Hunting in Many Lands 



unspoken hope that perhaps in some way we 

 might struggle up his sheer sides and make 

 him, in a way he was to no one else, our king. 



We were a party of three, the Doctor and I, 

 and our faithful packer, Fox. A cold storm 

 was blowing spitefully across the open foot- 

 hills and out on to the prairie as we broke 

 camp under the high banks of Kennedy Creek 

 on the morning of the last stage of our jour- 

 ney. The clouds, driving over the range from 

 the northwest, swung so low that they hid the 

 peaks, and the great pedestal of the Chief met 

 them all uncrowned, indistinguishable from the 

 others about him. It was one of those doubt- 

 ful mornings with which the mountains love to 

 warn off strangers, or to greet their friends — 

 one which might presage a week of storm or 

 usher in a fortnight of surpassing beauty. 



We had camped for the night at the last of 

 those ranches which stretch along the bottom 

 lands of the St. Mary River, and just as we 

 started, its owner, Indian Billy, decided to go 

 with us. 



Even he had never been to the foot of his 

 tribe's famous peak, and the dark-skinned 

 idlers of the ranch who gathered about us as 

 we flung the lash ropes over our horses ecu id 



222 



