212 THE WILDERNESS OF THE UPPER YUKON 



hundred feet to the inclined surface below. The knife- 

 edge, however, had been carved by the elements- 

 eroded just enough so that small, sharp projections of 

 rock, like an irregular series of teeth, protruded and 

 provided a foothold. Slinging my rifle over my back 

 and holding on the sharp nodules of rock above I toiled 

 upward on this rough ladder-like precipitous path. I 

 had started at four, and it was six p. M. when I reached 

 the base of the pyramidal peak which rose fifty feet 

 above the crest-line. The altitude was seven thousand 

 eight hundred feet more than five thousand feet above 

 camp. 



There I rested for a few moments. Not a sound 

 reached my ears except the tinkling of the rills trickling 

 down from the snow. A stupendous mountain panorama 

 surrounded me. When my breath was regained, and 

 the excitement, owing to the danger of the climb was 

 subdued, I started to creep along the narrow rocky crest 

 which, twenty feet farther on, was so abruptly broken 

 that I could not see beyond. After going ten feet on my 

 knees, I saw a pair of horns perfectly motionless, a hun- 

 dred and fifty yards ahead and slightly below. Nothing 

 more, but I knew that a ram was below them. Stretch- 

 ing on my stomach, foot by foot I crawled ten feet to 

 the edge of the break, where I was thoroughly concealed 

 by a crag rising three feet above the surface and falling 

 perpendicularly to the crest below. Carefully moving 

 my head to the side of the rock, I looked down. There 

 were the twelve rams a hundred yards away, all lying 

 down without any suspicion of the enemy who now had 



