258 The White Goat 



" While we were at breakfast one of the In- 

 dians offered us two sheepskins for sale; . . . 

 the second was smaller .... with the horns re- 

 maining. . . . The horns of the animal were 

 black, smooth, and erect; they rise from the 

 middle of the forehead, a little above the eyes, 

 in a cylindrical form, to the height of four inches, 

 where they are pointed." 



Here there is no mistake about the mistake ; 

 he describes a goat and calls it a sheep. Why 

 he should do this when he had seen the bighorn 

 constantly during his journey up the Missouri 

 may possibly be thus explained: He says that 

 he did not think the bighorn much like a sheep, 

 and so, perhaps, the goat did not strike him as 

 much like a goat; we know it happens to be 

 an antelope. But however we account for this 

 original mixing of names, it is easy to perceive 

 how good a start the mixing got ; and after read- 

 ing the text of the old confusion, is it not odd 

 and interesting to trace it down through the 

 years, down through Yancey, to the front hall of 

 the club ? to find it cropping up among all sorts 

 and conditions of men, now in a city and now on 

 top of the Wind River Mountains, where it used 

 to perplex me ? 



