Dec. 3, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
895 
a state of nature are as careful of their person 
as a self-respecting tabby cat. Their long white 
hair is simply immaculate, and they looked for 
all the world like little spots of snow — seven of 
them, all oblivious. 
It was no easy shot straight down, and I 
thought I never was going to hold in close 
enough to the face of the wall. Jim’s, old blun¬ 
derbuss of a .44 drew first blood, but my gun 
was a close second, and before the last of the 
bunch disappeared, we had two down. How the 
rest got away I never knew. It is simply the 
truth that goats will get up walls that have the 
appearance of being unscalable by any living 
creature that has not wings. And a goat is not 
like a sheep. Once alarmed he keeps going' and 
offers a poor target, while sheep, when shot at, 
will scatter and then bunch again to look at the 
hunter. 
When the fusillade was over we saw that one 
of the pair had lodged so far down the precipice 
again we tried it, only to be turned back. We 
finally made it by going up a fissure or fault in 
the rock, down which trickled a small stream. I 
mean never again, until my end comes in bed, 
as I hope, to be as near death as I was a score 
of times in that brief journey. Even Jim’s 
courage and enthusiasm flagged more than once, 
yet I have seen this Indian do stunts on the 
rocks that no white man I ever knew cared to 
emulate. But we did get to the top again— 
guns, hide and all—and the day was still com¬ 
paratively young. 
So we left the trophy near where we had come 
out on top of the cliff and worked our way 
back to the glacier which partly covered a basin 
dug out of the side of the mountain, acres in ex¬ 
tent, and nearly level except for a slight dip and 
a few gently-sloping coulees eight or ten feet 
deep. We hoped to find sheep, of which there 
were plentiful “sign.” 
Half way across the basin, as we were coming- 
sort. Sadly I left them, still grubbing and un¬ 
conscious. They were surely beauties. I can still 
see, in my mind’s eye, the working of those 
mighty shoulders, the fur rippling over the 
muscles and glinting in the sunlight, giving an 
impression of power that was almost, appalling 
and fairly made my hair bristle. I have never 
been able to believe that that biggest bear weighed 
less than 1,000 pounds, and to recall the sight 
quickens my heart beat even to this day. 
On the way back to where we had left the 
goat hide, and must descend, we ran across a 
covey of ptarmigan. They were almost as tame 
as “fool hens” and we could have bagged most 
of them, but we took only one as a specimen. 
My sensations as we came at dusk to the edge 
of the ledge overlooking our camp were any¬ 
thing but pleasant. We had had nothing to eat 
since dawn and the day’s experiences had tried 
my nerve. Looking down into the gulf it seemed 
far more formidable than it had from below in 
MOOSE HORNS WITH 59-INCH SPREAD SECURED 
as to be beyond our reach; the other had disap¬ 
peared. We climbed laboriously down to the 
ledge we had shot him on, and thence traced 
him down and down the cliff to a little scrap of 
standing room out of which grew a stunted fir. 
Here he had lain down and given up the ghost. 
But for the trunk across which he hung sus¬ 
pended he also would have been lost to us. 
He was a monster, surely; weight, I should 
say, not much less than 400 pounds. Feet like 
a yearling steer, horns to match, the best speci¬ 
men killed in the St. Mary’s country in years, if 
ever; in fact, better heads are not to be seen 
anywhere. 
A heavy job it was to take his jacket off, as 
there was not room for him and us on the perch 
he had chosen to die on, and when skinning him 
it was necessary to truss him up to the tree in 
order to get a place to stand on. Done at last, 
we untied the scrap of rope that kept him with 
us and let him go loose. What a trip he made, 
hurtling down the sheer wall, bounding from 
point to point like a rubber ball, lodging finally 
in the fringe of chaparral at the base of the cliff. 
His gyrations were an unpleasant reminder to 
such a greenhorn, as I was. 
To go straight down from where we were was 
out of the question! To go back up, laden as 
we were with head and hide (feet and all on) 
proved to be a terrific undertaking. Time and 
BY JOSEPH E. ROGERS. SOME 
out of a coulee, Jim ahead, he gave vent to a 
hasty exclamation and pointed. I looked and 
saw about 200 yards away three grizzlies. They 
were busily engaged in grubbing up the roots of 
the bear-grass, which grew luxuriantly below the 
glacier. We had the wind of them, and they 
had not seen us. They must have gotten up from 
the other side of Split Mountain, where we 
found afterward there was an easier climb. 
It was the sight of a life time. Turning again 
to Jim—but there was no Jim. He was busily 
engaged in putting as much space between him 
and them as possible. I do ; not know that I 
blame him much, for his old .44 had just demon¬ 
strated its uselessness; besides, he had only two 
cartridges left. I managed to catch up with him, 
but persuasion was thrown away. He could only 
protest vigorously that he “hadn’t lost no bear,” 
and made no secret of the fact that he was 
afraid to tackle the job. 
I spent perhaps half an hour keeping the trio 
in sight and speculating as to how I could, with 
any reasonable degree of safety, sail in single- 
handed. I was not much good at a running- 
shot. A .303 is not very heavy for big bear, and 
three were quite a good many. Had there been 
a big rock or a tree in reach to afford some 
refuge in case things went wrong, or in case all 
three concluded to come at once, it would have 
been different. But there was nothing of the 
OF THE KEDGEMAKOOGE TROPHIES. 
the morning, and as I began the climb down in 
the gathering gloom I had a fairly firm convic¬ 
tion that I at least would never get down alive, 
and while I have had many a climb since, none, 
I think, was quite so nerve-racking. As night 
fell we reached camp, famished, but happy. It 
had been a pretty full day for the tenderfoot. 
W. B. S. 
Kedgemakooge Rod and Gun Club. 
Kedgemakooge Lake, N. S., Nov. 20. — Editor 
Forest and Stream: The inclosed snapshots may 
interest some of your readers, as they show the 
heads of some ■ moose killed by guests of the 
Kedgemakooge Rod and Gun Club. 
The record head of the club for this season 
had a spread of fifty-nine inches, shot within 
four miles of the club house by Joseph E. 
Rogers; two others over fifty inches shot by H. 
B. Burnham and Dr. P. J. Zeglio. 
Out of ten parties that hunted from the club 
eight were successful in getting their moose. 
L. D. Mitchell, Mgr. 
All the game laws of the United States and 
Canada, revised to date and now in force, are 
given in the Game Laws in Brief. See adv. 
