228 CAMP-FIRES IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES 



We dug our heels into the ground, leaned back against 

 the mountain, and I led Charlie into telling stories. I 

 got him to tell me about the most scary things that ever 

 happened to him on the rocks, — how the recoil of his 

 gun, in shooting at a mountain sheep, nearly knocked him 

 off a ledge to his death; how he and Mack caught that 

 first mountain goat kid, and other adventures. 



" Well, by the time we were due to go on, Charlie's 

 stories had scared me until I was stiff with fright, and he 

 came very near having to carry me to camp." 



" Humph! Well! " said Charlie, very energetically, 

 " I'll know enough next time not to tell yarns to anybody 

 while I'm on a mountain." 



What I told the boys was more than half true. 

 I was nerve-weary that day, and ankle-sore; and the 

 stories that I drew out of my companion scared me 

 quite as ghost-stories used to wreck my courage when I 

 was a small boy. 



The horror of the rocks has shaken the nerves of 

 many a stout-hearted mountaineer, long after the event. 



Once Charlie Smith and his former partner, dare- 

 devil Jack Lewis, had a narrow escape from a tragedy on 

 the crags of Sheep Mountain. Charlie almost slid over 

 the edge of a precipice, with Jack close by, and both were 

 as badly scared as these bold men of the mountains ever 

 can be. That night, when they reached their cabin, and 

 went to bed in their double bunk, to sleep the sleep of the 

 exhausted, Charlie was suddenly awakened by Jack, who 

 with both hands seized him by his beard and hair, and 

 pulled at him desperately. 



