142 WILD AXIMALS OF GLACIER NATIONAL PARK. 



and on the west, as the cool, invigorating air swept across the slope, 

 looked off on the row of mountain peaks seen from Granite Park, 

 standing out wonderfully in the full morning light, their sides 

 veiled in rich purple and buffy atmosphere, the white of their snowy 

 summits repeated ethereally at higher levels by cloud caps dissolving 

 ill the pale blue sky. 



But though an occasional siskin might be heard passing over, not 

 a ptarmigan was to be found on the slopes, and it finally came over 

 me that it was illogical to look for them so high. They must have 

 water, and at present were quite unequal to mountain climbing. I 

 shoidd have looked at water level. Hurrying down, I passed the 

 wind-flattened evergreens and snow banks, and as I came to the 

 first open water came face to face with my lovely little family. 

 Yes; there were five; they were my brood. As I greeted the mother 

 I noticed appreciatively her selection of a drinking place for her 

 callow young, for the water seeping down through the spong}' grass 

 trickled over a shallow rocky saucer just the right depth for downy 

 chicks. As I watched, the old grouse drank thirstily herself, as if 

 enjoying her release from the dry slopes al)ove. The soft sod gave 

 uuich easier footing than the rocks, and a few hours of practice with 

 feet had told remarkably in the skill of the brood, for they wobbled 

 much less and ran around in a sprightly waj^, sometimes straying a 

 rod or more from their guardian. 



She appeared a little nervous out in the open, and suddenly turn- 

 ing her head on one side to look up gave a prolonged low call. The 

 brood, which had been picking around in plain sight, at the alarm 

 simply vanished. As nothing came and the warning was not re- 

 jieated, one after another the little forms became visible again right 

 under my astonished eyes. One little tot, I was amused to see, had 

 been sitting down back to a stone that helped make him invisible. 

 Meanwhile the sky, so far as I could see, was vacant of menace. 

 Had the wise old mother been giving fire drill? Up the trail came 

 a party from Many Glaciers, led hy its big-hatted guide, but they 

 had not alarmed her, for, though passing only a rod or so from the 

 family, she bai-ely moved. And still, while her little ones strayed off 

 or fed around her, as she talked to them she kept looking up nerv- 

 ously. Did she feel that they were too conspicuous out in this 

 o]ien grass? Would it be too easy to pounce down and carry one 

 off? Whatever her argument, or instinct, she edged up onto a ledge 

 and stood back against a rock, where she was less conspicuous, and 

 after pluming herself gathered her little ones under her wings. As 

 I glanced down over the rocks below the ])ass T started, for there 

 were three mountain sheep — big horns, Avith brownish bodies and 

 white rump patches — standing on the flat rocks at the edge of the 

 cliffs beyond the trail. Could the old ptarmigan, with her keener 



