WILDERNESS RESERVES 307 



I saw but few traces of browsing here; probably on the 

 sheer cliff side they always get some grazing. 



When I spied the band they were lying not far from 

 the spot in which they had lain the day before, and in 

 the same position on the brink of the canyon. They saw 

 me and watched me with interest when I was two hun- 

 dred yards off, but they let me get up within forty yards 

 and sit down on a large stone to look at them, without 

 running off. Most of them were lying down, but a cou- 

 ple were feeding steadily throughout the time I watched 

 them. Suddenly one took the alarm and dashed straight 

 over the cliff, the others all following at once. I ran 

 after them to the edge in time to see the last yearling 

 drop off the edge of the basalt cliff and stop short on the 

 sheer slope below, while the stones dislodged by his hoofs 

 rattled down the canyon. They all looked up at me with 

 great interest, and then strolled off to the edge of a jut- 

 ting spur and lay down almost directly underneath me 

 and some fifty yards off. That evening on my return to 

 camp we watched the band make its way right down to 

 the river bed, going over places where it did not seem 

 possible a four-footed creature could pass. They halted 

 to graze here and there, and down the worst places they 

 went very fast with great bounds. It was a marvellous 

 exhibition of climbing. 



After we had finished this horseback trip we went 

 on sleds and skis to the upper Geyser Basin and the Falls 

 of the Yellowstone. Although it was the third week in 

 April, the snow was still several feet deep, and only 

 thoroughly trained snow horses could have taken the 



