ALONE ON A MOUNTAIN 151 



yond the fall really was from what it had looked to be, 

 as I saw it from the other side of Avalanche Valley. At 

 a distance of two miles, and a higher elevation, it had 

 seemed that from the waterfall a long, gently sloping 

 ridge ran back for a considerable distance. In actuality, 

 behind the waterfall, I found an eight-acre meadow, 

 nearly level, and covered with rank grass. Beyond that, 

 a steep mountain divide climbs on up. On the north 

 rose an easy peak, and on the south, close at hand, there 

 towered aloft a massive dome of naked rock. On get- 

 ting clear of that, one looks far southward into another 

 big basin, half encircled by a lofty wall of rock that 

 rises sheer to the sky-line. Upon a ledge of that wall, 

 about four hundred yards distant, I saw two billy goats 

 of shootable size, basking in the glorious beams of the 

 morning sun. 



When I realized how comparatively easy it would be 

 to climb up, south-westerly, swing around under the sky- 

 line and fetch up within easy range of those goats, it 

 gave me a disturbed and anxious feeling. I knew I 

 ought not kill any more goats, having three; — but a head 

 is a head, and my friends are many. Would I be strong 

 enough to resist that temptation throughout a whole 

 sunny day, with twenty cartridges grinning in my belt 

 like the teeth of a wild animal, and those two old billies 

 mine by act of parliament, if I chose to take them? 



After a long survey of the animals, I said, " Get thee 

 behind me, Satan! " Resolutely I turned my back upon 

 them, and decided to climb to the summit by way of the 

 gulch that came down farthest away from them, north- 



