American Big-Game Hunting 



looking stone lying on a little ledge some 

 way down the mountain ahead. I decided it 

 must be a stone, and was going to speak of it, 

 when the stone moved, and we crouched in 



the slanting gravel. T had been making 



up his mind it was a stone. The goat turned 

 his head our way, but did not rise. He was 

 two hundred yards across a split in the moun- 

 tain, and the wind blowing hard. T 



wanted me to shoot, but I did not dare to run 

 such a chance. I have done a deal of miss- 

 ing at two hundred yards, and much nearer, 

 too. So I climbed, or crawled, out of sight, 

 keeping any stone or little bush between me 

 and the goat, till I got myself where a but- 

 tress of rock hid me, and then I ran along 

 the ridge and down and up the scoop in it 

 made by the split of the mountain, and so 

 came cautiously to where I could peer over 

 and see the goat lying turned away from me, 

 with his head commanding the valley. He 

 was on a tiny shelf of snow, beside him was 

 one small pine, and below that the rock fell 

 away steeply into the gorge. Ought I to 

 have bellowed at him, and at least have got 

 him on his lees? I know it would have been 



