Dec. 1, 1894.] 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
467 
a week or so after he was first taken, Dick was very wild 
and would buck up and down in the air like the wildest 
bronco, and show fight whenever he was approached. 
In a week or so, however, strange to say, he grew quite 
tame and would eat from the hand and at the call. He 
even became so civilized as to break open the oats bin one 
night and give him an exceedingly square meal. Dick is 
kept in a little tight-boarded inclosure, 8 or 10ft. square, 
accessible only by a small door in the wall. As we 
stooped down and looked through the door, Dick took up 
his position on the opposite side of the pen, and stood 
there with his head high up, one of the proudest, most 
defiant-looking creatures one ever set his eyes on. He 
gazed at us steadily, his large light eye never winking or 
turning, and he stood so calm and immovable he might 
almost have been taken for a mounted specimen. I would 
very much have valued a photograph of this fine animal, 
but the dim light and close range rendered this impossible 
with the instrument I had. 
I was, however, able to get at the local photograph 
gallery, known as the Hamilton gallery, a fine photo- 
graph of the mountain sheep, which was taken in this 
identical pen, and exactly on the spot where Dick stood 
as he looked at us. This photograph was made by Ham- 
ilton, not of Dick, but of an almost equally good speci- 
men known as Billy, which was owned by Mr. Benham 
before Dick came into his 4 hands. In order to get a better 
picture of Billy a wagon sheet was let down to cover 
the walls of the pen, so that some contrast could be 
afforded of the animal's coat against the background. 
The photograph thus obtained I have sent on to Forest 
and Stream, and it is probably as good a photograph of 
the Rocky Mountain sheep as was ever made. Although 
the distance was so small, not over 8ft., the distortion is 
hardly noticpable. The horns may seem a trifle exagger- 
ated, but not to any extent. The strangely fixed, immobile 
look of the sheep is rendered exactly, and very good 
judges have taken this stiff expression to indicate that 
this picture was a fake, and taken from a mounted sheep. 
This, however, was not the case. The picture shows a bit 
of straw hanging to Billy's breast, just as he rose and 
backed up into his corner. It also shows a small, horny 
protuberance on the foi-ehead, which was an odd and dis- 
tinguishing mark of this specimen. 
Billy was caught by an old mountain man in the moun- 
tains only a few miles from Bozeman. The snow was 
heavy, and Billy's captor pursued him on snowshoes into 
the deep snow, where the poor sheep struggled helplessly. 
The hunter ran up and threw himself on Billy's neck, tied 
Billy's feet together, and finally hauled him out of the 
mountains on a hide, with all four of Billy's feet trussed 
up so tightly that he could not make a motion. Such are 
some of the exploits and resources of the Rocky Mountain 
men. Some time I am going to ask Mr. Benham to write 
a more complete history of these sheep of his, because he 
knows more of the bighorn in captivity than any one I 
know of in the West. 
A Questionable Cat. 
Another pet of Mr. Benham's interesting, though 
hardly so engaging as Dick, is a big wildcat called Tom. 
Tom is kept behind iron bars, and was one of the curiosi 
ties at the West Gallatin fair last year. Tom is shy the 
greater pa-i't of one foot, the steel trap which made him 
captive having robbed him of several claws. This, how- 
ever, might almost properly be called a saving clause, for 
Tom Uses the rest of his feet with a vindictiveness born of 
a most execrable disposition. Tom has whiskers and a 
bass voice, and no means has ever yet been discovered 
which will subdue or tame him in the least. He growled 
at us continually while we were looking at him, and 
swiped the end of a caressing stick with one of his good 
feet in a way that left grooves on the end of it as deep as 
if cut by a knife. Tom is one of those odd puzzles in the 
cat family which puzzle the hunters, but which do not 
puzzle the naturalists who don't happen to see them. The 
naturalists have certain rules and regulations under 
which wild animals are supposed to classify themselves, 
but the wild animals don't do it, just the same. There 
are certain distinguishing characteristics which are sup- 
posed to enable one to tell Lynx canadensis from Lynx 
rufus, but I have a notion that it would bother the 
savants to tell whether Tom was a lynx or a bobcat, pro- 
vided they should actually see him. 
An Owl That Scorns Water. 
Still another pet of Mr. Benham's is Dick, an odd look- 
ing owl, with a gutfa percha neck and a wise expression 
of confidence. Dick is a very sociable little fellow, and 
coos and chuckles very confidentially to his friend Mr. 
Benham. Mr. Benham tells me that this bird had not 
tasted or touched water since the summer before, a period 
of six months. He did not say that the owl came from 
Kentucky, and indeed I am of the opinion that it was 
caught in Montana. 
More Interesting Things. 
One of the main attractions of Bozeman, and one of its 
business concerns, too, is Mr. A. Gottschalk's Montana 
Armory, one of the greatest depots in the West for hides, 
furs and specimens, to say nothing of many articles 
indicative of the old time Indian days. Mr. Gottschalk is 
distinctively an old timer himself, and learned thoroughly 
all the mountain ranges of the upper Rockies before he 
went into the merchandise phase of hunting. He is, by 
the way, an old reader of Forest and Stream, in the 
doctrines of which paper he believes implicitly, in so far, 
1 suppose, as one in his business can. Mr. Gottschalk 
gets his goods from all over the West and Northwest 
country. When I first saw him he was opening the boxes 
of a shipment which came to him from the Coeur d'Alene 
Mountains. This lot had over 200 blacktail skins, and a 
whole box full of tine heads, horns and skins of mountain 
sheep. Mr. Gottschalk showed me the twenty-one-point 
elk head, whose picture has appeared in the columns of 
Forest and Stream, and also an enormous elk skin, 
nearly a third larger than the ordinary elk hide, and so 
long that it practically reached from the ceiling to the 
floor £>f his store room. He showed me also a remark- 
able skin of the black bear of the quality known to the 
trade as "silk bear," very rare and valuable. The coat 
was long, soft and glossy, and felt indeed more like silk 
than the ordinary rough hairy covering of the bear. 
Mr. Gottschalk told me this specimen was brought in by 
the hunter Howell, the same who was captured last win- 
ter in the Park, in the act of killing the Park buffalo. 
Dead Buffalo of the Park. 
It was of Mr. Gottschalk that I obtained some informa- 
tion which leads me.l to suppose that there have been 
within the past year or two far more buffalo killed in the 
Yellowstone Park than was ever generally supposed. Mr. 
Gottschalk was discreet in giving this information, but 
such as he gave he gave freely, and I have every reason to 
believe that his statements are correct. He told me that 
he thought the buffalo had been scattered considerably 
from their ordinary range in the Park within the past few 
years because of their,., pursuit; by hunting parties. He 
knew of 6 head that had left the Park entirely and come 
over into the Gallatin Valley. A hunter whom he knew 
only by the name "Scotty" told him that he had killed 5 
head of buffalo within the Park, near Electric Peak, and 
brought them out of the Park, over the north line, and 
west of Electric Peak. This was within the past year. 
Mr. Gottschalk also told me that last fall he had 7 raw 
buffalo heads offered to him by a party in Idaho. He 
would not tell me the name of the party but said he 
thought these buffalo were killed in the central or southern 
part of the Park, and taken over the south fine. Mr. 
Gottschalk further said that a friend of Howell's, the 
poacher, had hinted that Howell brought out 7 buffalo 
heads to Cooke City last winter, when he went out for 
supplies. As Howell admits having killed 13 buffalo and 
one moose, this may bring his number of buffalo up to 20 
head. Mr. Gottschalk also insists that 19 head of buffalo 
Mr. Benham's Mountain Sheep. 
Photograph from life. 
were killed by Snake Indians southeast of the Park in the 
fall of '93. If to these figures of the slaughtered buffalo 
we add those found dead by the Forest and Stream 
party, in the Hayden Valley, which I still think to have 
been 6 or 8 head, and if we even count these to be included 
in the 10 head found dead by John Folsom later on, the 
total will seem to be something fairly alarming, and will 
give grounds as reasonable, at least, as any known to the 
contrary, for my earlier assertion that there are not half 
and probably not one-fourth the number of buffalo now 
alive in the park which were supposed last year to exist. 
Mr. Gottschalk says that Jack Baronette. an old-timer 
who has lived and traveled all over the Park, told him 
this year that he thought there were about 140 buffalo 
alive in the Park. I believe this estimate to be as extact 
and correct as any attainable from the data of 1894. 
A New Sort of Animal. 
In his earlier days Mr. Gottschalk was a successful bear 
hunter, and one who liked could certainly get from him 
an interesting lot of bear stories. There is only one, how- 
ever, which I want to tell, and that is one which will 
cause our friends the naturalists to smile on me with pity, 
and to perhaps call Mr. Gottschalk an imaginative 
person. He told that in the early seventies he was hunt- 
ing in the limits of what is now the Park, and he killed 
a queer animal, whose like he had never seen before nor 
since, neither had he ever heard of any one who had seen 
or heard of one like it. He described it as being some- 
thing like a bear, but too small for a bear, weighing 
between 100 and 2001bs. , but certainly an adult specimen. 
He said that it had a long, sharpish nose, long claws and 
long hair, and was of a dark, dingy gray color. It was 
en the ground when he killed it. I suggested a deformed 
bear, also suggested wolverine, fisher and everything else 
which I could think of, like or unlike the description, but 
Mr. Gottschalk only laughed at me. "I know all the ani- 
mals of this country," said he, "or at least I ought to in my 
business, and I tell you this animal is the only one of the 
sort I ever heard of. I called it a "man eater." 
Further Information About the "Man-Eater." 
Now, it so happened that at that time I had not met old 
Bill Hamilton, of whom I am going to write a great deal 
after awhile, and to whom I cannot help referring at this 
time. I was with Uncle Bill for some time at Billings 
and on the Stillwater after I had left Bozeman. Among 
other things, I asked him, as I always do any old-time 
hunter I meet, how many kind of bears he made out to 
be native to the Western country. Of course, I know 
that the scientists allow only two kinds of bear, the grizzly 
and the black, although I believe that a gentleman has 
come pretty near convincing them that there should be a 
third species, the "red bear." The scientists base their 
classification on the size, shape and general arrangement 
of the bones, etc. , which lie inside of a bear's skin. Now, 
when you meet a live bear in the mountains you have at 
first no coup d'ceil, ho to speak, of his bones. You are at 
first more concerned with his size, shape, color, in fact, 
with the outside of the bear rather than the inside. These 
are the things which the hunters look at, and when they 
find a bear whose color is neither that of the grizzly or 
the black bear, and whose claws are neither long enough 
nor short enough, and which has a sort of hit-or-miss 
color of his own, they don't stop to examine the bear's 
face to see whether it has a gradual slope or a pronounced 
stop before the eyes. They just give that bear another 
name by itself and let it go at that, thinking it easier to 
name the bear than it Js to examine his bones. I am 
always disposed to side with the hunters rather than the 
naturalists, because I don't believe in naming mountains 
or classifying bears. It is getting it down too fine. Any- 
how, as I was saying, I asked old Bill Hamilton how many 
kinds of bears there were, and this is what he said: 
"First of all," said he, "there is the grizzly bear, the 
biggest and most dangerous of them all. This bear 
ranges east into the Rockies, but I don't think it is ever 
so large there as in California. There is a great deal of 
dispute about the weight this bear sometimes reaches. 
Old Wes. Teeter, a good bear hunter, says that he has 
seen this bear in California weigh l,100lbs. dressed, and 
of this he was sure. H« thought this was the second 
largest grizzly he had ever seen. 
"Then there is the cinnamon bear, which of course all 
mountain men know by its color. I know of one of these 
bears which weighed 9001bs. dressed. George Ray, a 
good bear hunter, snys he has seen a cinnamon bear 
weighing over l,0001bs. dressed. I have been told that 
men have seen cinnamon bears so large they thought 
they weighed l,8001bs., But I only know that they will 
weigh over 9001bs. dressed. 
"The next bear is the silver-tip, which grows large, but 
not so large as the other two I have mentioned. The 
silver-tip is a local ranger and does not wander about 
much and travel over big stretches of country like the 
cinnamon. 
"Then we hunters have another bear, the bald-face or 
roach-back bear. Of course, you will say that is the 
silver-tip, but four-fifths of the mountain men will call 
this a distinct species. 
"The next bear I would call the brown bear. It is 
usually heavier than the black bear. You will no doubt 
call this the same as the black bear, which is found all 
over the United States. 
"Lastly, I am going to tell you about a bear of which 
the naturalists never heard, and of which I have heard 
but a very few mountain men speak. This is what we 
call the pine-nut bear. It is a small animal, and weighs 
only about 1251bs. dressed. It never comes down into the 
foothill country, and is only found high up in the moun- 
tains. It climbs away up in the pine trees for nuts, and 
that is why we call it the pine-nut bear. It is a vicious, 
hard-fighting animal. It has fur about the color of that 
of the grizzly. No specimen of this bear has ever come 
into the hands of the naturalists so far as I know, and no 
bookman has ever seen one. I have never seen but a 
very few myself, but I did see one within the past three 
years. In shape it is a little like a wolverine." 
Here now was something interesting. Mr. Gottschalk 
had called his unknown animal a "man-eater," for want 
of a better name. In old Bill Hamilton's description of 
his "pine-nut bear" I could not fail to recognize the same 
animal. At all of which the naturalists have my entire 
consent to smile. I believe there may be some things in 
heaven and earth they have not dreamed in their 
philosophy. 
The "Fan-Tail Deer." 
While I am in the business of getting smiled at by the 
naturalists, I may as well make a good job of it. The 
scientists tell us that there is no such animal as the "fan- 
tail deer," and yet every one who has been much in the 
mountains has heard the hunters speak of this more or 
less mythical animal. I myself have heard several 
hunters claim that there were fan-tail deer in the Sacra- 
mento Mountains of New Mexico, though as I never saw 
one myself I was disposed to be superior, and to rest on 
the scientific belief that the so-called fan-tail deer was a 
small variety of the white-tail. Of course I asked Uncle 
Bill Hamilton about the fan-tail deer, and in his quiet 
modest way he told me what he knew. 
"Yes" said he, "I know the naturalists say there is no 
such animal, but they only say that because they have 
never seen and examined a specimen of it. You must re- 
member that this is a big country, and that for a long time 
it was a wild and unexplored country, and was visited by 
hundreds of hunters and practically no naturalists. It is 
only fair to suppose that the men who lived on the ground 
may have seen things which those who did not live there 
never did see. Now I myself have seen the fan-tail deer, 
and over toward the Missouri there are what we used to 
call the Fan-Tail Mountains, because we saw so many of 
those animals near there. I should say that the fan-tail 
deer was more like an antelope or a gazelle than a deer. 
It is a little bit of an animal, and I should think would 
weigh between 25 and 50lbs. It had very small horns 
and a long white tail, which it switched sideways rather 
than up and down. I always called this the North 
American gazelle. I never knew of one of these animals 
being examined by a scientific man, and of course you 
know I dfl not claim to be scientific in the least." 
With these additional data in regard to the much 
mooted fan-tail deer, and in regard to my "man-eater," 
or "pine-nut bear," which so far as I know is an entirely 
new sort of thing under the sun, I leave the scientific 
people to pity me and doubt the facts, both of which I do 
not doubt they will do. Nevertheless I enjoyed hearing 
the old timers tell about the old time days, and I have a 
whole book full of other things they told me, all of which 
I am going to take pleasure in trying to repeat. 
E. Hor/GU, 
909 Security Building, Chicago. 
