“I believe that some of the reasons for the scarcity of mountain sheep in this country are these:  First, the settlement of the plains country close to the mountains, prevents their going to their winter ranges, and so starves them; secondly, the same cause keeps them in the mountains, where the mountain lions can get at them; and thirdly, the scab has killed a good many.  I do not think that the rifle has had much to do with destroying the sheep.”

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.