The American Wilderness 27 



track of the antelope is more oval, growing squarer 

 with age. Mountain sheep leave footmarks of a 

 squarer shape, the points of the hoof making little 

 indentations in the soil, well apart, even when the 

 animal is only walking ; and a yearling's track is not 

 unlike that made by a big prong-buck when striding 

 rapidly with the toes well apart. White-goat tracks 

 are also square, and as large as those of the sheep ; 

 but there is less indentation of the hoof points, which 

 come nearer together. 



The antelope, or prong-buck, was once found in 

 abundance from the eastern edge of the great plains 

 to the Pacific, but it has everywhere diminished in 

 numbers, and has been exterminated along the east- 

 ern and western borders of its former range. The 

 bighorn, or mountain sheep, is found in the Rocky 

 Mountains from northern Mexico to Alaska; and 

 in the United States from the Coast and Cascade 

 ranges to the Bad Lands of the western edges of 

 the Dakotas, wherever there are mountain chains or 

 tracts of rugged hills. It was never very abundant, 

 and, though it has become less so, it has held its own 

 better than most game. The white goat, however, 

 alone among our game animals, has positively in- 

 creased in numbers since the advent of settlers ; be- 

 cause white hunters rarely follow it, and the In- 

 dians who once sought its skin for robes now use 

 blankets instead. Its true home is in Alaska and 

 Canada, but it crosses our borders along the lines of 



