CAMP FIRES IN THE YUKON 177 



us not at all, so we climbed up the slope, and de- 

 cided that in order to get down we would have to 

 climb a thousand feet higher, cross over the head of 

 a draw, and come down the canyon. When we 

 started down, the slide rock went out from under us, 

 but we kept our feet, and simply permitted ourselves 

 to be carried along with the moving rock stream 

 until the slide and its passengers ceased to go for- 

 ward. After making our way down to the tundra 

 bench, we looked back at the course we had taken 

 and held a private thanksgiving upon our success- 

 ful descent, with a strong " never again " resolution 

 such as one makes about January first. 



From the tundra bench the face of the mountain 

 bore no resemblance whatever to the topography 

 we had carefully fixed in our minds for the purpose 

 of locating our dead game, and looking up from be- 

 low we utterly failed to locate the place where the 

 game had rolled over. Numerous canyons paral- 

 leling each other like immense stalls ran back into 

 the mountain, the ends of the stalls being closed by 

 the rocky wall that rose up thousands of feet to a 

 shelf, then more of rocky slope, another shelf, and 

 finally the serrated pinnacles cutting the sky. Some- 

 where in one of these canyons were the remains of 

 those goats, but to locate them was not quite so 

 easy as might appear, for we climbed up and down 

 canyon walls for two hours before reaching the first 

 goat, which had rolled all the way from the pin- 



