American Big-Game Hunting 
played us the fiddle, and would have had us 
sleep inside), arrived bag and baggage the 
fourth day from the railroad at the forks of 
the Methow River—the next tributary of the. 
Columbia below the Okanagon. 
Here was a smiling country, winning the 
heart at sight. An ample beauty was over 
everything Nature had accomplished in this 
place; the pleasant trees and clear course of 
the stream, a fertile soil on the levels, the 
slopes of the foot-hills varied and gentle, un- 
encumbered by woods, the purple cloak of for- 
est above these on the mountains, and rising 
from the valley’s head a crown of white, clean 
frozen peaks. These are known to some as 
the Isabella Range and Mount Gardner, 
though the maps do not name them. More- 
over, I heard that now I was within twenty- 
five miles of goats; and definite ridges were 
pointed out as the promised land. 
Many things were said to me, first and last. 
I remember a ragged old trapper, lately come 
over the mountains from the Skagit River. 
Goats, did I say? On top there the goats 
had tangled your feet walking in the trail. 
He had shot two in camp for staring at him. 
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