July 9, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
58 
of the joys of quail shooting is the mid-day 
meal and smoke. When I first started shoot¬ 
ing, half-a-dozen sandwiches, and a drink at 
the first clear pool used to satisfy me, and 
lunch was an operation of only a few minutes. 
But now I like to find a sheltered and shady 
spot, where I can spell, at noon, for an hour 
or so. I am not exactly a sybarite, as the 
quality and quantity of my lunch does not 
trouble me; but I enjoy the halt, and find that 
I get through the long afternoon much better. 
For, if the birds are plentiful, it is usually in 
the gathering dusk, deepening indeed into the 
dark, before I find myself tramping, a trifle 
wearily, along the homeward path. 
Australis. 
A Lillooet Sheep Hunt. 
Concluded from page 13. 
The next morning we went down the river 
about half a mile. There we left the boat, not 
daring to go further down, as the river was full 
of anchor ice and we would be unable to bring 
the boat up stream against it. From there a 
horse trail led down the river on the other side. 
It was the most wonderful trail I ever saw. 
Throughout it was solid willows about ten feet 
high and every ten feet there would be a criss¬ 
cross jamb of fallen logs. For an hour we 
forced our way over logs and through brush, 
and at the end had made a half mile. At that 
point we struck a gorge where a little stream 
came down. We followed this up the mountain 
for another half mile, then separated, one going 
up one side of the gorge and one on the other. 
Pat and I climbed up the side of the gorge 
to the top, then stopped and looked across to 
see how Cutler and Grant were getting on. The 
sight was really alarming. They had started to 
go up a place that ended in an apparently sheer 
wall, and when we looked we could see them 
going up the side of the chasm like two flies on 
the side of a room. First Grant would scramble 
up a few feet, Cutler would pass him the rifle, 
then Cutler would scramble up and Grant would 
try it again, and so they went, passing the rifle 
from one to the other. I was greatly relieved 
to see them make the top, as I fully expected to 
see one of them miss his footing and go down 
to the rocks a couple of hundred feet below. 
The condition of the ground and rocks made 
everything much worse, as all moisture was 
frozen, so that often the rocks were covered 
with ice and the ground was as hard as stone. 
Pat and I followed the mountain side for 
miles. It was ten times worse than in the sheep 
country, being covered with fallen timber and 
small pines growing along the fallen logs, and 
the whole hillside being at an angle of about 
sixty degrees. Then, too, as we climbed up, we 
got into the snow, which added to the pleasures 
of walking fallen logs. I fell continually, find¬ 
ing the falls very painful, though I did not hurt 
myself seriously. About noon we sat down and 
had lunch, then started on somewhat refreshed. 
About 2 o’clock we looked across a little curve 
in the hill and saw a goat on the other side. He 
was half a mile away and it took us half an 
hour of the hardest kind of work to get any¬ 
where near him, only to find he had gone. Of 
course we tried to go as quietly as possible, but 
it was hopeless to get through that kind of. a 
country without noise. 
I have often read that a goat is a fool. He 
may be a fool compared to the mountain sheep, 
which has telescopic eyes and a nose to match, 
but a goat has sense enough to walk away when 
he hears somebody fall over a log in his neigh¬ 
borhood. 
After we had blessed the country and the 
goats and had traveled another mile, we came 
to a precipice that dropped down for a thousand 
feet and effectually barred our progress. On the 
other side on the face of another precipice was 
a goat going up the rock; wall as if on a pair 
of stairs. He was too far away, but I sat down 
and fired half a dozen shots at him. Once I 
thought I saw him flinch and just as he got to 
the top and I fired my last shot at him, he gave 
a convulsive jump straight up in the air, and I 
believe that one or both of those bullets went 
into him. But a goat is known to have the ability 
to carry more lead than any other living animal, 
and he went on over the top of the cliff. I had 
hoped that if I made a successful shot he would 
roll to the bottom and we might be able to get 
down to the creek,' and by going up it get the 
goat, but as I had not succeeded in killing him, 
it was impossible to follow him that day. As 
it was, we had barely time to get back to the 
boat before dark, and though I was exceedingly 
reluctant to give up an animal that I thought I 
had wounded, yet it was a hopeless proposition. 
It was not very far back to the boat, nor did it 
take us very long to get there, as we simply 
fell and slid down the side of the mountain. 
That day gave me my fill of goat shooting, as 
I was convinced that it was nearly impossible 
to kill a goat under the present conditions. Per¬ 
haps it is easy to kill goats if you find them 
in open country where it is possible to stalk 
them, but in those cliffs and precipices among 
the brush and fallen timber it was hopeless to 
locate them at any distance or to approach them 
after they had been located without making 
racket enough to scare any animal with a modi¬ 
cum of brains. 
Cutler and Grant had located two big goats 
lying down about 600 yards from them, and had 
started to stalk them only to find that they could 
not get anywhere near them without making so 
much noise that the goats took alarm and made 
off without Cutler having been able to even get 
a shot. They had also had so much hopeless 
climbing that Cutler felt as I did, that the goat 
proposition was hopeless for the time, and that 
we had better give it up. This was particularly 
easy for both of us, as we had really only come 
fbr sheep and had no particular desire to kill 
goats which are of no use to eat and have not, 
in my judgment, any particular merit as heads. 
Grant that evening agreed with us that we might 
as well give up the goats. By returning to 
Lillooet the next day we would be out just 
nineteen days and this gave us a thoroughly 
satisfactory trip; in fact, I could hardly credit 
our luck, as we had got our limit of sheep in 
such a short time. The fact seemed to be that 
we had gotten into the sheep country just at 
the moment when the rams had joined the ewes 
and we had utilized the time before winter set 
in to the very best advantage. No doubt sheep 
shooting in September is much more pleasant 
than later in the season, but if a man desires 
solely to secure heads, I do not believe that a 
sportsman can select a better time than the three 
weeks from Oct. 15 to Nov. 6. 
That night we made preparations for leaving 
British Columbia. Grant White decided to take 
Liza in with him and buy his winter supplies 
at that time, so in the morning we started in 
force. As if to bid us a fond farewell, it began 
to snow soon after we set out, and we pushed 
on hard all day through the snow and brought 
up at Mission village about 4 o’clock that after¬ 
noon. There Pat went on to spend the night 
with his family, who lived in the Indian village 
and took Shemoo with him, while Grant, Dick, 
Liza, Cutler and myself got supper at the shore 
of the lake. Dick cooked half a side of bacon, 
and as no one else ate any, I ate it all. This 
set the party to taking stock, and they finally 
discovered that none of them had eaten any 
bacon on the trip except myself, though they had 
always cooked a large amount in order to use 
the grease for cooking potatoes and venison. We 
had started out with forty-five pounds of bacon 
and we finished the last side the next morning, 
so by a careful calculation Dick decided that I 
must have eaten practically forty-five pounds of 
bacon in two weeks, and he evidently considered 
this the most notable observation of his life. 
We slept that night in a warehouse at the 
steamer dock, lying in our sleeping bags on the 
floor, while the wind blew through innumerable 
cracks in the floor and in the sides of the build¬ 
ing. 
Liza was certainly a practical wife for that 
country. She rolled herself in her blankets, lay 
down on the boards with perfect equanimity, 
and arose in the morning with great promptness 
to help Dick with the breakfast. Immediately 
after breakfast Dick got on a horse and started 
on the full jump down the trail along the side 
of the lake to Lillooet. About 9 o’clock Pat 
turned up with a rowboat about twenty-five feet 
long. Into this we packed all our supplies and 
then got in, Sheemoo and I taking the forward 
pair of oars and Grant and Cutler the pair to¬ 
ward the stern, while Pat steered with a paddle. 
This was the finishing touch of British Columbia. 
We had worn our legs off with climbing and the 
hard ride of the day before had made us pretty 
sick of riding horseback, and to top off the trip 
we rowed fifteen miles in two hours and a half, 
getting to the Lillooet end of the lake about 
noon. 
I think Grant was exceedingly glad to end 
this trip. He had been out with two parties 
before ours without a break, and the two months 
and a half of continuous hard work had almost 
worn him out. He never made any complaint 
or intimated that he felt the work, butl I could 
see he was simply done up all the time, and he 
complained of continual headaches. 
On our arrival at the lake we waited for an 
hour or more for the wagon Dick had promised 
to send down from the town, and on its arrival 
packed up all our stuff and repaired to Dun- 
lops, where we crated our heads, and then after 
making arrangements to see Mr. Dunlop in the 
evening, went on to the hotel. 
We felt very grateful to Mr. Dunlop for his 
kindness to us throughout the eritire trip. He 
had made no profit out of it except for supplies 
we bought from him, but he had put himself to 
great trouble, not only in taking care of us, but 
also in securing Chief Peter, giving us informa¬ 
tion, corresponding with us before the trip, and 
in every way looking out for our interests as if 
we had been old friends. To any stranger about 
