F^ 



to 



Old Man of the Mountains 



by Kenneth Gilbert . . . paintings by Charles Culver 



rpiHEoooRE ROOSEVELT held the mentality of the mountain goat 

 JL in low esteem. "Verily," he asserted, "the white goat is the 

 fool-hen among beasts of the chase." He reached this conclusion 

 after he had killed a male goat and had seen the rest of the band 

 move only a short distance before stopping to look back at him. 

 There is no record of any mountain goat's appraisal of man, 

 but frustrated cameramen and hunters report that he appears 

 amused as he gazes down at their pathetic human struggles to 

 scale a mountain side that he has scrambled up in nothing flat. 

 Moreover, in the State of Washington, five hundred licenses 

 were issued to hunters in 1950, but only ninety-nine reported 

 success. Not a bad record for a "fool-hen." 



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