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 legs? I know it would have been 
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