Mountain Game 149 



cackling noisily, with their tails cocked aloft; and 

 we had no difficulty in killing four, which gave us 

 a good breakfast and supper. Old white goats are 

 intolerably musky in flavor, there being a very large 

 musk-pod between the horn and ear. The kids are 

 eatable, but of course are rarely killed; the shot 

 being usually taken at the animal with best horns 

 and the shes and young of any game should only 

 be killed when there is a real necessity. 



These two hunts may be taken as samples of most 

 expeditions after white goat. There are places 

 where the goats live in mountains close to bodies 

 of water, either ocean fiords or large lakes; and in 

 such places canoes can be used, to the greatly in- 

 creased comfort and lessened labor of the hunters. 

 In other places, where the mountains are low and 

 the goats spend all the year in the timber, a pack- 

 train can be taken right up to the hunting grounds. 

 But generally one must go on foot, carrying every- 

 thing on one's back, and at night lying out in the 

 open or under a brush lean-to ; meanwhile living on 

 spruce grouse and ptarmigan, with an occasional 

 meal of trout, and in times of scarcity squirrels, or 

 anything else. Such a trip entails severe fatigue 

 and not a little hardship. The actual hunting, also, 

 implies difficult and laborious climbing, for the goats 

 live by choice aTmong the highest and most inacces- 

 sible mountains; though where they are found, as 

 they sometimes are, in comparatively low forest- 



