116 SPORT IN NORTH AMERICA. 



rock it was impossible to tell. Could it be possible 

 that they had leapt the fifty yards between the 

 summit of the rock and the path whereby they had 

 escaped ? Neither the colonel nor his companion 

 could tell. All that they could say was that it was 

 miraculous and inexplicable. 



Another day, Colonel Kearney met on the banks 

 of the Missouri a herd of wild goats that had been 

 attracted to the river by sheer thirst. A party of 

 about a hundred and thirty Indians had surrounded 

 them, and were driving them towards the stream, 

 and there the poor brutes, who dreaded the water 

 even more than the guns, almost all fell victims to 

 their imprudence. " It was odd enough," said the 

 colonel, " to see sevent3^-nine dead goats with their 

 horns all in a row." 



The wild goats often fell victims to the snares 

 which the Indians offer to their curiosity, by con- 

 ceaUng themselves behind trees and waving a piece 

 of red cloth or a white handkerchief, which attracts 

 the animal to within gun-shot. 



Of all the Eed Skins, the cleverest in hunting 

 the wild goats are the Shoshones. When they 

 have surrounded a herd, they drive them in such 

 a manner as to get them in the midst of an open 

 plain. Being mounted on capital horses, they then 

 divide themselves into parties of three, and so 

 pursue the animals in such a manner that which- 

 ever way the creatures turn they find three foes 



