Watched by Wild Animals. Enos A. Mills
prolonged storms goats sometimes take refuge in cave-like places among rock ledges or among the thickly matted and clustered tree growths at timberline. But most of the time, even during the colder periods of winter, when the skyline is beaten and dashed with violent winds and stormed with snowy spray, the goat serenely lives on the broken heights in the sky. Warmly clad, with heavy fleece-lined coat of silky wool, and over this a thick, long, and shaggy overcoat of hair, he appears utterly to ignore the severest cold.
The goat thus is at home on the exacting mountain horizon of the world. Glaciers are a part of his wild domain; cloud scenery a part of his landscape. He lives where romantic streams start on their adventurous journeys to mysterious and far-off seas; arctic flowers and old snow fields have place in the heights he ever surveys; he treads the crest of the continent and climbs where the soaring eagle rests. The majority of goats are born, live, and die on peak or plateau above the limits of tree life.
The goat distinctly shows the response of an animal to its environment. Of course an animal that can live among cañons, ice, and crags must be sure-footed, keen-eyed, and eternally wide-awake. He must watch his step and watch every step. Again and again he travels along narrow ridges where dogs would slide off or be blown overboard; he lives in an environment where he is constantly in danger of stepping on nothing or sliding off the icescape. Certain habits and characteristics are exacted from the animal which succeeds on the mountain tops. The goat’s rock and ice climbing skill, his rare endurance, and his almost eternal alertness all indicate that he has lived in this environment for ages. His deadly horns and his extraordinary skill in using them show that at times he has to defend himself against animals as well as compete with the elements.
Commonly the Rocky Mountain goat lives in small flocks of a dozen or less, and his home territory does not appear to be a large one. Local goats of scattered territories make a short, semi-annual migratory journey and have different summer and winter ranges, but this appears to be exceptional. They feed upon the alpine plants, dwarfed willows, and shrubby growths of mountain slopes and summits. They may also eat grass freely.
Bighorn sheep also live above the timberline. In some localities they and the goat are found together. But sheep make occasional lowland excursions, while goats stay close to the skyline crags and the eternal snows, descending less frequently below the timberline except in crossing to an adjoining ridge or peak. Among the other mountain-top neighbours of the goat are ground squirrels, conies, weasels, foxes, grizzly bears, lions, ptarmigan, finches, and eagles; but not all of these would be found together, except in a few localities.
The goat, in common with all the big, wide-awake animals that I know of, has a large bump of curiosity. Things that are unusual absorb his attention until he can make their acquaintance. A number of times after goats had retreated from my approach, and a few times before they had thought to move on, I discovered them watching me, peeping round the corner of a crag or over a boulder. While thus intent they did not appear to be animals with a place in natural history.
In crossing a stretch of icy slope on what is now called Fusillade Mountain, in Glacier National Park, I sat down on the smooth steep ice to control my descent and bring more bearing surface as a brake on the ice. I hitched along. Pausing on a projecting rock to look round, I discovered two goats watching me. They were within a stone’s toss. Both were old and had long faces and longer whiskers, and both were sitting dog fashion. They made a droll, curious appearance as they watched me and my every move with absolute concentration.
I do not know how long the average goat lives. The few hunters who have been much in the goat’s territory offer only guesses concerning his age. One told me that he had shot a patriarchal billy that had outlived all of his teeth and also his digestion. The old fellow had badly blunted hoofs and was but little more than a shaggy, skin-covered skeleton.
Although his home is a healthful one, the conditions are so exacting and the winter storms sometimes so long, severe, and devitalizing, that it is probable that the goat lives hardly longer than twelve or fifteen years.
The goat is, I think, comparatively free from death by accidents or disease. Until recently, when man became a menace, he had but few, and no serious, enemies. Being alert and capable among the crags, and in defense of himself exceedingly skillful with his deadly sharp horns, he is rarely attacked by the lion, wolf, or bear. True, the kids are sometimes captured by eagles.
There are a number of species of wild goats in the Old World—in southern Europe, in many places in Asia and in northern Africa. The white Rocky Mountain goat is the only representative of his species on our continent. He is related to the chamois. Some scientists say that this fellow is not a goat at all, but that he is a descendant of the Asiatic antelope, which came to America about half a million years ago. This classification, however, is not approved by a number of scientists. The Rocky Mountain goat, Oreamnos montanus, is in no way related to the American antelope, and it would take a post-mortem demonstration to show the resemblance to the African species.
By any other name he would still be unique. Dressed in shaggy, baggy knickerbockers, he is a living curiosity. I never see one standing still without thinking of his being made up of odds and ends, of a caricature making a ludicrous pretense of being alive and looking solemn. And then I remember that this animal is the mountaineer of mountaineers.
CHAPTER II
THE HAYMAKER OF THE HEIGHTS
The first time I climbed Long’s Peak I heard a strange, wild cry or call repeated at intervals. “Skee-ek,” “Ke-ack,” came from among the large rocks along the trail a quarter of a mile below the limits of tree growth. It might be that of bird or beast. Half squeak, half whistle, I had not heard its like. Though calling near me, the maker kept out of sight.
A hawk flew over with a screech not unlike this mysterious “Skee-ek.” I had about decided that it was dropping these “Ke-acks” when a rustling and a “Skee-ek” came from the other side of the big rock close by me. I hurried around to see, but nothing was there.
This strange voice, invisible and mocking like an echo, called from time to time all the way to the summit of the peak. And as I stood on the highest point, alone as I supposed, from somewhere came the cry of the hidden caller. As I looked, there near me on a big flat rock sat a cony. He was about six inches long and in appearance much like a guinea pig; but with regulation rabbit ears he might have passed for a young rabbit. His big round ears were trimmed short.
Rarely do I name a wild animal—it does not occur to me to do so. But as he was the first cony I had seen, and seeing him on top of Long’s Peak, I called him almost unconsciously, “Rocky.”
Rocky raised his nose and head, braced himself as though to jump, and delivered a shrill “Ke-ack.” He waited a few seconds, then another “Skee-ek.” I moved a step toward him and he started off the top.
That winter I climbed up to look for a number of objects and wondered concerning the cony. I supposed he spent the summer on the mountain tops and wintered in the lowlands. But someone told me that he hibernated. At twelve thousand feet I heard a “Skee-ek” and then another. An hour later I saw conies sitting, running over the rocks, and shouting all around me—more like recess time at school than hibernating sleep.
One of these conies was calling from a skyline rock thirteen thousand feet above the sea. I walked toward him, wondering how near he would let me come. He kept up his “Skee-eking” at intervals, apparently without noticing me, until within ten or twelve feet. Then he sort of skated off the rock and disappeared. This was the nearest any cony, with the exception of Rocky on the top of Long’s Peak, had ever let me come. His manner of getting off the rock, too, instead of starting away from me in several short runs, made me think it must be Rocky.
The American cony lives on top of the world—on the crest of the continent. By him lives also the weasel, the ptarmigan, and the Bighorn wild sheep; but no other fellow lives higher in the sky than he; he occupies the conning tower of the continent.
But