282 AUDUBON THE NATURALIST. 
hind which he 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 prowling 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 
