PHOTOGRAPHING A MOUNTAIN GOAT 195 



crags below. Presently, however, I found him standing 

 on a wall which jutted out of the cliff on the north side 

 of the great slide. At that point, the cliff towered up 

 perpendicularly a hundred feet above the slide, and the 

 goat was about twenty feet from the top, standing on a 

 small projecting edge of rock that looked like a peg 

 driven in the wall. 



" At first it seemed utterly impossible to get a pic- 

 ture there, but on studying the rocks a little, I thought 

 I saw a way. Leaving Mack above to watch, I crawled 

 down to a point almost over the goat, where I found that 

 the mountain-side pitched down at an angle of at least 

 thirty degrees, increasing to sixty, and ending in a sheer 

 drop of a hundred feet or more. The rock was strati- 

 fied, dipping toward the valley, like the slates on a roof. 

 The layers varied from the thickness of ordinary roof- 

 slates to three or four inches. Much of this was loose, 

 and had to be removed before I could get a footing. 



" As I worked down, I started quite an avalanche 

 of stone, and held my breath while I heard it go rum- 

 bling into the depths below. Just as I was thinking of 

 going back, Mack called out, loudly and anxiously: ' Say, 

 Jack! Is that you?' ' No,' I said, ' it's only rock.' ' I 

 thought you had shore ruined the mountain that time.' 

 He tried to appear unconcerned, but by his voice I could 

 tell how he felt. 



" At last I succeeded in working over to the edge of 

 the cliff, and found myself on a level with the goat, and 

 only eight feet away. It was as if he stood on a window 

 sill on the gable end of a house, while I hung upon the 



