THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
They saw us and started on a rheumatic gallop, but only went a little 
way, and as they reached a turn, huddled up and looked back. We 
picked our way over towards their last place of abode, reaching the 
opposite side of the canyon by means wholly unsuited to nervous 
people. There was just snow enough to show their tracks, which led 
along scandalous precipices. The fever of pursuit was on my guide, 
and he walked uprightly in places where I became a quadruped. 
This was trying to his patience, for he caught glimpses of the goats 
which I, by reason of slower progress, was denied. In about half an 
hour we came to a great chimney of rock in the path, and, clinging 
with fingers and moccasins, he went around the face of it . . . When 
I came out above him I saw he had the goats in a sort of natural trap, 
and they were all bunched up against a rock which I thought could 
not be passed. The biggest billy stood faced about, his long white beard 
and petticoats making him look like the high priest of some heathen 
temple. ‘ Don’t shoot; he fall down,’ yelled my guide. At the sound of 
the voice the goat made a desperate attempt at the face of the rock, 
scrambling up at an obtuse angle, then standing on his hind legs and 
throwing his fore feet over, from right to left. I thought he would surely 
fall back, but he did not. The smaller goats followed and in a moment 
they were gone. . . . We made a flank movement, and perhaps a quarter 
of a mile from the first round-up we saw those four fool goats again, 
the big one and a small one looking back around the corner, to see if 
we were really coming. Then we did shoot and curiosity broke up 
that family.” 
Goats are often found on the precipices immediately above the timber and 
seem to choose their paths where the angle of the rocks is of the steepest. 
“ If,” says Owen Wister, “ there was a precipice and a sound flat- 
top, they took the precipice and crossed its face on juts that did not 
look as if your hat would hang on them. In this, I think, they are worse 
than the mountain sheep, if that is possible. Certainly they do not seem 
to come down into the high pastures and feed on the grass levels as 
the sheep will.” 
Mr Wister thinks that, if not quickwitted, the white goat is certainly 
wary, and accurately describes the movements of the animal on the 
mountain face as I have myself seen them. 
“ We watched his slow movements,” he says, speaking of a male 
he had disturbed, “ through the glass, and were reminded of a bear. 
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