THE MOUNTAIN GOAT AT HOME 47 



absurdly on the sky-line, and looked over the edge, at 

 us. Quickly we brought our glasses to bear, and counted 

 fourteen living and wild Rocky Mountain goats. 



" All nannies, young billies, and kids," said Mr. 

 Phillips. " They are trying to guess what kind of wild 

 animals we are." I noticed that he was quite calm ; but 

 I felt various things which seemed to sum themselves 

 up in the formula, " the Rocky Mountain goat, 



For fully ten minutes, the entire fourteen white ones 

 steadfastly gazed down upon us, with but few changes 

 of position, and few remarks. Finally, one by one they 

 drew back from the edge of the precipice, and quietly 

 drifted away over the bald crest of the mountain. 



For twenty years I had been reading the scanty scraps 

 of mountain-goat literature that at long intervals have 

 appeared in print. I had seen seven specimens alive in 

 captivity, and helped to care for four of them. With a 

 firm belief that the game was worth it, I had travelled 

 twenty-five hundred miles or more in order to meet this 

 strange animal in its own home, and cultivate a close 

 acquaintance with half a dozen wild flocks. 



At three o'clock we camped at timber-line, on a high 

 and difficult pass between the Elk River and the Bull. 

 That night we christened the ridge Goat Pass. While 

 the guides and the cook unpacked the outfit and pitched 

 the tents, Mr. Phillips hurried down the western side of 

 the divide. Fifteen minutes later he and Kaiser, in my 

 opinion the wisest hunting-dog in British Columbia, 

 had twenty-eight nanny goats and kids at bay on the top 



