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.