CAMP FIRES IN THE YUKON 179 



with my camera. Baker said I could never climb 

 within photographic distance of the animal as he 

 would become alarmed and make off, but I had the 

 notion that the other side of the pinnacle was a 

 smooth precipice, down which even a goat could not 

 descend, and he could only come down towards me 

 and escape to one side, and that he could not accom- 

 plish if I should succeed in coming as close as one 

 thousand feet. 



Leaving my untasted lunch, gun, cartridges, and 

 everything of weight wedged in the rocks and with 

 only camera on my back, I started to climb, using 

 hands and feet to equal advantage on the lava cliffs 

 and making progress at such a slow rate that the 

 goat evidently felt pity rather than alarm, as he 

 continued to enjoy the air of the rare altitudes and 

 observe my climbing. Sometimes the course I was 

 obliged to adopt led across loose rock slides, across 

 which I made considerable speed in order not to be 

 carried down to the bottom of the canyon before 

 making the traverse, and this is rather good sport if 

 carried out successfully. Finally I reached an alti- 

 tude thousands of feet up and about one thousand 

 below the goat, whose picture I was then certain 

 would hang in my animal gallery; but those last 

 thousand feet were a heart-breaking climb, as I was 

 attempting the ascent of a concave bowl, the steep 

 sides of which were unhealthy rock slides up which 

 I zigzagged, running a hundred feet at an upward 



