Mountain Game. 123 



chain of bare rocks, and climbed laboriously to its crest, 

 up cliff after cliff, some of which were almost perpendicu- 

 lar. Swarming round certain of the rock shoulders, 

 crossing an occasional sheer chasm, and in many places 

 clinging to steep, smooth walls by but slight holds, we 

 reached the top. The climbing at such a height was 

 excessively fatiguing ; moreover, it was in places difficult 

 and even dangerous. Of course it was not to be com- 

 pared to the ascent of towering, glacier-bearing peaks, 

 such as those of the Selkirks and Alaska, where climbers 

 must be roped to one another and carry ice axes. 



Once at the top we walked very cautiously, being 

 careful not to show ourselves against the sky line, and 

 scanning the mountain sides through our glasses. At last 

 we made out three goats, grazing unconcernedly on a 

 narrow grassy terrace, which sloped abruptly to the brink 

 of a high precipice. They were not very far off, and 

 there was a little rock spur above them which offered good 

 cover for a stalk ; but we had to crawl so slowly, partly 

 to avoid falling, and partly to avoid detaching loose rocks, 

 that it was nearly an hour before we got in a favorable 

 position above them, and some seventy yards off. The 

 frost-disintegrated mountains in which they live are 

 always sending down showers of detached stones, so that 

 the goats are not very sensitive to this noise ; still, they 

 sometimes pay instantaneous heed to it, especially if the 

 sound is repeated. 



When I peeped over the little ridge of rock, shoving 

 my rifle carefully ahead of me, I found that the goats had 

 finished feeding and were preparing to leave the slope. 



