2i 4 THE WILDERNESS OF THE UPPER YUKON 



how reaching the foot, they again came in sight and 

 dashed across the broken rock under some cliffs by my 

 right, where they were lost to sight. Not hearing any 

 more sounds of their running and knowing that they 

 were standing, I remained perfectly still. The rest con- 

 tinued to stand and look, jerking their heads in all direc- 

 tions except toward me. None had even suspected the 

 direction of the shot. 



I watched the cliff for about three minutes, until a 

 ram with large horns suddenly appeared, running down 

 the slope. When a hundred yards distant, he stopped, 

 long enough to receive a bullet in his heart. Then I 

 heard a clatter of hoofs on the cliff, and saw the ram with 

 the broken jaw leap on the top and stand on the sky- 

 line looking in the direction of the last ram I had killed. 

 As I shot, he fell over the wall of the cliff and caught in 

 a rift near the foot, where he remained doubled up and 

 almost suspended. The other three had descended to 

 the band, which, having run for a few hundred yards, had 

 scattered and stood looking, not even then having located 

 the direction of the shots. 



Sitting on the rock, I rested and smoked my pipe. 

 Three hard-earned trophies were before me. Under such 

 circumstances, among mountain-crests, when the pulse 

 bounds and the whole being is exhilarated by the intensely 

 vitalizing air, while the senses, stimulated by the vigorous 

 exercise of a dangerous climb and the sustained excite- 

 ment of the stalk, are attuned to the highest pitch of 

 appreciation of the Alpine panorama, there is no state of 

 exaltation more sublime than that immediately following 



