150 The Wilderness Hunter 



clad ranges, I have occasionally killed them with 

 little trouble by lying in wait beside the well-trodden 

 game trails they make in the timber. 



In any event the hard work is to get up to the 

 grounds where the game is found. Once the ani- 

 mals are spied there is but little call for the craft of 

 the still-hunter in approaching them. Of all Amer- 

 ican game the white goat is the least wary and most 

 stupid. In places where it is much hunted it of 

 course gradually grows wilder and becomes diffi- 

 cult to approach and kill ; and much of its silly tame- 

 ness is doubtless due to the inaccessible nature of its 

 haunts, which renders it ordinarily free from moles- 

 tation; but aside from this it certainly seems as if 

 it was naturally less wary than either deer or moun- 

 tain sheep. The great point is to get above it. All 

 its foes live in the valleys, and while it is in the 

 mountains, if they strive to approach it at all, they 

 must do so from below. It is in consequence al- 

 ways on the watch for danger from beneath; but it 

 is easily approached from above, and then, as it gen- 

 erally tries to escape by running up hill, the hunter 

 is very apt to get a shot. 



Its chase is thus laborious rather than exciting; 

 and to my mind it is less attractive than is the pur- 

 suit of most of our other game. Yet it has an at- 

 traction of its own after all ; while the grandeur of 

 the scenery amid which it must be carried on, the 

 freedom and hardihood of the life and the pleasure 



