Mountain Game 145 



ing hope that some time I may be able to repeat the 

 feat. I revenged myself for the miss by knocking 

 a large blue goshawk out of the top of a blasted 

 spruce, where it was sitting in lazy confidence, its 

 crop stuffed with rabbit and grouse. 



A couple of hours' hard walking brought us down 

 to timber; just before dusk we reached a favorable 

 camping spot in the forest, beside a brook, with 

 plenty of dead trees for the night-fire. Moreover, 

 the spot fortunately yielded us our supper, too, in 

 the shape of a flock of young spruce grouse, of which 

 we shot off the heads of a couple. Immediately 

 afterward I ought to have procured our breakfast, 

 for a cock of the same kind suddenly flew down 

 nearby; but it was getting dark, I missed with the 

 first shot, and with the second must have merely 

 creased the neck, for though the tough old bird 

 dropped, it fluttered and ran off among the under- 

 brush and escaped. 



We broiled our two grouse before our fire, 

 dragged plenty of logs into a heap beside it, and 

 then lay down to sleep fitfully, an hour or so at a 

 time, throughout the night. We were continually 

 wakened by the cold, when we had to rise and feed 

 the flames. In the early morning we again started, 

 walking for some time along the fresh trail made by 

 a large band of elk, cows and calves. We thought 

 we knew exactly the trend and outlet of the valley 

 in which we were, and that therefore we could tell 



7 VOL. II. 



