THE GAME OE THE HIGH PEAKS: THE WHITE GOAT 



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up and down the huge cHffs. I came down along a great jutting spur, 

 broken by a series of precipices, with flat terraces at their feet, the ter- 

 races being covered with trees and bushes, and running, with many 

 breaks and interruptions, parallel to each other across the face of the 



STALKING GOATS. 



mountains. On one of these terraces was a space of hard clay ground 

 beaten perfectly bare of vegetation by the hoofs of the goats, and, in the 

 middle, a hole, two or three feet in width, that was evidently in the spring 

 used as a lick. Most of the tracks were old, but there was one trail com- 

 ing diagonally down the side of the mountain on which there were two or 

 three that were very fresh. It was getting late, so I did not stay long, 

 but continued the descent. The terrace on which the lick was situated 

 lay but a few hundred yards above the valley, and then came a level, 

 marshy plain a quarter of a mile broad, between the base of the mountain 



and the woods. Leading down to this plain was another old goat-trail, 



28 



