A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



a disastrous fall, a few minutes before, I had knocked the ivory- 

 bead from the foresight of the rifle which I was carrying, with 

 the result that the first two shots simply registered puffs of 

 powdered rock from bowlders above the slow-moving line of 

 goats. At the third report one of these animals collapsed and 

 rolled, end over end, down the steep slope, a puff of white hair 

 flying from it every time it struck a bowlder. As the next 

 report echoed along the cliff front, the largest billy of all these 

 goats stumbled, pitched forward on its knees, and struggled to 

 the brim of the ledge. It poised on the edge for some moments, 

 all four legs thrashing the air, and then toppled over into space. 



By this time the other goats had disappeared around a bend 

 in the cliffs, with the exception of one, which attempted to 

 climb straight to the top along a shallow depression in the face 

 of the rocks. Only the ridge of its back was exposed, but al- 

 though each of the next two shots threw puffs of white hair in 

 the air, this animal reached the top of the precipice, and, con- 

 fused by the reports, started slowly toward us. When about 

 seventy-five yards distant it was concealed by a large bowlder, 

 and, after waiting about ten minutes for it to appear from 

 behind this, we went forward to find that it had played a trick 

 on us. Hidden by the bowlder, this goat had climbed up through 

 the timber toward the next ledge above, and after following the 

 tracks in the snow for several hundred yards without finding 

 .blood, we descended again to the lower ledge of rocks. 



As we peered over this, the first sight that met our eyes was a 

 solitary goat, partially screened by some stunted spruces, dozing 

 on a shelf about two hundred and fifty yards distant. I waited 

 about half an hour for this goat to move, and then, upon Dell's 

 assertion that he had known them to stand in the same position 

 for half a day, I took a careful aim at what I thought was the 

 shoulder, and fired. At the shot the goat plunged into space, 

 struck a rock-slide two hundred feet below, and rolled out of 

 sight in a strip of leafless bushes which extended up from the 



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