THE KOCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT. 385 



pearcd entirely, but not through the war waged upon it 

 so much as its natural inclination to keep away from the 

 haunts of man, and especially, according to Indian tales, of 

 the white man, whom it seems to fear more than any other 

 foe. An old chief, known among his tribe on Puget Sound 

 as Moicich, or the " deer," from his success as a hunter, 

 informed me that the goat was more abundant than ever 

 along the snowy crests of the Cascade Range, especially in 

 the vicinity of Mounts Baker, Rainier, and St. Helen's, ow- 

 ing to the cessation of peltry hunting, which was so vigor- 

 ously prosecuted by the North-western Fur Company, and 

 the gathering of all but a few vagrant Indians on the reser- 

 vations. This would seem quite probable, not only in that 

 region, but in every other section that it has been known 

 to frequent ; so that it would be quite safe to state that it 

 is more numerous now than it has been for many years. 

 From inquiries among hunters, both pale and red, I should 

 deduce that it may now be found in the mountains of Man- 

 itoba, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Oregon, and 

 Washington Territory ; but I should infer that it was more 

 numerous in the latter than in any other section of the 

 country. Some years ago a few were to be seen in a do- 

 mesticated state at Deer Lodge, Montana ; and 1 heard of 

 an Indian family on the Lumni River, Washington Terri- 

 tory, having, what is most unusual for the red race, a brace 

 of kids in their tepee so tame that they would follow the 

 children around like the spoiled and playful members of 

 the domestic species. 



To hunt goats with any degree of success requires pa- 

 tience, perseverance, an unusual degree of caution, and a 

 contempt for arduous toil; and he who is willing to dis- 

 play these qualities need not fear a failure. A white hunt- 

 er informed me that a couple of active terriers trained to 

 drive the animals from their lairs, or to keep them at bay 

 until the arrival of the Nimrod, would be the surest means 

 of bagging them ; otherwise one could only hope to get a 

 shot at them by accident, or unusual good-luck. They are 

 not, in reality, any more difficult to hunt than the big-horns, 



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