THE "CONY" 113 



my first "cony," one of the rarest of American 

 mammals. 



But I was broken-hearted. That I should have been 

 so near and missed it ! For we had descended to 

 Aneroid Lake to camp that night, and there were no 

 cony slides below us on the trail. 



While the men were busy about camp the next 

 morning, I slipped off alone on foot, and, following 

 the trail, got back about ten o'clock to the rock-slide 

 where they had killed the cony. 



A wilder, barrener, more desolate land of crags 

 and peaks I never beheld. Eternal silence seemed to 

 wrap it round. The slide was of broken pieces of 

 rock, just as if the bricks from an immense chimney 

 had cracked off and rolled down into the valley of 

 the roof. Stunted vegetation grew around, with 

 scraggly wild grass and a few snow-line flowers, for 

 this was on the snow-line, several melting banks 

 glistening in the morning sun about me. 



I crept round the sharp slope of the peak and down 

 to the edge of the rock-slide. "Any living thing 

 in that long heap of broken rock ! " I said to myself 

 incredulously. That barren, blasted pile of splintered 

 peaks the home of an animal? Why, I was on the 

 top of the world! A great dark hawk was wheeling 

 over toward Eagle Cap Mountain in the distance ; 

 far below me flapped a band of ravens ; and down, 

 down, immeasurably far down, glistened the small 

 winding waters of the Iinnaha; while all about me 



