Their sharp black horns are eight or ten inches long, with points like needles, and their necks are thick and muscular, so that they are dangerous enemies for any foe to handle at close quarters; and they know their capacities very well, and are confident in their prowess, often preferring to stand and fight a dog or wolf rather than to try to run. Nevertheless, though they are such wicked and resolute fighters, they have not a few enemies. The young kids are frequently carried off by eagles, and mountain-lions, wolves, and occasionally even wolverenes prey on the grown animals whenever they venture down out of their inaccessible resting-places to prowl along the upper edges of the timber or on the open terraces of grass and shrubby mountain plants. If a goat is on its guard, and can get its back to a rock, both wolf and panther will fight shy of facing the thrust of the dagger-like horns; but the beasts of prey are so much more agile and stealthy that if they can get a goat in the open or take it by surprise, they can readily pull it down.
I have several times shot white goats for the sake of the trophies afforded by the horns and skins, but I have never gone after them much, as the work is very severe, and the flesh usually affords poor eating, being musky, as there is a big musk-pod situated between the ear and the horn. Only a few of the old-time hunters knew anything about white goats; and even nowadays there are not very many men who go into their haunts as a steady thing; but the settlers who live high up in the mountains do come across them now and then, and they occasionally have odd stories to relate about them.
One was told to me by an old fellow who had a cabin on one of the tributaries that ran into Flathead Lake. He had been off prospecting for gold in the mountains early one spring. The life of a prospector is very hard. He goes alone, and in these northern mountains he cannot take with him the donkey which towards the south is his almost invariable companion and beast of burden; the tangled forests of the northern ranges make it necessary for him to trust only to his own power as a pack-bearer, and he carries merely what he takes on his own shoulders.
The old fellow in question had been out for a month before the snow was all gone, and his dog, a large and rather vicious hound, to which he was greatly attached, accompanied him. When his food gave out he was working his way back towards Flathead Lake, and struck a stream, on which he found an old dugout canoe, deserted the previous fall by some other prospector or prospectors. Into this he got, with his traps and his dog, and started down-stream.
On the morning of the second day, while rounding a point of land, he suddenly came upon two white goats, a female and a little kid, evidently but a few weeks old, standing right by the stream. As soon as they saw him they turned and galloped clumsily off towards the foot of the precipice. As he was in need of meat, he shoved ashore and ran after the fleeing animals with his rifle, while the dog galloped in front. Just before reaching the precipice the dog overtook the goats. When he was almost up, however, the mother goat turned suddenly around, while the kid stopped short behind her, and she threatened the dog with lowered head. After a second’s hesitation the dog once more resumed his gallop, and flung himself full on the quarry. It was a fatal move. As he gave his last leap, the goat, bending her head down sideways, struck viciously, so that one horn slipped right up to the root into the dog’s chest. The blow was mortal, and the dog barely had time to give one yelp before his life passed.