154 The Wilderness Hunter 



enemies of the young kids, as they are of the young 

 lambs of the bighorn. 



The white goat is the only game beast of America 

 which has not decreased in numbers since the ar- 

 rival of the white man. Although in certain local- 

 ities it is now decreasing, yet, taken as a whole, it 

 is probably quite as plentiful now as it was fifty 

 years back; for in the early part of the present 

 century there were Indian tribes who hunted it 

 perseveringly to make the skins into robes, whereas 

 now they get blankets from the traders and no 

 longer persecute the goats. The early trappers and 

 mountain-men knew but little of the animal. 

 Whether they were after beaver, or were hunting 

 big game or were merely exploring, they kept to 

 the valleys; there was no inducement for them to 

 climb to the tops of the mountains; so it resulted 

 that there was no animal with which the old hunt- 

 ers were so unfamiliar as with the white goat. The 

 professional hunters of to-day likewise bother it 

 but little; they do not care to undergo severe toil 

 for an animal with worthless flesh and a hide of little 

 value for it is only in the late fall and winter that 

 the long hair and fine wool give the robe any beauty. 



So the quaint, sturdy, musky beasts, with their 

 queer and awkward ways, their boldness and their 

 stupidity, with their white coats and big black hoofs, 

 black muzzles, and sharp, gently curved span-long 

 black horns, have held their own well among the 



