TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 231 



searched, investigating each cranny and every seam. 

 And as I forgot the flight of time the vapour clouds 

 descended into my little world, which caused my 

 hunter much concern. He advocated giving up the 

 search for the day. I espied an escarpment, high 

 above our heads. " The ram will be there," I con- 

 fidently remarked. But my hunter would have none 

 of it. Impossible, he said, the sheep did not fall in 

 that direction. Why should I be so convinced that 

 it did ? 



" I have no other but a woman's reason. 

 I think him so because I think him so." 



This puzzled him more than ever. He was like an 

 Englishman in requiring a woman always to have 

 an adequate reason. And why should she? A 

 reasonable woman is always stealing something from 

 man's prerogative. I hate a silly woman, but I like 

 a woman to be natural, as God made them, and if 

 He happened to make a few of them reasonable I am 

 sure He never meant them to air this freakish faculty. 

 Perhaps my hunter thought that if I had no plain-to- 

 be-seen reason it must just be a caprice, which does 

 not, in a woman, by any means follow All men, 

 black and white, hate a capricious woman. She so 

 often hurts their amour-propre. 



I wasted no more words, but commenced to ascend 

 the cliff, the man perforce following me. There, 

 wedged in between Titanic rocks, lay a broken heap 

 of white. I raised the head. Alas ! the beauteous 

 horns were smashed beyond all hope of mending, 

 and the handsome head was a thing of beauty and a 

 joy for nevermore. 



