970 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[Dec. 17, 1910. 
valleys down the sides, in one of which we 
camped. The soil was largely volcanic ash, and 
in many places we found slides of finely broken 
pumice. The ancient wall of the crater, now the 
top of the various ridges, was very much broken, 
presenting many nasty bits of rock work. 
From camp we could see a band of seven 
goats far up the main peak, and after these Bill 
and I started. After climbing to the glacier 
which filled the gully just above us, and work¬ 
ing a short distance upward on it, we turned to 
the left and made our way up to the top of the 
ridge where we saw a billy, a nanny and a kid 
feeding along the edge of a pumice slide 300 
yards from us. As they had not seen us, we 
worked down to an outcropping ledge covered 
with brush, and about 160 yards from them. 
The billy stood broadside to me, and taking good 
aim just back of the shoulder and low down, I 
fired. Then I had an exhibition of the unbeliev¬ 
able vitality of the mountain goat. 
As the bullet from my .33 rifle struck him, he 
jumped and started on a clumsy but rapid shuf¬ 
fling walk up the slide diagonally toward us. We 
of course being hidden by the brush, and the 
smokeless powder not showing our whereabouts, 
they all followed, the goat’s one idea of safety, 
namely to climb. A second and third shot at 
the billy neither stopped nor hastened him, and 
I began to think my shooting must be very bad. 
I could see a stain on his white coat near the 
shoulder, but' he did not seem in the least dis¬ 
tressed. He was traveling quite fast, though his 
gait could hardly be described as a trot. The 
range was about 125 yards, and I put two more 
shots into him, when I had the satisfaction of 
seeing him drop. The nanny and kid turned 
then and came directly toward us, and I hoped 
to get a photograph of them, but before the 
camera could be unstrapped, the old nanny saw 
us, and turning, went off at an ungainly gallop, 
the kid at her heels. Both were thin and poor, 
and not worth shooting. Clambering down the 
slide toward our billy, which had fallen in a 
little depression which hid him from us till we 
were within fifty yards, we found he was not 
dead. Seeing us, he got to his feet and started 
down the steep slide at a lumbering gallop, which 
on that slope rapidly carried him away from us. 
I fired twice. At the second shot, fired at about 
one hundred yards, he turned a somersault, fell 
and rolled until he brought up against a bush 
one hundred yards further down. This time he 
was really dead. 
We removed the head, which was a good one, 
with horns measuring eight and three-quarter 
inches, and a fair beard, and hung it on the bush 
out of reach of coyotes. The skin we did not 
take, as the hair, like that of moose, is so brittle 
and comes out so easily that it is worthless as a 
rug, and the hide is valueless as buckskin, while 
the meat of an old goat is too tough to eat. Five 
out of the seven shots had struck him, all being 
bunched in a group back of the shoulder, except 
one through the shoulder. Evidently I had 
missed two of the running shots; any one of the 
others should have brought him down, and I 
know from experience that any two of them 
would have brought down a moose. Bill says 
goats take more killing than grizzlies, and from 
what I saw then and later I can readily believe 
it. Since then I have read with much interest 
William H. Wright’s book, “The Grizzly Bear,” 
in which he makes the same statement. 
•Leaving the head on the bush we retraced our 
steps to the ridge and went on up after the other 
gogts we had seen.- They had gpne', evidently 
scared by the shooting. Continuing along the 
ridge, a solitary big billy suddenly appeared a 
thousand yards away. He was looking directly 
toward us,' and there being no cover available, 
we stood still watching him. He looked at us 
a long time before he finally made up his mind 
that we were dangerous, then made off as fast 
as he could go, as the wind was in our direc¬ 
tion. This was good evidence that a goat’s 
vision is keen aand that they are not the stupid 
animals they are considered by some. Later ex¬ 
perience amply confirmed this opinion. 
A half mile further on we saw another lone 
goat 400 yards away in a rocky broken place on 
the side of the ridge. We lost sight of him as 
we climbed to work our way around to him, and 
after half an hour had almost given him up, 
when we suddenly saw him sixty yards below us. 
He offered a splendid mark, standing uncon¬ 
scious of our presence, and I killed him with 
one shot which went through his heart and 
brought him down without a struggle. 
We could see a lot of goats on another ridge 
which ran down from the central peak nearly at 
right angles with the one on which we were, but 
they were a long way off, and across a canon 
with-precipitous sides, so we did not go after 
them that day. 
Getting back to camp was not easy, as we 
tried another route which led us through bad 
brule, but we picked up our first head on the 
way, slid and plunged down the pumice slide to 
find the welcome supper awaiting us. 
The second goat was a big nanny with a fine 
head nine and a quarter inches long, and a good 
beard. Nanny heads are usually better looking 
than billies, as the horns are longer, though not 
quite so thick at the base. The beards are equally 
good, and distinguishing one from the other at a 
distance is only guess work. 
The cold wind whistled up our valley, and the 
temperature fell to freezing, but the night was 
clear, and the stars most beautiful. We never 
stayed up late to watch the stars, however, and 
it was rare that the camp was not quiet at 8130. 
Having seen a total of eighteen goats on our 
first day on Mount Penrose, we had no doubt 
we should find plenty. 
Motor Trucks in the Woods. 
A novel hunting trip into the Michigan woods 
was made recently in motor cars and trucks. It 
was organized in the plant of one of the auto¬ 
mobile companies, the officers and employes of 
which drew lots to decide who should go and 
who remain on duty. Camp outfits and a com¬ 
plete equipment were taken along in two big- 
motor trucks, while the hunters occupied roomy 
cars. Moving camp was an easy matter, for it 
was only necessary to pack up the outfit and 
motor along to another section that appealed to 
the party. 
This is an annual affair with the men of the 
manufacturing concern referred to, and they pro¬ 
fess to get a great deal of enjoyment out of these 
jaunts into the Upper Peninsula country during 
the two weeks’ open season for deer. 
THE TOP RAIL. 
“Blane Mus” sends me the- following snake 
story: This story is told by I. B. Wilson, of 
Moundsville, who was hunting in the northeast¬ 
ern part of West Virginia. It was printed in a 
local paper. 
“We were coming into camp from up the river 
the first evening, when about fifty yards from 
camp lying upon the bank above the road we dis¬ 
covered a large rattler forty-eight inches long. 
I had seen a number of rattlesnakes, but never 
so beautiful a specimen of the diamond back 
variety as this one. He had lately shed his skin, 
and lying on the red clay of the mountain side 
his skin looked like velvet. 
“We got through our admiration of his snakes- 
ship in short order and a well directed blow with 
a stone brought him to the road, another finished 
him, and his hide was tacked to a large tree in 
front of our tent. 
“Two mountaineers stopped at the camp to in¬ 
quire about our luck when one spied the snake 
skin on the tree. 
“‘Caught one, eh?’ said he. 
“‘Yes,’ said I. 
“ ‘Whare?’ 
“ ‘I killed him with a club as he came out of 
the water. Suppose he had come out of the 
water to feed.’ 
“‘Do you know what that is?’ said he. 
“‘We killed him for an eel, skinned him for 
an eel, cooked him for an eel, and ate him for 
an eel, and it beat any Ohio River eel I have ever 
tasted.’ 
“He jumped off the wagon, caught the skin 
by the tail and shook the rattles. ‘Eel be d——d! 
Do you know what that is?’ 
“ ‘Well, that did puzzle us some,’ said I, ‘but 
we decided that it was his eggs that he was tak¬ 
ing up the river to spawn.’ 
“He gave me one contemptuous look, jumped 
on his wagon and cracked his whip with a ‘Gid 
ap. Fly, Jude; you’ll be killed for a jack rabbit 
ef you stay here!’ ” 
* * * 
While to some it will appear that Earl John¬ 
son is a crack shot, others may have something 
to say regarding luck in one shot he is credited 
with having made recently in Colorado. Here is 
the story, from a correspondent of a Denver 
paper: 
Johnson was examining his rifle when he suddenly- 
caught sight of the deer. The train was running forty 
miles an hour, and although he had no idea of killing 
the animal, Johnson thought he would take a shot. The 
bullet went true to the mark, and the deer fell dead. 
Johnson left the train here, and with a team went back 
and secured the game, continuing his journey later. 
Johnson probably has not recovered from 
his surprise. However, his successful attempt 
to recover the game is commendable, and is in 
marked contrast to the habit of tourists on the 
Pacific railways not so many years ago. when 
rifles and revolvers were frequently fired from 
