62 CAMP-FIRES IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES 



Mr. Phillips's goat behaved better than mine. It 

 rolled down the grassy slope, and lodged on a treacher- 

 ous little shelf of earth that overhung the very brink 

 of the precipice. One step into that innocent-look- 

 ing fringe of green juniper bushes meant death on the 

 slide-rock below; and it made me nervous to see Mack 

 and Charlie stand there while they skinned the ani- 

 mal. 



As soon as possible we found the only practicable 

 route down the rock wall, and scrambled down. The 

 others say that I slid down the last twenty feet; but that 

 is quite immaterial. I reached the goat a few paces in 

 advance of the others, and thought to divert my follow- 

 ers by reciting a celebrated quotation beginning, " To a 

 hunter, the moment of triumph," etc. As I laid my 

 hand upon the goat's hairy side and said my little piece, 

 I heard a deadly " click." 



" Got him! " cried Mr. Phillips; and then three men 

 and a dog laughed loud and derisively. Since seeing the 

 picture I have altered that quotation, to this : " To a 

 hunter, the moment of humiliation is when he first sees 

 his idiotic smile on a surreptitious plate." It is inserted 

 solely to oblige Mr. Phillips, as evidence of the occasion 

 when he got ahead of me. 



The others declared that the goat was " a big one, 

 though not the very biggest they ever grow." Forthwith 

 we measured him; and in taking his height we shoved 

 his foreleg up until the elbow came to the position it 

 occupies under the standing, living animal. The meas- 

 urements were as follows: 



