MAMMALS. 29 



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of the highest ridges and peaks Avhere they seem to feel safe and can 

 sleep until the sun gets low in the west. Usually about 4 or 5 o'clock 

 they begin to come down from the steep cliffs and crags and before 

 dark are feeding in the little alpine meadow^s not far above timberline. 

 These daily climbs are evidently imposed upon them by the big nioun- 

 (ain coyotes, which are constantly prowling along the trails and over 

 the open slopes as high up as they dare go in search of young goats 

 and sheep or other game. Over any of the high passes in the park, 

 as Two Medicine, Gunsight, Piegan, Swiftcurrent, and Kootenai, 

 goats may be seen from the trails, especially in the early hours 

 of the day before they have worked up to the crests of the ridges. 

 At Iceberg Lake they may be found in the morning almost without 

 fail down near the trail, and later in the day may be seen as white 

 specks lying on the shelves of the great cirque which rises steeply 

 back of the lake. Their trails thread the narrow shelves and go up 

 step by step through niches and narrow clefts to the very summit of 

 the Garden Wall, which here forms the Continental Divide. Some 

 of these trails, which I followed out through what seemed to be in- 

 accessible heights, were not difficult when I tried them with rough- 

 shod boots and sharp staff, although in many places four legs would 

 have given a better footing than only three. The heavy, square 

 hoofs of the goat afford a most perfect climbing and clinging surface 

 for rock work, and are used with great skill and steadiness. The 

 goats are phlegmatic animals, apparently without nerves, and one is 

 compelled to admire their self-possession in situations where a mis- 

 step would mean sudden death. 



In June of 1895, while climbing the east side of Going to the Sun 

 Mountain for a particularly fine specimen of an old billy goat, I 

 kept an eye on an old nannie and her kid resting on a narrow shelf 

 high on the face of a cliff that seemed perfect!}' sheer in its descent 

 for a thousand feet below them. Presently a roar and crash impelled 

 me to lean toward the mountain side and make sure of my footing 

 before looking around to see a great mass of ice from the front of 

 the Sexton Glacier thundering down, to be ground into a cloud of 

 foamy dust on the rocks hundreds of feet below. The prolonged 

 roar and heavy vibrations from the mass of grinding ice fairly shook 

 the atmosphere if not the mountain side, and after my first impulse 

 to cling to something stable was the thought of the effect on the old 

 goat and kid located on the narrow shelf midway between me and 

 the avalanche. I expected to see them come dashing along the ledge 

 toward me, and was eager to see how they managed the narrow foot- 

 holds, but, much to my surprise, they seemed to take no notice of 

 the disturbance and did not so much as get up out of their beds on 

 the narrow shelf. The whole display was in plain view from their 

 niche, but evidently it was a commonplace affair to them. 

 51140°— 18 3 



