he, would have rewarded my excursion. But all things came to me. After some vain trips, whence I returned empty handed from fairly rough camping, on Wednesday, November 2, the diary reads, “One of my particular long-cherished wishes is accomplished, and I have seen and killed a mountain goat.” On the next day a second head and hide hung in our very snug camp. These first two were males, and they served as a basis for the description that I have attempted to draw earlier in this chapter. It was while we sat, my companionable guide and I, skinning the second goat, that we held a conversation which I must here record.

How we ever fell upon such a subject as the royal family of England, I do not remember; but camping in the wilderness uses up subjects, and leaves you with a steadily narrowing choice each day; and T--, who took an illustrated paper, observed to me that he had always rather liked “that chap Lorne.” This was how he phrased it; his language about some of the others held less of compliment.

Now I had happened, not long before this, to read of a distressing _contretemps_ that had befallen the procession during the Queen’s jubilee, and I reminded T-- of this; but it was new to him. So I told him that while the crowned heads were proceeding in state through London streets with the eyes of the civilized world watching them with admiration, the Marquis of Lorne’s horse kicked up. It was a horse that required a better rider than the Prince of Wales had considered the marquis to be, for he had warned him against the animal beforehand. But the marquis preferred to ride him. And so the horse kicked up, and off fell the marquis, right in the middle of the Queen’s jubilee.

T-- looked at me and said nothing. I was therefore left uncertain if it came home to the mind of the mountaineer that this royal progress, this historic and panoplied moment, was a bad one for a nobleman to select to tumble off his horse in. I continued:--

“I believe that the Queen, upon seeing the accident, sent somebody.”

“Where?” said T--.

“To the marquis. She probably called the nearest King and said, ‘Frederick, Lorne’s off. Go and see if he’s hurt.’”

“‘And if he ain’t hurt, _hurt_ him,’” added T--, speaking for the Queen. So I perceived that he had given the situation its full value.

After this second day of success, storm and snow beat down upon us, a blinding day, keeping us in camp. More storms followed, and no more goat; and we had to shoot a horse which had “cast” himself, being entangled in his rope, and so frozen as he lay helpless overnight in the heavy snow. We left these mountains and departed to others in search of a herd of goat; I wished a female and kid, and we seemed to have lighted upon a resort of old solitary males. Eight days after the second goat we sighted our herd, and this occasioned an experience more enlightening.

I feel confident that those who have done much hunting of big game have sometimes heard such words as these: “This mountain used to have a bunch of sheep on it all the time; three hundred sheep;” or, “Just about here last season I ran into a band of twelve hundred elk;” or, “I passed two thousand antelope on the flat yesterday.” The person who says this to you will have been your own guide, or some visitor to camp who is comparing notes and exchanging anecdotes. I, at any rate, have listened many times to such assertions; and now and then I have been tempted to observe (for instance) in reply: “Two thousand antelope! When you’d counted nineteen hundred and ninety-nine, I should think you’d have been too tired to go on.” But these are temptations that I have resisted. I think, too, that the men believed what they said--in a general way. But here with the goat was a famous opportunity. We could see them clearly; they were across a cañon from ourselves, a mile or so away; they were lying down, or standing, some eating, some slowly moving about a little; they were in crowds, and in smaller groups, and by ones and twos, changing their positions very leisurely; and they seemed numberless; they were up and down the hill everywhere. Getting to them this day was not possible, since most of the day was already gone, and we were high up on an opposite mountain side.

“There’s a hundred thousand goat!” exclaimed T--; and I should have gone home asseverating that I had seen at least hundreds.

“Let’s count them,” said I. We took the glasses and did so. There were thirty-five.

From these thirty-five during the next two days I completed with no trouble, save hard climbing, my tally of desired specimens,--an adult male and female, and a kid, for my own keeping, with two males to give away to friends. And I learned a little more about the goat.

The female is lighter built than the male, and with horns more slender--a trifle. And (to return to the question of diet) we visited the pasture where the herd had been, and found no sign of grass growing, or grass eaten; there was no grass on that mountain. The only edible substance was a moss, tufted, stiff, and dry to the touch. The largest horns at the base measured six inches in circumference, and twenty-one and a half inches from one tip down to the skull and so across and up to the other tip. I also learned that the goat is safe from predatory animals. With his impenetrable hide and his disembowelling horns, he is left by the wolves and mountain lions respectfully alone. And T-- told me of a mother goat’s energy. A prospector had in early summer captured a kid still too young to run much. Its mother saw him taking it to camp, ran after him, chased him in full sight of his comrades so hotly that he had to drop her child, and she got it back! I have said by inference, but must definitely state, that the kids are dropped in May and June.

To the sum of our knowledge about the _Oreamnus montanus_, the gift of a subspecies has lately been offered; but acceptance of this gift would at present, I think, be premature. It depends on one’s idea of the number of facts needful in daily life to justify a generalization. For instance, if you should read in the paper that one person died of diphtheria last week in New York, it would not prevent your going to that city; but if you read that five hundred had died in a week, you might decide not to take your children there for the season,--and this would be the result of a justifiable generalization. The rule is nowise different in genuine science. This new variety of goat has been based upon a single specimen, and only the dried skull at that! Because the horns were a few inches longer and spread a few inches wider than the average, and because there were certain differences in measurement of the jaw, is scarce adequate proof that these variations were not a distortion, congenital or the result of accident. We have seen people with squints and with club-feet; we have also been to the circus, yet we do not make subspecies for the Kentucky giant and the bearded lady. But that little ache for self-perpetuation, for some sort of permanence in this forgetting world, throbs in many hearts, and since we are all trying to affix our names to something that will hand them down to the succeeding generations, why not tie them to _Oreamnus_ and _Ovis_? And so, reader, you have the pleasing vision of our zoölogists, riding down to posterity upon the backs of sundry subspecies of goat and sheep.

These animals, like all our Western big game, are disappearing. It is not (as the political Western loud-talker has so frequently shouted) the Eastern “tenderfoot” who is responsible for this destruction; it is the Westerner himself, quietly breaking the laws he made, and killing (to take one recent example) dozens of bull elk out of season in Jackson’s Hole, Wyoming, merely to sell the two teeth known as “tushes,” and leaving the rest of the carcass to rot on the hills. That is the real man who is destroying our big game, just as he is wiping out our forests. Left in his hands, the face of our continent would presently look like a burnt house. Two years before I hunted the goat, the deer in those mountains came down in herds to stare at the new settlers--who shot them from their cabin doors for fun. The deer are scarce enough now.

The Yellowstone Park is a sanctuary for buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, and sheep. There (if anywhere) our big game have a chance of surviving. I have never heard of goat as existing in this sanctuary; but good news comes lately that the sheep are thriving upon Mt. Evarts. Let me suggest to the commandant that he take steps to secure some goat from the Saw Tooth Range--or anywhere he best can--and try the interesting experiment of breeding the animal in the Yellowstone Park.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT

(HAPLOCERUS MONTANUS[16])

This is one of the very few mammals that are permanently white or whitish at all seasons, and although commonly termed a goat, it really belongs to the same group as the serows, which it closely resembles in the form and color of the horns. In winter the hair is very long, and pure white in color; along the back it is erect, and much elongated on the withers and haunches, so as to give to the animal the appearance of possessing a pair of humps. The summer coat is comparatively short, and has a yellowish tinge. Height at shoulder just short of 3 feet; weight from 180 to 300 pounds.

_Distribution._--North America, throughout the Rocky Mountains, from about latitude 36° in California at least as far north as latitude 60°. By American naturalists the proper generic name of the animal is considered to be _Oreamnus_ instead of _Haplocerus_.

MEASUREMENTS OF HORNS

=========+=======+======+==================+======================= LENGTH |CIRCUM-| TIP | | ON FRONT|FERENCE|TO TIP| LOCALITY | OWNER CURVE | | | | ---------+-------+------+------------------+----------------------- --11½ | .. | .. |British Columbia |Clive Phillipps-Wolley | | | | --11 | .. | .. |Kutenay, British |John T. Fannin | | | Columbia | (measured by) | | | | --10½ | 5¾ | .. |Montana |Walter James | | | | 10¼ | 5¼ | 5½ |British Columbia |R. Rankin | | | | --10⅛ | 6½ | .. |Similkameen River,|Arthur Pearse | | | British Columbia| | | | | 10⅛ | 5 | 6⅛ | ? |E. N. Buxton | | | | --♀10⅛ | 4¾ | .. |British Columbia |Capt. A. Egerton | | | | 10 | 5⅜ | 6⅜ |British Columbia |J. V. Colby | | | | --9¾ | 5 | .. |Montana |Theodore Roosevelt | | | | 9¾ | 5½ | 6¼ |N.W. Territories |S. Ratcliff | | | | 9¾ | 5¼ | 6 |N.W. Territories |H.R.H. le Duc | | | | d’Orléans | | | | 9⅝ | 5¼ | 6⅛ |N.W. Territories |Sir Edmund G. Loder, | | | | Bart. | | | | 9½ | 5½ | 6¼ |Alaska |Sir George Littledale | | | | 9½ | 4½ | .. |North America |J. D. Cobbold | | | | ♀9½ | 4¼ | 5½ |British Columbia |P. B. Vander-Byl | | | | 9½ | 5¼ | 6⅜ |East Kutenay, |A. E. Butter | | |British Columbia | | | | | --9½ | 5¼ | 6½ |Bitter Root Mts., |James J. Harrison | | | U.S.A. | | | | | --♀9⅜ | 4½ | 5⅝ |British Columbia |A. E. Leatham | | | | --9⅜ | 5⅜ | 6¾ |British Columbia |T. W. H. Clarke | | | | 9¼ | 5½ | 5¼ |British Columbia |J. Turner-Turner | | | | 9¼ | 5½ | .. |North America |Earl of Lonsdale | | | | 9¼ | 5½ | 5¾ |British Columbia |G. Lloyd Graeme | | | | 9⅛ | .. | 6 |Montana |Thomas Bate, | | | | British Museum | | | | 9⅛ | 5¼ | 5 |British Columbia |Sir Peter Walker, Bart. | | | | 9 | 4¾ | 6 |British Columbia |T. P. Kempson | | | | --8⅞ | 5½ | 4⅛ |British Columbia |Count E. Hoyos | | | | 8¼ | 4⅔ | 5¼ |British Columbia |Count Schiebler =========+=======+======+==================+=======================

FOOTNOTES

[1] Rest.

[2] Caribou.

[3] Not caribou.

[4] Musk-ox.

[5] “Records of Big Game,” Rowland Ward, third edition.

[6] “Records of Big Game,” Rowland Ward, third edition.

[7] Wood Bison.

[8] Dark brown, shading to tan and ecru, tinged with grayish blue; large, heavy boned; massive horns curved close to head, well flattened, deeply corrugated on upper rim, usually battered at the points in the older rams. Range the Rocky Mountains north from the Colorado River to the head waters of the Peace River, British Columbia. Range in upper edge of timber line.

[9] White. Summer coat of a rusty hue. Not so large as _Canadensis_. Horns white, curved well away from head; not so deeply corrugated, less massive than _Canadensis_. All of Rocky Mountains north of 60° N. L., and Alaskan Mountains in Western Alaska Range, above timber line.

[10] The darkest of all the sheep, shading from light to very dark gray tinged with brown. Horns long and graceful but slender, spreading farther from the head than those of any species. Range the Rocky Mountains between 55° and 60° N. and in the Cassiar, Campbell, and Simson mountains farther west and north to 62° N.

[11] Light brown to ecru tinged with drab. Horns similar to _Canadensis_. Range the semi-desert country in Southern states from Texas to California.

[12] Darker than _Nelsoni_, but not so dark as _Canadensis_. Size large. Horns broad and massive; molar teeth larger than in any known American sheep; tail vertebra long. Range Chihuahua Mountains in Northern and Western Mexico.

[13] White and gray. In size about that of the _Dalli_ and _Stonei_. Horns white; curved closer to head than _Dalli_ and _Stonei_. Range Upper Yukon River. Range more in the timber than _Stonei_ or _Dalli_; habits very much those of _Canadensis_.

[14] The ram’s horns cease growing at the time of the rutting season, and do not begin again until the spring brings nourishing food. This causes the rings on the horns, it is said, which indicate the number of winters old the sheep is.

[15] “Records of Big Game,” Rowland Ward, third edition.

[16] “Records of Big Game,” Rowland Ward, third edition.

INDEX

Age indicated by rings on rams’ horns, 208 _n._

Alaska, buffalo range as extending to, 123. Fossil remains of musk-oxen found in, 85. Mountain sheep in, 176, 181 _n._, 223-224, 226, 246. Remains of buffaloes found in, 123-124. Rumors of musk-oxen in, 85-93. White goat found in, 246, 250, 275.

Alaskan bighorn [_Ovis Canadensis dalli_], 176, 181 _n._, 223-224, 226, 246.

_Alces_ [Moose], 120.

Alleghanies, the, eastern boundary of buffalo range, 120.

Allen, Professor J. A., 79, 80. Monograph on American bisons by, 119.

Animals, attachment of, to one locality, 138-146.

Antelope, white goat an, 232.

Antelope-hunting on horses, 197.

_Antilope americana_, white goat termed, 259.

_Antilope lanigera_, 259.

Arctic islands, musk-oxen on, 51, 60, 85, 93.

Argalis, Asiatic, mountain sheep distinguished from, 223.

Arizona, mountain sheep in, 247.

Arkansas, musk-ox skull found in, 85.

Audubon, J. J., 122, 147. “Missouri River Journal” quoted, 157-159.

Aurochs, European bison called, 111.

Aylmer Lake, musk-ox killed at, 94.

Babiche, 41, 67.

Bache Peninsula, musk-oxen killed on, 76-79.

Bad Lands, mountain sheep in the, 176.

“Barren Ground of Northern Canada,” W. Pike’s, 47.

Barren Grounds, hunting in, 17-29. Physical character of, 34-35. Route for best reaching, 50-51. Snowfall in, 35.

Bear River Valley, buffalo formerly abundant in, 125.

Bedson, S. L., experiments in breeding buffalo by, 148.

Bent, George, 128.

Bent, Colonel William, 128.

Berlin, live musk-ox in, 103.

Big Bend country, description of, 264.

Bighorn, American [_Ovis canadensis_], 223-224. _See_ Mountain sheep. Alaskan [_Ovis canadensis dalli_], 176, 181 _n._, 223-224, 226, 246.

“Biological Survey of Mount Shasta,” 250.

Birds, attachment of, to certain localities, 142.

Bison, American [_Bos bison_], 111-166. Mountain, 126, 135-136. Points distinguishing, from European bison, 165. Prairie [_Bos bison typicus_], 165. Reported relation of musk-ox to, 75. _See_ Buffaloes.

Bitter Root Mountains, white goat found in, 275.

Blackfeet Indians, white buffalo skin dedicated to Sun by, 127.

Blainville, M. de, 259.

Bodfish, Captain H. H., 93, 103.

Bonneville, Captain, on buffaloes in Bear River Valley, 125.

_Bos bison athabascæ_ [Wood bison], 117, 123, 165.

_Bos bison typicus_ [Prairie bison], 165.

British Columbia, mountain sheep in, 225, 226. White goat in, 231, 250, 275.

Brown, Arthur, on southern range of white goat, 247.

Brush, absence of, from Barren Grounds, 35-36.

“Buck-fever,” 203-207.

Buffaloes, agility of, 135-136. Attachment to one locality, 140-146. Battles between males, 131-132. Bulls, 129-132. Butchering of, by Indians, described, 157-159. Calves, 132-135, 146-147. Color of, 126-128, 132-133. Cross-breeding of, 147-150. Description, 165. Domestication, 147-150. Extermination of, 111-119. Habits, 129-130. Hair, 165. Height, 165. Herds of, 117, 161-163. Hides, 130-131. Horns, 165. Indians hold sacred, 127-129. Methods of hunting, 150-156. Migrations, 137-142. Panics among, 136-137. Range, 119-126, 165. Rubbing-stones, 131, 163. Rutting season, 131-132. Superstitions concerning, 127-130. “Surround” method of hunting, 150-156. Trails, 138. Weight, 165. Young, 132-135, 146-147. _See_ Bison.

Buffalo-running, 159-161.

California, absence of white goat from, 244-245.

California mountain sheep [_Ovis canadensis nelsoni_], 223, 226.

Calves, buffalo, 132-133, 146-147. Of musk-oxen, 100, 103, 132-133.

Camping in Barren Grounds, 64-69.

Canoes, musk-ox hunting in, 61-62.

Cape Bryant, musk-oxen killed at, 93.

Capote, caribou-skin, 55.

_Capra americana_, white goat called, 259.

_Capra montana_, 259.

Caribou, course of migration, in Barren Grounds, 44, 47-48.

_Cervus canadensis_ [Elk], 120.

Chamois, relation of white goat to, 232.

Charging, false reputation of musk-oxen for, 73-75.

Cheyenne Indians, white buffalo skins dedicated to Sun by, 127.

Coffee a luxury in the North, 50.

Cogmolik Indians, 92.

Colorado, buffalo-horns from, 166.

Colorado Cañon, mountain sheep in, 247.

Copenhagen, live musk-ox in, 105.

Corsica, the moufflon of, 182.

Coues, Dr. Elliott, 256.

Dakota, disappearance of mountain sheep from, 178-179.

Deer-hunting on horses, 197.

District of Columbia, buffaloes reported as once found in, 120-121.

Dodge, Colonel, 115, 133, 161.

Dogs, question of shipping, into the Barren Grounds, 41-42. Scarcity of, in North Country, 38-39. _See_ Sledge-dogs.

Domestication of buffaloes, 147-150.

Drought, buffaloes driven from Mississippi by, 121.

Duffel, the, defined, 39.

Duke of Bedford, live musk-ox owned by, 103.

Dunbar, William, 257, 259.

Dung of musk-ox, 100.

Earl of Lonsdale, musk-ox horns owned by, 99-100.

Elk [_Cervus canadensis_], 120. Slaughter of, at Jackson’s Hole, Ky., 273.

Elk-hunting on horses, 197.

Equipment for Barren Ground expedition, 53-54.

Europe, fossil remains of musk-oxen found in, 85. Specimens (live) of musk-ox in, 103.

Ewe and lamb, Wister’s experience with, 210-222.

Feeding, problem of, in Barren Grounds, 41-42.

Firth, John, 91.

Flesh of musk-oxen, 100-103.

Flowers in the Barren Grounds, 62.

Fort Resolution, 39, 50.

Fossil remains of musk-oxen, 85.

Franz Josef Land, musk-oxen unknown in, 93.

Fremont, J. C., on western range of buffaloes, 125.

Fur, color of, of musk-oxen, 80, 104.

Gass, 175, 179, 256.

Gaudet, Hudson’s Bay Company post factor, 53.

Goat, relation between sheep and, 182. _See_ White goat.

Grease, craving for, in the North, 47.

Great Lakes northern boundary of buffalo range, 121.

Greenland, musk-oxen in, 51, 79-80, 85.

Green River, buffaloes found on tributaries of, 125.

Grinnell Land, fossil remains of musk-oxen in, 85. Musk-oxen of, 79-80.

Haggerty, Captain, 90.

Hair of white goat, 239, 240-241, 257.

_Haplocerus montanus_ [Rocky Mountain goat], 231, 259, 274. _See_ White goat.

Harlan’s musk-ox [_Ovibos bombifrons_], 76, 85.

Headgear in Barren Ground hunting, 33-34.

Heads of musk-oxen, 99-100.