220 THE WILDERNESS OF THE UPPER YUKON 



through my field-glasses. Both were very light colored. 

 The wind was blowing directly from me to them and 

 although I was smoking my pipe, they showed no signs 

 of alarm. After half an hour they rose and passed over 

 the top. Then I went forward to photograph them, but 

 just before arriving on the summit, expecting to see them 

 at any moment below it, I heard sounds of their running 

 and saw them fifty yards away rushing up toward the 

 spur. At a hundred yards they stopped and gazed at me 

 and then slowly walked upward, continually pausing to 

 turn and look, until reaching the sky-line, where they fol- 

 lowed the crest and were soon lost to sight. Were those 

 rams frightened by my scent ? It is possible. There was 

 also no reason why they should not have been frightened 

 by it long before. The sun was behind me and, standing 

 my rifle upright on the surface, I went back and noticed 

 its shadow extending down the slope. I had been care- 

 less about my shadow, and it is quite possible that they 

 had been scared by it when I was moving. 



I made a long, arduous ascent of the spur and toiled 

 upward to the crest. Near that end, ice had once carved 

 the mountain more irregularly than it had toward the 

 west. The rock had been sculptured in rougher fashion, 

 the cliffs being all splintered and buttressed by narrow 

 walls hewn in fantastic shapes, while the jagged crest was 

 battlemented with imposing pinnacles. After reaching 

 the crest, I seated myself and scanned the country through 

 my field-glasses. The next spur to the east projected 

 from the crest in a narrow, vertically inclined wall extend- 

 ing five hundred feet to a short, smooth, grassy saddle, 



