A SHOT AT A MOUNTAIN SHEEP
In the fall of 1893 I was camped on the Little Missouri, some ten miles
below my ranch. The bottoms were broad and grassy, and were walled in by
curving rows of high, steep bluffs. Back of them lay a mass of broken
country, in many places almost impassable for horses. The wagon was
drawn up on the edge of the fringe of tall cottonwoods which stretched
along the brink of the shrunken river. The weather had grown cold, and
at night the frost gathered thickly on our sleeping-bags. Great flocks
of sandhill cranes passed overhead from time to time, the air resounding
with their strange, musical, guttural clangor.
For several days we had hunted perseveringly, but without success,
through the broken country. We had come across tracks of mountain sheep,
but not the animals themselves, and the few blacktail which we had seen
had seen us first and escaped before we could get within shot. The only
thing killed had been a young whitetail, which Lambert, who was with me,
had knocked over by a very pretty shot as we were riding through a long,
heavily-timbered bottom. Four men in stalwart health and taking much
outdoor exercise have large appetites, and the flesh of the whitetail
was almost gone.
One evening Lambert and I hunted nearly to the head of one of the creeks
which opened close to our camp, and, in turning to descend what we
thought was one of the side coulees leading into it, we contrived to get
over the divide into the coulees of an entirely different creek system,
and did not discover our error until it was too late to remedy it. We
struck the river about nightfall, and were not quite sure where, and had
six miles’ tramp in the dark along the sandy river bed and through the
dense timber bottoms, wading the stream a dozen times before we finally
struck camp, tired and hungry, and able to appreciate to the full the
stew of hot venison and potatoes, and afterward the comfort of our
buffalo and caribou hide sleeping-bags. The next morning the Sheriff’s
remark of “Look alive, you fellows, if you want any breakfast,” awoke
the other members of the party shortly after dawn. It was bitterly cold
as we scrambled out of our bedding, and, after a hasty wash, huddled
around the fire, where the venison was sizzling and the coffee-pot
boiling, while the bread was kept warm in the Dutch oven. About a third
of a mile away to the west the bluffs, which rose abruptly from the
river bottom, were crowned by a high plateau, where the grass was so
good that overnight the horses had been led up and picketed on it, and
the man who had led them up had stated the previous evening that he had
seen what he took to be fresh footprints of a mountain sheep crossing
the surface of a bluff fronting our camp. From the footprints it
appeared that the animal had been there since the camp was pitched. The
face of the bluff on this side was very sheer, the path by which the
horses scrambled to the top being around a shoulder and out of sight of
camp.
[Illustration:
RANCH WAGON RETURNING FROM HUNT
]
While sitting close around the fire finishing breakfast, and just as the
first level sunbeams struck the top of the plateau, we saw on this cliff
crest something moving, and at first supposed it to be one of the horses
which had broken loose from its picket pin. Soon the thing, whatever it
was, raised its head, and we were all on our feet in a moment,
exclaiming that it was a deer or a sheep. It was feeding in plain sight
of us only about a third of a mile distant, and the horses, as I
afterward found, were but a few rods beyond it on the plateau. The
instant I realized that it was game of some kind I seized my rifle,
buckled on my cartridge-belt, and slunk off toward the river bed. As
soon as I was under the protection of the line of cottonwoods, I trotted
briskly toward the cliff, and when I got up to where it impinged on the
river I ran a little to the left, and, selecting what I deemed to be a
favorable place, began to make the ascent. The animal was on a grassy
bench, some eight or ten feet below the crest, when I last saw it; but
it was evidently moving hither and thither, sometimes on this bench and
sometimes on the crest itself, cropping the short grass and browsing on
the young shrubs. The cliff was divided by several shoulders or ridges,
there being hollows like vertical gullies between them, and up one of
these I scrambled, using the utmost caution not to dislodge earth or
stones. Finally I reached the bench just below the sky-line, and then,
turning to the left, wriggled cautiously along it, hat in hand. The
cliff was so steep and bulged so in the middle, and, moreover, the
shoulders or projecting ridges in the surface spoken of above were so
pronounced, that I knew it was out of the question for the animal to
have seen me, but I was afraid it might have heard me. The air was
absolutely still, and so I had no fear of its sharp nose. Twice in
succession I peered with the utmost caution around shoulders of the
cliff, merely to see nothing beyond save another shoulder some forty or
fifty yards distant. Then I crept up to the edge and looked over the
level plateau. Nothing was in sight excepting the horses, and these were
close up to me, and, of course, they all raised their heads to look. I
nervously turned half round, sure that if the animal, whatever it was,
was in sight, it would promptly take the alarm. However, by good luck,
it appeared that at this time it was below the crest on the terrace or
bench already mentioned, and, on creeping to the next shoulder, I at
last saw it—a yearling mountain sheep—walking slowly away from me, and
evidently utterly unsuspicious of any danger. I straightened up,
bringing my rifle to my shoulder, and as it wheeled I fired, and the
sheep made two or three blind jumps in my direction. So close was I to
the camp, and so still was the cold morning, that I distinctly heard one
of the three men, who had remained clustered about the fire eagerly
watching my movements, call, “By George, he’s missed! I saw the bullet
strike the cliff.” I had fired behind the shoulders, and the bullet,
going through, had buried itself in the bluff beyond. The wound was
almost instantaneously fatal, and the sheep, after striving in vain to
keep its balance, fell heels over head down a crevice, where it jammed.
I descended, released the carcass, and pitched it on ahead of me, only
to have it jam again near the foot of the cliff. Before I got it loose I
was joined by my three companions, who had been running headlong toward
me through the brush ever since the time they had seen the animal fall.
I never obtained another sheep under circumstances which seemed to me
quite so remarkable as these; for sheep are, on the whole, the wariest
of game. Nevertheless, with all game there is an immense amount of
chance in the chase, and it is perhaps not wholly uncharacteristic of a
hunter’s luck that, after having hunted faithfully in vain and with much
hard labor for several days through a good sheep country, we should at
last have obtained one within sight and earshot of camp. Incidentally I
may mention that I have never tasted better mutton, or meat of any kind,
than that furnished by this tender yearling.
The nomenclature and exact specific relationships of American sheep,
deer and antelope offer difficulties not only to the hunter but to the
naturalist. As regards the nomenclature, we share the trouble
encountered by all peoples of European descent who have gone into
strange lands. The incomers are almost invariably men who are not
accustomed to scientific precision of expression. Like other people,
they do not like to invent names if they can by any possibility make use
of those already in existence, and so in a large number of cases they
call the new birds and animals by names applied to entirely different
birds and animals of the Old World to which, in the eyes of the
settlers, they bear some resemblance. In South America the Spaniards,
for instance, christened “lion” and “tiger” the great cats which are
properly known as cougar and jaguar. In South Africa the Dutch settlers,
who came from a land where all big game had long been exterminated, gave
fairly grotesque names to the great antelopes, calling them after the
European elk, stag, and chamois. The French did but little better in
Canada. Even in Ceylon the English, although belonging for the most part
to the educated classes, did no better than the ordinary pioneer
settlers, miscalling the sambur stag an elk, and the leopard a cheetah.
Our own pioneers behaved in the same way. Hence it is that we have no
distinctive name at all for the group of peculiarly American game birds
of which the bobwhite is the typical representative; and that, when we
could not use the words quail, partridge, or pheasant, we went for our
terminology to the barn-yard, and called our fine grouse, fool-hens,
sage-hens, and prairie-chickens. The bear and wolf our people recognized
at once. The bison they called a buffalo, which was no worse than the
way in which in Europe the Old World bison was called an aurochs. The
American true elk and reindeer were rechristened moose and
caribou—excellent names, by the way, derived from the Indian. The huge
stag was called an elk. The extraordinary antelope of the high Western
peaks was christened the white goat; not unnaturally, as it has a most
goatlike look. The prongbuck of the plains, an animal standing entirely
alone among ruminants, was simply called antelope. Even when we invented
names for ourselves, we applied them loosely. The ordinary deer is
sometimes known as the red deer, sometimes as the Virginia deer, and
sometimes as the whitetail deer—the last being by far the best and most
distinctive term.
In the present condition of zoological research it is not possible to
state accurately how many “species” of deer and sheep there are in North
America, both because mammalogists have not at hand a sufficient amount
of material in the way of large series of specimens from different
localities, and because they are not agreed among themselves as to the
value of “species,” or indeed as to exactly what is denoted by the term.
Of course, if we had a complete series of specimens of extinct and
fossil deer before us, there would be a perfect intergradation among all
the existing forms through their long-vanished ancestral types, as the
existing gaps have been created by the extinction and transformation of
those former types. Where the gap is very broad and well marked no
difficulty exists in using terms which shall express the difference.
Thus the gap separating the moose, the caribou, and the wapiti from one
another, and from the smaller American deer, is so wide, and there is so
complete a lack of transitional forms, that the differences among them
are expressed by naturalists by the use of different generic terms. The
gap between the whitetail and the different forms of blacktail, though
much less, is also clearly marked. But when we come to consider the
blacktail among themselves, we find two very distinct types which yet
show a certain tendency to intergrade; and with the whitetail very wide
differences exist, even in the United States, both individually among
the deer of certain localities, and also as between all the deer of one
locality when compared with all the deer of another. Our present
knowledge of the various forms hardly justifies us in dogmatizing as to
their exact relative worth; and even if our knowledge was more complete,
naturalists are as yet wholly at variance as to the laws which should
govern specific nomenclature. However, the hunter, the mere field
naturalist, and the lover of outdoor life, are only secondarily
interested in the niceness of these distinctions.
In addition to being a true sportsman and not a game butcher, in
addition to being a humane man as well as keen-eyed, strong-limbed, and
stout-hearted, the big game hunter should be a field naturalist. If
possible, he should be an adept with the camera; and hunting with the
camera will tax his skill far more than hunting with the rifle, while
the results in the long run give much greater satisfaction. Wherever
possible he should keep a note-book, and should carefully study and
record the habits of the wild creatures, especially when in some remote
regions to which trained scientific observers but rarely have access. If
we could only produce a hunter who would do for American big game what
John Burroughs has done for the smaller wild life of hedgerow and
orchard, farm and garden and grove, we should indeed be fortunate. Yet
even though a man does not possess the literary faculty and the powers
of trained observation necessary for such a task, he can do his part
toward adding to our information by keeping careful notes of all the
important facts which he comes across. Such note-books would show the
changed habits of game with the changed seasons, their abundance at
different times and different places, the melancholy data of their
disappearance, the pleasanter facts as to their change of habits which
enable them to continue to exist in the land, and, in short, all their
traits. A real and lasting service would thereby be rendered not only to
naturalists, but to all who care for nature.
Along the Little Missouri there have been several curious changes in the
fauna within my own knowledge. Thus magpies have greatly decreased in
numbers. This is, I believe, owing to the wolf hunters, for magpies
often come around carcasses and pick up poisoned baits. I have seen as
many as seven lying dead around a bait. They are much less plentiful
than they formerly were. In 1894 I was rather surprised at meeting a
porcupine, usually a beast of the timber, at least twenty miles from
trees. He was grubbing after sage-brush roots on the edge of a cut bank
by a half-dried creek. I was stalking an antelope at the time, and
stopped to watch him for about five minutes. He paid no heed to me,
though I was within three or four paces of him. Porcupines are easily
exterminated; and they have diminished in numbers in this neighborhood.
Both the lucivee, or northern lynx, and the wolverene have been found on
the Little Missouri, near the Kildeer Mountains, but I do not know of a
specimen of either that has been killed there for some years past.
Bobcats are still not uncommon. The blackfooted ferret was always rare,
and is rare now. But few beaver are left; they were very abundant in
1880, but were speedily trapped out when the Indians vanished and the
Northern Pacific Railroad was built. While this railroad was building,
the beaver frequently caused much trouble by industriously damming the
culverts.
With us the first animal to disappear was the buffalo. In the old days,
say from 1870 to 1880, the buffalo were probably the most abundant of
all animals along the Little Missouri in the region that I know,
ranging, say, from Pretty Buttes to the Kildeer Mountains. They were
migratory, and at times almost all of them might leave; but, on the
whole, they were the most abundant of the game animals. In 1881 they
were still almost as numerous as ever. In 1883 all were killed but a few
stragglers, and the last of these stragglers that I heard of as seen in
our immediate neighborhood was in 1885. The second game animal in point
of abundance was the blacktail. It did not go out on the prairies, but
in the broken country adjoining the river it was far more plentiful than
any other kind of game. Blacktail were not much slaughtered until the
buffalo began to give out, say in 1882; but by 1896 they were not a
twentieth—probably not a fiftieth—as plentiful as they had been in 1882.
A few are still found in out-of-the-way places, where the ground is very
rough. Elk were plentiful in 1880, though never anything like as
abundant as the buffalo and the blacktail. Only straggling parties or
individuals have been seen since 1883. The last I shot near my ranch was
in 1886; but two or three have been shot since, and a cow and calf were
seen, chased and almost roped by the riders on the round-up in the fall
of 1892. Whitetail were never as numerous as the other game, but they
held their own better, and a few can be shot yet. In 1883 probably
twenty blacktail were killed for every one whitetail; in 1896 the
numbers were about equal. Antelope were plentiful in the old days,
though not nearly so much so as the buffalo and blacktail. The hunters
did not molest them while the buffalo and elk lasted, and they then
turned their attention to the blacktail. For some years after 1883 I
think the pronghorn in our neighborhood positively increased in numbers.
In 1886 I thought them more plentiful than I had ever known them before.
Then they decreased; after 1893 the decrease was rapid. A few still
remain. Mountain sheep were never very plentiful, and decreased
proportionately with less rapidity than any other game; but they are now
almost exterminated. Bears likewise were never plentiful, and cougars
were always scarce.
There were two stages of hunting in this country, as in almost all other
countries similarly situated. In 1880 the Northern Pacific Railroad was
built nearly to the edge of the Bad Lands, and the danger of Indian war
was totally eliminated. A great inrush of hunters followed. In 1881,
1882 and 1883 buffalo, elk and blacktail were slaughtered in enormous
numbers, and a good many whitetail and prongbuck were killed too. By
1884 the game had been so thinned out that hide-hunting and meat-hunting
ceased to pay. A few professional hunters remained, but most of them
moved elsewhere, or were obliged to go into other business. From that
time the hunting has chiefly been done by ranchers and occasional small
grangers. In consequence, for six or eight years the game about held its
own—the antelope, as I have said above, at one time increasing; but the
gradual growth in the number of actual settlers then began to tell, and
the game became scarce. Nowadays settlers along the Little Missouri can
kill an occasional deer or antelope; but it can hardly be called a game
country.