THE GAME OF THE HIGH PEAKS: THE WHITE GOAT 



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SO that the sun's rays hardly came through them. There were very few 

 open glades, and these were not more than a dozen rods or so across. 

 Even on the mountains it was only when we got up very high indeed, or 

 when we struck an occasional bare spur, or shoulder, that we could get a 

 glimpse into the open. Elsewhere we could never see a hundred yards 

 ahead of us, and like all plainsmen or mountaineers we at times felt 

 smothered under the trees, and longed to be where we could look out lar 

 and wide on every side; we felt as if our heads were in hoods. A broad 

 brook whirled and eddied past our camp, and a little below us was caught 

 in a deep, narrow gorge, where the strangling rocks churned its switt 

 current into spray and foam, and changed its murmurous humming and 

 splashing into an angry roar. Strange little water wrens — the water- 

 ousel of the books — made this brook their home. They were shaped 

 like thrushes, and sometimes warbled sweetly, yet they lived right in the 

 torrent, not only flitting along the banks and wading in the edges, but 

 plunging boldly into midstream, and half walking, half flying along the 

 bottom, deep under water, and perching on the slippery, spray-covered 

 rocks of the waterfall or skimming over and through the rapids even 

 more often than they ran along the margins of the deep, black pools. 



White-tail deer were plentiful, and we kept our camp abundantly sup- 

 plied with venison, varying it with all the grouse that we wanted, and 

 with quantities of fresh trout. But I myself spent most of my time after 

 the quarry I had come to get — the white goat. 



White goats have been known to hunters ever since Lewis and Clarke 

 crossed the continent, but they have always ranked as the very rarest and 

 most difficult to get of all American game. This reputation they owe to the 

 nature of their haunts, rather than to their own wariness, for they have been 

 so little disturbed that they are less shy than either deer or sheep. They 

 are found here and there on the highest, most inaccessible mountain peaks 

 down even to Arizona and New Mexico ; but being fitted for cold climates, 

 they are extremely scarce everywhere south of Montana and northern Idaho, 

 and the great majority even of the most experienced hunters have hardly 

 so much as heard of their existence. In Washington Territory, northern 

 Idaho, and north-western Montana they are not uncommon, and are plenti- 

 ful in parts of the mountain ranges of British America and Alaska. Their 

 preference for the highest peaks is due mainly to their dislike of warmth, 

 and in the north — even south of the Canadian line — they are found much 

 lower down the mountains than is the case farther south. They are very 

 conspicuous animals, with their snow-white coats and polished black horns, 



but their pursuit necessitates so much toil and hardship that not one in ten 



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