THE MYSTERY OF THE BLUE 



GOOSE 



BY DAN BEARD 



(Continued) 

 CHAPTER X 



A LION AND A LIONESS 



NE cannot live in the 

 mountains for any 

 length of time without 

 paying more or less 

 attention to geology; 

 the mountaineer soon 

 learns that stratified 

 rock, resting in a hori- 

 zontal position on its 

 natural bed, makes 

 travel over its top com- 

 paratively easy, but 

 when by the subsi- 

 dence or upheaval of 

 the earth's crust huge masses of stone have 

 been tilted up edgewise, it is an entirely 

 different proposition. 



In this latter case the erosion, caused by 

 trickling water, frost and snow, sharpens 

 the edge of the rock, as a grindstone does 

 the edge of an ax, and traveling along one 

 of these ridges presents almost the same 

 difficulties that travel along the edge of an 

 upturned ax would do to a microscopic 

 man. 



But when a sportsman, for the first time 

 in his life, has succeeded in creeping within 

 range of a grand bighorn ram, and his 

 bullet, speeding true, has badly wounded 

 the game, hardships are forgotten, and if, 

 on account of the miraculous vitality of the 

 mountain sheep, there is danger of losing 

 the quarry, all the inborn instinct of the 

 predaceous beast in man's nature is aroused, 

 and danger is a consideration not to be 

 taken in account. 



A hawk in pursuit of a barnyard fowl 

 will follow it into the open door of the farm- 

 house; the hound in pursuit of the fox cares 

 not for the approaching locomotive — being 

 possessed by the instinct to kill — nothing 



is of importance to them but the capture of 

 the game in sight. A man following a 

 wounded buck is governed by a like con- 

 sideration of mind and a singleness of 

 purpose. 



For this reason I was scrambling along 

 the knife-like edge of the ridge, with death 

 in the steep treacherous slide rock on one 

 side, death in the steep green glacier ice on 

 the other side, and torture and wounds 

 under my feet. 



But the fever of the chase had possession 

 of me. I had tasted blood and felt the 

 fierce joy of the puma and the wild intoxi- 

 cation of a hunting wolf ! 



The cruel wounds inflicted by the sharp 

 stones under my feet were unnoticed. 

 Away ahead of me was a moving object; it 

 could use but three legs, but that was one 

 leg more than I had, and the ram had dis- 

 tanced me. After an age of time I reached 

 the rugged, broader footing of the moun- 

 tain side, and creeping up behind some 

 sheltering rocks again fired at the fleeing 

 ram. With the impact of the bullet the 

 sheep fell headlong down a cliff to a pro- 

 jecting rock thirty feet below, where it lay 

 apparently dead. A moment later it again 

 arose, seemingly as able as ever, and ran 

 along the face of the beetling rock where 

 my eyes, aided by powerful field glasses, 

 could perceive no foothold; then it gave a 

 magnificent leap to a ledge on the opposite 

 side of the narrow canyon and fell dead, out 

 of my reach. 



Spent with my long, rough run, I natur- 

 ally selected the most comfortable seat in 

 which to rest; this chanced to be a cushion 

 of heather-like plants along the side of a 

 fragment of rock which effectually con- 

 cealed my body from view from the other 



