The Antelope-Goat of the Pacific Slope. 113 



a menial. When sitting down to our meals, my brawny Darby had 

 from the very first assumed the right to squat down a little way off 

 and polish off his food at the same time I was so occupied, poor 

 Joan having to content herself with the leavings, which she ate 

 with her back turned towards us while we were smoking our pipes. 

 The above described loss of cooking and eating utensils gave me 

 the chance to work a change in this respect which at first met not 

 only with the indignant refusal of the husband, but with that of 

 humble Joan, to whom the idea of sharing food out of the same pan 

 with her lord appeared to be an unheard-of act of lese majeste, 

 more particularly so in the presence of a white stranger. Neither 

 of these children of nature had ever set eyes upon a white woman, 

 and I suppose they had never come into contact with white men, 

 so my task was not an easy one, but by insisting on serving 

 myself first, and only when I had finished giving an equal share to 

 the squaw and to proud Darby, I finally accomplished my purpose. 

 In a day or two man and wife were eating quite domestically out 

 of the same frying pan or amicably rending a roasted grouse by 

 the concentrated efforts of two pairs of greasy paws, a smile of 

 masculine condescension and a feminine titter being the only 

 outward signs of the surprise with which the extreme novelty of 

 this new fangled domestic equality was regarded by them. 



But I have wandered afield and must hie back to our subject. 



The antelope-goat attains now and again a very formidable size. 

 An old ram, killed by a friend of mine, had a girth around the body 

 of jft. 3^in. It was impossible to ascertain his weight, but from 

 the fact that two powerful men could not lift him 4ft. it must have 

 been at least 3Oolb. Another big ram, killed in 1888 in the 

 Selkirks by Mr. W. R. Bentley, of the Academy of Science of 

 California, measured, so the sportsman reported, from muzzle to tip 

 of tail 6ft. gin. 



About thirty years ago some enterprising Californians, desiring 

 to try an experimental crossing of the antelope-goat with the 

 Angora goat of Asia, visited Montana and offered large rewards, 

 I believe, as much as Sopdol. apiece, for live adult goats. In the 



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