The White Goat and his Country 
We went cautiously along the narrow top 
of crumbling slate, where the pines were scarce 
and stunted, and had twisted themselves into 
corkscrews so they might grip the ground 
against the tearing force of storms. Wecame 
on a number of fresh goat-tracks in the snow 
or the soft shale. These are the reverse of 
those of the mountain sheep, the V which the 
hoofs make having its open end in the direc- 
tion the animal is going. There seemed to 
be several, large and small; and the perverted 
animals invariably chose the sharpest slant 
they could find to walk on, often with a decent 
level just beside it that we were glad enough 
to have. If there were a precipice and a 
sound flat top, they took the precipice, and 
crossed its face on juts that did not look as 
if your hat would hang on them. In this 
I think they are worse than the mountain 
sheep, if that is possible. Certainly they do 
not seem to come down into the high pas- 
tures and feed on the grass levels as the 
sheep will. 
He and I hoped we should find a bunch, 
but that was not to be, in spite of the indi- 
cations. As we continued, I saw a singular- 
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