A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



zagged the imprints of the feet of that keen and ferocious 

 hunter and enemy of smaller game, the marten. Deer sign 

 was also quite plentiful, and in pursuit of these animals the 

 tracks of wolf, lynx, and cougar crossed and recrossed innumer- 

 able times. Dell told me that the advent of the cougars in 

 considerable numbers into this country was of recent occurrence, 

 and that they had already made quite an inroad on the supply 

 of deer. Since then he has informed me that these beasts of 

 prey entered a near-by plateau country where formerly we had 

 found caribou quite plentiful and had driven every one of them 

 from that region. 



When the snow became too deep for comfortable travelling 

 we descended lower into the canon, until at last we came to 

 where timber was becoming scarcer, and ledges and rock-slides 

 more plentiful. Here we had some magnificent views of the 

 cliffs on the opposite side of the caiion, and of the narrow, silvery 

 thread which represented Sitkem Creek winding through green 

 forests a mile below. We commenced to find ledges which 

 had been occupied by goats the previous winter. The pungent 

 odor of these animals still clung to the rocks w^here they had 

 lived for months in a restricted area. Then we found the wide, 

 oval-shaped tracks of goats made in the snow weeks before, and 

 as we continued along the ledges these became more numerous 

 and fresher until we momentarily expected to come face to 

 face with some of these animals. At last, while we were perched 

 on a huge bowlder, looking over the cliffs ahead with the glasses, 

 Dell pointed at two white spots on a slide about a mile and a half 

 distant. These, he claimed, were goats. Then in an angle of 

 the cliffs not three hundred yards below us we discovered four 

 more goats, which were browsing on some bushes that grew on 

 a narrow ledge bounded below and above by precipitous walls 

 of rock. The shaggy white coats of these animals made them 

 show up very conspicuously against the black rocks as they 

 climbed over almost perpendicular cliffs in the course of feeding. 



244 



