244 CRUISINGrS IN THE CASCADES 



The skin of the Rocky Mountain goat has never 

 had any regular commercial value. The stiff, coarse, 

 brittle hair that is mixed with the wool renders them 

 unsuitable for robes or rugs, and this hair can not 

 readily be plucked out. The only demand for them 

 is for mounting. Very few white hunters and none 

 of the Indians understand how to skin and preserve 

 them properly for this purpose, and this fact, taken 

 in connection with that of the rough and dan- 

 gerous nature of the ground they inhabit, makes 

 it difficult to secure good skins, or even heads for 

 mounting. 



The flesh of the goat is edible, but in the adult 

 animal is dry and tasteless. When kids of less than 

 a year old can be obtained, their flesh is tender and 

 toothsome. They are not hunted, therefore, for meat, 

 for in the ranges where they are found, deer, mount- 

 ain sheep, or elks can be obtained much lower down 

 and are much more desirable for the table. 



During a sojourn of a month in the Bitter Root 

 Mountains, near Missoula, Mont., last fall I had 

 some very exciting, not to say dangerous, experi- 

 ences in hunting this animal. We were camped in 

 Lost Horse Canon, through which flows a typical 

 mountain stream. The walls on both sides are very 

 abrupt and from three to four thousand feet in height. 

 That on the north is covered from bottom to top with 

 great masses of granite that have been broken loose 

 from the cliffs at the top by earthquakes, the action 

 of frost, or other agency, and have tumbled down, 

 breaking into irregular-shaped fragments, of all sizes, 

 lodging and piling on top of each other in such a 

 manner as to form a gigantic sort of pavement from 



