Hunting in Many Lands 



willing to see how far we could get up. The 

 Doctor, too, had at first suggested, and with 

 perfect correctness, that to try a difficult side 

 of a mountain before reconnoitering the other 

 was bad mountaineering, to say the least. But, 

 on the other hand, this east side was the fa- 

 mous side of the Chief — the side which every 

 passer-by on the prairie saw and wondered at. 

 With our glasses we had mapped a course 

 which seemed not impossible; was it not bet- 

 ter to meet our king face to face than to steal 

 on him from behind ? Besides, this wonderful 

 weather might not last long enough for us to 

 reach the other side. And so our final conclu- 

 sion was to try the east face. 



Half way up the sheer face of the cliff was 

 divided horizontally by a broad, steep shelf 

 which ran nearly the length of the mountain. 

 That shelf could clearly be crossed at any 

 place ; the difficulty would lie with the walls 

 below and above it. The lower one was bad 

 enough at best, but it was easy to recognize as 

 least bad a place where a s4ope of shale abut- 

 ted against it, shortening it some 300 feet. 

 The upper wall in general seemed even worse, 

 but it was furrowed by two deep chimneys, 

 side by side, one of which led into the moun- 



230 



