264 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
Oct. 3, 1897. 
At once I saw that the goat had not sighted us, and that 
it was lying upon its side, or at least, the side of its neck, 
with the back turned toward us, was flat upon the top of 
the rock, where presumably the goat was lying basking in 
the sun. How on earth it could help seeing us or hearing 
us or smelling us seemed too hard to answer, for as we 
leaned there against the bank it seemed we could have 
reached out a hand and touched it, it looked so large and 
plain. The wind was not quite right for the goat to scent 
us, and as we were white with the snow in which we had 
been rolling for hours, we perhaps made but a dim blot at 
best upon the face of the slope as we laid there motion- 
less, 
I reached up my hand to Kearney, and saw the rifle 
begin slowly to slip off his shoulder and come down to me. 
Then, just as I touched the stock, the horns and the head 
again disappeared! 
We waited for a moment, I meantime rapidly getting off 
the cover of the rifle, but the head did not show again for 
the moment. It was no use grieving or getting rattled, so 
we both kept quiet. "Is he gone?" I whispered to Kearnej'', 
and he said, "Yes, on around the edge of the peak. Come 
on up, and mavbe we'll see him before he gets off the 
top." 
We did not yet start on up. I balanced the rifle and tried 
the sights, seeing that the front sight still had on its coat- 
ing of black from the smoking I had given it. The glare 
of the sun was frightful at this point, and I wanted to be 
sure of the sight before I tried a shot. "Gracious, but this 
light is bad!" I whispered to Kearney. "Just try it." I 
passed the rifle up to him, and he looked through the 
sights. "Pretty bright," he murmured. "Wonder if I can 
see the sights through the smoked glasses?" I thought, and 
I tried a look through them, but found the rifle barrel a 
blank, the front sight having vanished. 
And then, as we lay thus against the slope of snow. I with 
my feet in the last hole below me, and my knee and elbow 
braced against the bank, there ensued s^ill another strange 
and wonderful thing. Out on the jutting point of rock 
where the black sticks had been, there uprose slowly, de- 
liberately, a great white, shaggy, ghostlj', fierce-looking 
thing, with long beard now fully in sight and hanging 
down. The goat was not gone! He was right there be- 
fore us, looking, like the born idiot that he was, not at us, 
but straight down the mountain on his own trail, where 
he seemed to think he would see something of interest 
after a while. 
This was the first goat I had ever seen close up, and I 
am willing to say it was an odd-looking apparition. Every- 
thing was so silent that it seemed something like my 
dream when I killed my first ram. The whole scene was 
one of icy calm in all its surroundings, with no rustle of 
bough or twitter of bird or flutter of leaf. The goat, after 
rising into his squatting, dog-like attitude, did not move, 
but stared on steadily down as though he were an image 
carven from the ice and snow, of which he was fit citizen. 
All the machinery of the world seemed on the instant to 
go slow. My heart beat slow, in time to the sluggish 
movement of the creature out there on the rock. I saw 
that the shot could not be made with the smoked glasses 
on, so I pushed the bow of the spectacles down on my 
nose. Somehow the glare did not now trouble so much. 
The shot was an easy one, full at the shoulder and not 
over 75yd8,, and I cut loose as soon as the dark bead lost 
itself midway in the fluff of white. The wicked ring of 
the nitro load cracked-out, and, as'though struck down by a 
mighty hammer, the vast white body fell flat on its rocky 
perch. The little rifle had again been true. 
Kearney and I had not time to exchange the hurried 
word of joy when there was a struggle a movement on 
the rock where the goat had sunk out of sight. It rose 
again, and in one grand leap went out and off' and over 
and down, full out in the air! The body was half over in 
its first somersault at the moment when it disappeared 
from our view, shooting on down into the void below! 
"Good God!" exclaimed Kearney, "his horns will be 
ruined! I wouldn't have had that happen for ^100!" 
It appeared we should be lucky if we ever got a hair of 
our goat, from the way things looked at last sight of it, but 
this was yet to be proved. We were now within 200ft. of 
the very tip-top of our peak, and on one side the descent 
was 1,000ft. straight down. If the goat struck that face of 
the mountain, it was useless to look for him at the top, 
though we might find hia bones at the bottom if we were 
lucky and had time to go around for them at the foot. 
But in order to strike this face, it would be necessary for 
the body to fall first upon a rim of snowbank which lay 
above the sharp side of the cliff. If we saw no trace of 
the fall here, so Kearney explained to me as we began to 
carefully descend our icy house roof, we might know that 
the goat had not gone on down the mountain, but had 
lodged on some rock she.f above. Although it was only 
about 75yds. to where the goat was hit, we thought it 
would be impossible to get over to that ledge, as between 
us and that lay a series of sharp and jagged edges over 
which we could not crawl. Well indeed does the white 
ghost of the mountains choose his home! 
The Mountains In Winter. 
I shall make it short by saying that it took us an hour 
and a half to get to the body of our dead goat. Indeed, I 
nevfer did get to it at all, for Kearney told me to stay be- 
hind when we came to the last few score yards of ascent 
over the ragged shelves or rocks somewhere upon which 
we knew the body was lying. I lay here upon the face of 
the slope, hanging on to a gnarled cedar, and looking out 
straight from the face of the mountain over a magnificent 
and stirring scene. Far below me in the lessening world, 
so. far that the vast masses of matted snow looked like the 
snowballs of children, lay the debris of a great snow-slide 
which had started somewhere below us on the mountain 
side. On beyond, across the valley, the sides of the moun- 
tains were scarred and ribboned with slides. All over the 
strange world of this wild winter country there was abso- 
lute calm, absolute silence, and absolute light. The sky 
bore scarce a cloud. The flood of radiance was something 
unspeakable. Alone, and for the moment purposeless as I 
was while I waited, f felt to the full the grandeur of a situ- 
ation such as I had never known before. And again I 
realized that the interpretation of the message of the moun- 
tains was one of repulse and not of invitation. The feeling 
was that man was not wanted there. It is not a comfort- 
able hunt this for the white goat in winter. You intrude. 
There is no welcoming smile of nature. Indeed, neither is 
there a frown nor an open censure. But ther© is a superb 
and icy indifference to your presence which makes you 
feel that you, ignoble, have been found in the private 
•penetralia of nobility, indeed, and that without the invita- 
tion of a look or sign. 
After a time I heard the faint shouts of Kearney far 
above me, and soon he rolled down over the edge of the 
cliff the naked carcass of my goat. Then I wormed my 
way back again around the collar of snow above the bare 
face of the sheer cut slope and met Kearney, who came 
from above. He said he was glad I had not come up with 
him to the goat, for we could never have gotten back the 
way he went up. He had skinned the goat on a narrow 
little ledge where the body had lodged, and had then gone 
on, up and forward the best he could, coming out near to 
the place, after all, where we had killed the animal. As 
he called this down to me from his place above me on the 
mountain side, he gave a kick to the big white bundle he 
was carrying, and there came rolling down to my feet the 
hide, head and horns of my fii-st mountain goat! 
I took it up and shook out the hide at full length, 
matted full of snow as it was. It was beautifully white, 
pure white, not yellow or dirty, as these hides become 
after the snow has gone and the animals have to live upon 
rock and dirt and not pure and stainless snow. I stroked 
out the long beard and admired the sharp, curved black 
sticks, which I had first seen lying motionless on the rock 
shelf. Kearney now told me, when we had time to stop 
and talk things over, that he had seen the head of the 
goat as it lay there asleep in the sun before I noticed it, 
but that he dared not make any move or say anything 
lest it should alarm the animal. He renewed his expres- 
sions of disgust at the general fool character of the goat, 
which he said was the stupidest creature that runs the 
hills. But, stupid or no stupid, I felt extremely proud 
over this trophy when I found it well in hand. Indeed, I 
think I valued it more at the time than I did my bighorn. 
As in the case of the fi.rst bighorn, the bullet struck in 
the shoulder, hni from the position of the animal, ranged 
forward and up, passing out at the side of the neck after 
going through the shoulder. The shot was fatal, and the 
struggle of the goat as it went over the cliff was but a death 
effort. Both Kearney and I felt full confidence in the 
.30-30. 
AVe started on down the mountain now, and as we slid 
down Kearney asked me, "How's your toothache?'^ Tooth- 
ache? I had forgotten I had one. It is a fact, that from 
the time we started up on the hot trail after the goats the 
pain left me, nor did it return to any great extent during 
the remainder of the hunt. 
The Relief Expedition Absent. 
Boak, openly delirious with joy when he saw us coming 
in with the hide, pointed out all our happenings as proof 
of the excellence of his doctrine of faith. That night, a 
very happy trio in spite of our poor surroundings, we ate 
supper with content. We had tea, and we had flour and 
water. Digging around in the packs, we found a scrap or so 
of bacon, and a bit of beef trimmed off from the last steak 
we had cooked, in all perhaps as much meat as would fill 
a teacup a quarter full. It tasted very good indeed to us, 
and we put in a pleasant evening in camp, hoping that in 
the morning Appekunny (Schultz) would be in with the 
relief stores, though just how Appekunny was going to 
catch up with us on our long trail up into the mountains 
we did not stop to figure out. In this we were not as wise 
as Appekunny himself, for in point of fact he never came 
at all ! Later on he told us that he ha i ( oncluded he 
would stay at the reservation and get things ready for the 
council, he supposing that we would come on out of the 
mountains when we had nothing more to eat! He 
thought, in a rather optimistic way, that we might get a 
fool hen or something or other to eat. But it came about 
that we saw no grouse at all on this hunt, and nothing 
that would do for food. Goat was something which nei- 
ther Boak nor Kearney would think of eating; though 
Boak told me, with a certain plaintiveness, that one time 
he had a partner who went to town and got drunk and 
spent all their earnings, so that he had to live six weeks 
on prairie dog. But, though he might eat prairie dog, he 
never would eat goat. 
In the morning ve were a little bit troubled by seeing 
the dog Shep, which had accompanied McChesnej' and 
Schultz out to the railroad, came into camp a little after 
breakfast time. We thought that of course Schultz would 
then soon be in camp, but though we waited for some time 
and went back a way down the trail, no sign of him ap- 
peared. Boak feared that something had happened to 
Schultz on the trail, else the dog would not have left him, 
but of this the dog could tell us nothing, and we did not 
guess then what was really the case, that Schultz had not 
stopped at the station, but had boarded the train with 
McChesney and gone on in home with him, leaving the 
dog to shift for himself, and leaving us without any supply 
train to support us in the rear. Had we known this, 
it would have saved us many a weary mile, for from where 
we now were it was much nearer to get to the railroad at 
Midvale than to retrace our long trail over the divide and 
down Ole Creek to Bear Creek station on the west slope 
of the mountains. But we feared that if we went out 
this way we might miss Schultz as he came in for us, or 
might perhaps be abandoning him helpless on the trail 
behind us, neither of which things would be right to do. 
So we determined to pull on back that day over the trail 
we had made company in; but we resolved first to take a 
run up the mountain to see if we could get Kearney's 
crippled goat, or get a sight of a certain big billy he had 
seen come down during our absence on the mountain, and 
stand for a long time on the rim of rock above the valley, 
in spite of all his efforts to scare it on up the mountain 
to where we were above it. He said this goat had .stood 
and looked at him as though it had a big contempt for him, 
and didn't intend to move on till he got ready. Ponder- 
ing again on the idiocy of this animal, we concluded that 
this goat would likely remain down low among the trees, 
feeding, and would perhaps not have gone up the moun- 
tain the next morning, in which case we might get a shot 
at it without climbing very high. We thought we would 
make this one little hunt more while we waited for 
Schultz, hoping that then we could make the short trip 
out to Midvale and not the long one back down the Ole 
Creek route. 
The Luck Still Holds. 
Making the story again brief as may be, Kearney and 
myself, after our miserable breakfast of dough and tea, 
went on. up the qiountain and caught up the trail of his 
crippled goat. Following this, we at last came upon fresh 
sign, and soon were trailing another goat^ which we think 
was the one Boak saw the evening previous. This trail 
did not line out for the upper peaks, but wound around 
among the woods, the animal evidently pausing now and 
then, but not in the least alarmed. In less than an hour, 
though after rather desperate climbing over some bare 
rocks which overhung a sheer descent of some depth, we 
made out the line of the trail to be leading straight for a 
ridge of bare black rocks a few hundred yards ahead. As 
the sign was now very fresh, and as the sun was growing 
warm, we figured that the goat would hardly have passed 
this ridge of rocks, and might be lying out there sunning 
itself and engaged in the favorite goat occupation of look- 
ing down on the world. Kearney then told me to stop 
where I was, while he went around the head of the rock 
ridge and came down from above, we concluding that if 
the goat was started it could not then get above Kearney, 
but woxild come down the rocks and try to get around the 
moiintain in the direction from which it had come. As it 
could not get down the face of the cliff above which we 
had just passed, it must come within range of me some- 
where, as it tried to get away from Kearney. This plan I 
think would have worked perfectly had not the Forest 
A^JD Stream luck brought out a better one. 
Kearney had not left me more than five minutes, and I 
had just got myself comfortably settled in a blind which I 
dug down into the snow, when I chanced to look up above, 
toward a little bunch of rocks which came into view under 
the lower boughs of the trees, when I sat down in the hole 
in the snow which I had kicked out with my feet. I had 
already gotten my rifle out of the case this time, and was 
ready for anything that might come past on either side, but 
I was not expecting what I really saw. There, framed in 
the black setting of agap in the pine boughs, was the white 
head and front of a goat, staring straight down at me, 
not making a movement to get away, but apparently per- 
fectly content to stop a while and see what I was doing! 
I am sure this goat must have seen me, for it was looking 
straight at me, and it was only about 140yds. away. It was 
l}dng with its front legs doubled under it, and with its head 
held stiffly out in front of it, as though it were lying there 
chewing the cud and not wanting to be bothered. A 
mountain sheep would have been out of that and over the 
hills hy that time, but this mountain goat, bearded, shaggy 
and white as a ghost of the winter woods, sat there and 
calmly watched me to see what I was going to do about it. 
What I did was to carefully pull the blackened front 
sight of the little rifle full in the middle of the shaggj'' 
chest of this fool animal. I was now beginning to have 
great confidence in this small-bore rifle, and I, of course, 
was sure I was going to kill this goat. The distance, I 
knew, need not matter, so I pestered not over the problem 
of altitude, but turned loose with the sights at 100yds. 
Held on the middle of an animal, this means you are 
good to hit with this gun anywhere from 50 up to 2o0yds., 
without any monkeying with the elevation. I knew the 
goat was mine the instant I touched the trigger, and at the 
sharp, shrieking, spiteful sound of the nitro load the goat, 
struck full in the chest, gave a big bound and went into 
the air, full upright on its hindlegs, exactly like a domestic 
billy about to charge! It was the most singular action I 
ever saw a wild game animal make, but with this eccentric 
creature all sorts of rules are off. To me it seems as 
though this goat sprang into that attitude as though to 
fight an adversary which it thought had assailed it. 
For a moment the goat stood thus upright, and then I 
saw that it had half fallen, leaning against a little tree 
that was near it. Then it sank down out of sight at the 
foot of the tree, and an instant later slowly heaved itself 
into view again. Again I fired at it, this time hastily, and 
this time we think I shot low in the hurry of it. The 
goat, at least, now struggled out from imder the tree and 
upon the face of the open slope which lay below it. It 
was trying to execute the last goat maneuver of jumping 
off some place out of reacli. But it was too weak, and only 
succeeded in getting out from the trees and falling prone 
on the face of the slippery slope. Here again 1 fired at it, 
once, twice, rapidly, hitting it both times. At the last shot 
it relaxed all over and went sliding and bounding and roll- 
ing far down the face of the mountain, and dangerously- 
near the edge of the cliff, over which had it plunged it 
must have been lost to ns forever. Fortunately, it lodged 
against a tree trunk before it reached the edge, and here 
we at last got to it and skinned it. We found it another 
fine specimen, though the coat was not quite so silky 
white as that of the first one. Against the skin of the 
hindleg I cut out the flattened fragment of the bullet, 
which had passed lengthwise througn the body from 
chest to thigh. 
I now had all the goats I ever wanted, and I vowed to 
Kearney that I would never again shoot one, of the fool 
things, no matter what might be the temptation, for that 
they did not have sense enough to make them a subject for 
sport. Kearney then told me that he had seen this goat 
lying there before I shot, and was trying to work his way 
back to me to show me the goat when he heard me shoot 
and saw the goat struck. 
The Effects of Starvation. 
From our position on this mountain now we could not 
get down without first getting up, and this meant a good 
stiff climb. Kearney was much slower than usual, and 
when we at last got up to where the going was easier, he 
sat down and admitted that he was about played out. He 
said that the food we had had, with no meat and nothing 
but dough, was not strong enough for him, since he was 
used to eating a great deal of meat during the winter. He 
admitted that he was pretty weak, and was glad we had 
now concluded our hunt. I asked him if he did not want 
to get tfie goat he had crippled the day before, and at last 
he said that he would make one more short try for it, giv- 
ing me the rifle and the skin of the goat to take on down 
to camp. I therefore went on down and set Boak shouting 
again with joy, Kearney coming into camp pretty wel I 
Tised up about an hour later. He said he had trailed his 
cripple to a point above the cut face of the mountain, and 
had seen where it had lain down and bled, and apparently 
struggled over in a death effort. He could get no further 
down, nor was it possible to get up to it from below. 
Much as we all regretted it, we were therefore obliged to 
leave without getting this goat, which was undoubtedly 
killed. 
The Homeward Trail. 
It was high time we were leaving if we were to get out 
