The White Goat and his Country 
off the horses, so they might be able to walk 
homeward without falling in the snow, T 
thought it our best plan. We wanted to find 
a bunch of goats now, nannies and kids, as well 
as billies. It had been plain that these ridges 
here contained very few, and those all hermits; 
males who from age, or temperament, or dis- 
appointment in love, had retired from society, 
and were spending the remainder of their days 
in a quiet isolation and whatever is the goat 
equivalent for reading Horace. It was well 
enough to have begun with these philoso- 
phers, but I wanted new specimens. 
We were not too soon. A new storm had 
set in by next morning, and the unshod horses 
made their journey down the mountain, a most 
odious descent for man and beast, in the sliding 
snow. But down on the Twispt it was yet 
only autumn, with no snow at all. This was 
a Monday, the 7th of November, and we made 
haste to the Forks, where I stopped a night 
to read a large, accumulated mail, and going 
on at once, overtook my outfit, which had 
preceded me on the day before. 
Our new camp—and our last one—was 
up the Methow, twenty-three miles above the 
= 53 
