IV 



BIGHORN-HUNTING IN THE CASCADES 



AT daylight one wintry morning in 1903, William Manson 

 ii and I left our smouldering camp-fire, on the north bank 

 of turbulent Bridge River, and started upward through the 

 leafless bushes covering the steep slopes back of camp. We 

 were equipped for light travelling and prepared for hard climb- 

 ing after the very wary bighorn which inhabited this much- 

 hunted portion of British Columbia. For two and a half hours 

 we struggled steadily upward, sometimes through thick bushes, 

 stunted spruces, and pines, then up rock-slides and narrow 

 chutes, and often along the precipitous sides of steep and danger- 

 ous cliffs. This strenuous climbing, while it did not seem to 

 affect the hardened and wiry Manson, cai-'sed me to drop down to 

 recover my breath every few hundred feet, until the cold, 

 cutting wind again drove us upward. During these short rests 

 my guide swept the opposite side of the canon of Bridge River 

 with the field-glasses, discovering a number of blacktail and 

 one large ram feeding in some burnt timber near the crest of the 

 mountain. 



When we eventually topped the last rise we could look over 

 miles of gently rolling bunch-grass country, covered in places 

 with thickets of stunted cedars, and terminating in the distance 

 with tier upon tier of the snow-capped peaks of the Cascades. 

 This grassy country was the winter range of the bighorn, and 

 with the aid of the glasses, Manson was not long in discovering 



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