The Bighorn and the Antelope. 147 



brought into Fort Steele by the man who killed it, one Scotty 

 MacDougall, and from there it was taken to Tobacco Plains, just 

 south of the boundary. Poor Scotty got wiped out himself four 

 years after the event by a snow slide, and Sheard bought the ram's 

 head from Scotty's partner after the former's death. Sheard does 

 not claim to know the Kootenay country himself, and when writing to 

 me reiterated the opinion that the ram was bagged near " Fort Steele 

 in the Selkirks." This at once shows how the mistake arose, for 

 Sheard has fallen into the error a common one in the States of 

 supposing Fort Steele to be in the Selkirks, which it is not, for it 

 lies on the Rocky Mountain side of the valley. But more is to 

 follow, for not only did I hear about the killing of the ram four or 

 five years before Sheard did, i.e., at the time it was shot, when I 

 passed through the Kootenay country in the winter of 1892-93, 

 but I knew Scotty quite well, he having worked for me some years 

 previously when I was carrying out the extensive works in this very 

 valley, with which some of my subsequent chapters will deal. 



The reader will probably exclaim : Why make such a long story 

 about an error of a few miles, a mistake which can make no 

 difference ? In answering this objection, I take the opportunity of 

 giving the reason of my constant fault-Hnding with Rowland 

 Ward's handbooks for sportsmen. I contend that to make such 

 books of real use, the information they contain should be correct. 

 Incorrect data are far worse than none, for not only are they 

 misleading in themselves, but they tend to prevent a person 

 from searching for information in better informed quarters, or 

 from addressing inquiries to people who have personal experience, 

 and who, if they lay any claim to be sportsmen, should be ready to 

 impart the burden of their own experience to fellow sportsmen. 

 The instance before us is as good an illustration of what I mean, as 



could be cited. X , a keen sportsman, who has shot in the 



mountains of India the various Asiatic ovis, is now bitten with the 

 desire to slay a really good specimen of the American sheep. He 

 turns to " Records of Big Game," and there finds that by far the 

 largest head has been killed in " The Selkirks, British Columbia, 



I. 2 



