American Big Game in Its Haunts: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club
History
American Big Game in Its Haunts: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club
Big game hunting -- United States
Sheep were formerly exceedingly abundant in all the bad lands along the
Yellowstone and Missouri rivers, and in the rough, broken country from
Powder River west to the Big Horn. The Little Missouri country was a
good sheep range, and also the broken country about Fort Laramie. In the
Black Hills of Dakota they were formerly abundant, and also along the
North Platte River, near the canons of the Platte, in the Caspar
Mountain, and in all the rough country down nearly to the forks of the
Platte.
The easternmost locality which I have for the bighorn is the Birdwood
Creek in Nebraska. This lies just north of O'Fallon Station on the Union
Pacific Railroad and flows nearly due south into the North Platte
River. It is in the northwestern corner of Lincoln county, Nebraska,
just west of the meridian of 101 degrees. Here, in 1877, the late Major
Frank North, well known to all men familiar with the West between the
years 1860 and 1880, saw, but did not kill, a male mountain sheep. The
animal was only 100 yards from him, was plainly seen and certainly
recognized. Major North had no gun, and thought of killing the sheep
with his revolver, but his brother, Luther H. North, who was armed with
a rifle, was not far from him, and Major North dropped down out of sight
and motioned his brother to come to him, so that he might kill it. By
the time Luther had come up, the sheep had walked over a ridge and was
not seen again, but there is no doubt as to its identification. It had
probably come from Court House Rock in Scott's Bluff county, Nebraska,
where there were still a few sheep as recently as twenty-five years ago.
These animals were also more or less abundant along the Little Missouri
River as late as the late '80's, and perhaps still later. This had
always been a favorite range for them, and in 1874 they were noticed and
reported on by Government expeditions which passed through the country,
and the hunters and trappers who about that time plied their trade along
that river found them abundant. Mr. Roosevelt has written much of
hunting them on that stream.
The low bluffs of the Yellowstone River--in the days when that was a
hostile Indian country, and only the hunter who was particularly
reckless and daring ventured into it--were a favorite feeding ground for
sheep. They were reported very numerous by the first expeditions that
went up the river, and a few have been killed there within five or six
years, although the valley is given over to farming and the upper
prairie is covered with cattle. This used to be one of the greatest
sheep ranges in all the West; the wide flats of the river bottom, the
higher table lands above, and the worn bad lands between, furnishing
ideal sheep ground. The last killed there, so far as I know, were a ram
and two ewes, which were taken about forty miles below Rosebud Station,
on the river, in 1897 or 1898.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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