146 Sport and Life. 



Let me tell briefly how Sheard, whose assertions I have 

 so far always found accurate, inadvertently fell into this error, 

 for, as the reader will be able to see, I am in the position of 

 proving, so far as one can attest the truth of an event which one 

 has not witnessed oneself, that the ram was shot near Fort Steele 

 in the Rocky Mountains, and not in the Selkirks. Near Fort 

 Steele the two ranges, as a glance at the map will show, are close 

 together, for the ninety-mile long Upper Kootenay valley, in the 

 middle of which Fort Steele is situated, is formed by the Rockies on 

 the east, and on the west side by the Selkirks, known at that point 

 as the Purcell Mountains. As the valley is only a few miles wide, 

 the foothills of the two ranges are, in places, separated by nothing 

 but the swiftly running Upper Kootenay river. But close as the 

 two ranges are to each other at this point, they are in respect to 

 formation, shape, flora, and fauna, as widely different as are the Alps 

 from the Grampians. Bare, boldly rising limestone crags, attaining 

 an elevation of 8000 or 9000 feet, represent the Rockies near Fort 

 Steele. In every way suited to be (as they also were) the favourite 

 playground of mountain sheep, bands of them could be seen from 

 the river side with a telescope in the first years that I visited that 

 then extremely isolated part of the world. The Selkirks, on the 

 other hand, rising on the opposite side of the river, are rounded 

 densely timbered hills of much lower elevation, and distinguished 

 by a much more moist climate. On the higher points of the main 

 Selkirks the mountain goat, as already stated, could be found in 

 great numbers, but never bighorn. During the ten years that I 

 was personally intimately acquainted with the Kootenay valleys 

 how intimately the reader will see in some of my subsequent 

 chapters I have never seen or heard of a mountain sheep being 

 shot or seen in the Selkirks. 



But I have other and more direct evidence to offer concerning 

 the point in question. Sheard, in answer to my assertion that he 

 was mistaken concerning the mountains where the ram was killed, 

 gave me the following details, many of which were already known 

 to me. The ram was killed in the winter of 1892-93, and was 





