American Big-Game Hunting 
whatever they possessed. The memory of 
those distant dwellers among the mountains, 
young and old, is a friendly one, like the 
others I carry, whether of Wind or Powder 
Rivers, or the Yellowstone, or wherever 
Western trails have led me. 
Yet disappointment and failure were the 
first things. There was all the zeal you could 
wish. We had wedged painfully into a se- 
vere country—twelve miles in two days, and 
trail-cutting between—when sickness turned 
us back, goatless. By this time October was 
almost gone, and the last three days of it went 
in patching up our disintegrated outfit. We 
needed other men and other horses; and 
while these were being sought, nothing was 
more usual than to hear “if we ’d only been 
along with So-and-So, he saw goats” here and 
there, and apparently everywhere. We had, 
it would seem, ingeniously selected the only 
place where there were none. But somehow 
the services of So-and-So could not be pro- 
cured. He had gone to town; or was busy 
getting his winter's meat; or his married 
daughter had just come to visit him, or he 
had married somebody else’s daughter. I 
34 
