252 The White Goat 



white goat lived, with long hair; again, I would 

 meet a positive denial of this. Some sceptical 

 old trapper or prospector would proclaim that he 

 " guessed he had been most everywhere," and no- 

 body could " fool him about no goat " with long 

 hair. Indeed, when I at last laid my own goat 

 trophies, heads and hides, before the eyes of my 

 old friend John Yancey of the Yellowstone Park, 

 they gave him a genuine sensation. He had 

 wasted small faith in any tales of goat. He stared 

 at them, he touched them, he lifted them, he 

 could not get over it ; they caused me to rise in 

 his esteem, and he refused to believe that circum- 

 venting a mountain sheep is a far more skilful 

 exploit. He, too, like myself, had supposed that 

 in some way this notion about goats could be 

 traced to mountain sheep, and that they were one 

 and the same animal. I found this error spread 

 eastward to great cities. 



In the front hall of a certain club there used to 

 hang and still hangs, for all I know the head 

 of a white goat. I stood near it one day in 1894 

 or 1895, while two gentlemen were looking at it. 

 One had hunted in our West, and was asked by 

 the other what animal this was. He replied with 

 certainty, " A mountain sheep." It was no busi- 



