282 AUDUBON THE NATURALIST. 



hind wHcli lie has kept his movements from 

 being observed, and now he pulls the fatal trig- 

 ger with deadly aim. The loud, sharp crack 

 of the rifle has hardly rung back in his ear 

 from the surrounding cliffs when he sees the 

 goat, in its expiring struggles, reach the verge 

 of the dizzy height : a moment of suspense and 

 it rolls over, and swiftly falls, striking, per- 

 chance, here and there a projecting point, and 

 with the clatter of thousands of small stones set 

 in motion by its rapid passage down the steep 

 slopes which incline outward near the base of 

 the cliff, disappears, enveloped in a cloud of 

 dust in the deep ravine beneath, where a day's 

 journey would hardly bring an active man to 

 it, for far around must he go to accomplish a 

 safe descent, and toilsome and dangerous must 

 be his progress up the gorge within whose dark 

 recesses his game is likely to become the food 

 of the ever prowhng wolf or the solitary raven. 

 Indeed, cases have been mentioned to us in 

 which these goats, when shot, fell on to a jut- 

 ting ledge, and there lay, fifty or a hundred 

 feet below the hunter, in full view, but inacces- 

 sible from any point whatever. 



Notwithstanding these difficulties, as portions 

 of the mountains are not so precipitous, the 

 Rocky Mountain goat is shot and procured tol- 

 erably easily, it is said, by some of the Indian 



