244 The White Goat 



knowledge, they frankly tell you that they don't 

 know. They paste no piece of paper over the 

 hole, pretending it's all solid underneath. But 

 the small fiy — the popular magazine size, — 

 these unceasingly are pasting paper. And why "^ 

 Because they're not afraid of being found out. 

 They know how few of their readers can dis- 

 cover the holes and poke their fingers through 

 the paper. Don't you believe me, reader ? Does 

 your kind heart repudiate with heat this asper- 

 sion ? Perhaps — for instance — you're not aware 

 how some little writers go on deriving the 

 name of a well-known St. Lawrence fish from 

 two French words, masque allongee. I would 

 tell you about it, only I did not discover 

 their ludicrous blunder myself ; but here's a 

 hole where I happened to poke my own finger 

 through the paper. During ten years I used 

 every official map of Wyoming that I could 

 procure. First it was a territory, and next a 

 state, but all the while the map-makers con- 

 tinued to draw Pacific Creek as flowing into 

 Buffalo Fork. Now Pacific Creek is a thorough- 

 fare between the two sides of the Continental 

 Divide, and it does not flow into Buffalo Fork, 

 but into Snake River. It was a really bad geo- 



