THE MOUNTAINEERS 87 



in and out among the devil s-club and painter s-brush 

 and mountain laurel and rock crop and heather? 



&quot; Something has been going up and down here to 

 a drinking-place,&quot; says the mountaineer. 



Funky yellow logs lie ripped open and scratched 

 where bruin has been enjoying a dainty morsel of 

 ants eggs ; but the bear did not make that track. It is 

 too dainty, and has been used too regularly. Neither 

 has the bighorn made it; for the mountain-sheep sel 

 dom stay longer above tree-line,, resting in the high, 

 meadowed Alpine valleys with the long grasses and 

 sunny reaches and larch shade. 



Presently the belled leader tinkles her way round 

 an elbow of rock where a stream trickles down. This 

 is the drinking-place. In the soft mould is a little 

 cleft footprint like the ace of hearts, the trail of the 

 mountain-goat feeding far up at the snow-line where 

 the stream rises. 



Then the little cleft mark unlocks a world of hunt 

 er s yarns: how at such a ledge, where the cataract 

 falls like wind-blown mist, one trapper saw a mother 

 goat teaching her little kid to take the leap, and how 

 when she scented human presence she went jump 

 jump jump up and up and up the rock wall, where 

 the man could not follow, bleating and calling the 

 kid ; and how the kid leaped and fell back and leaped, 

 and cried as pitifully as a child, till the man, having 

 no canned milk to bring it up, out of very sympathy 

 went away. 



Then another tells how he tried to shoot a goat 

 running up a gulch, but as fast as he sighted his rifle 

 &quot; drew the bead &quot; the thing jumped from side to 

 side, criss-crossing up the gulch till she got above dan- 



