Dec. 24, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
1009 
goat land. He does not charge readily, content¬ 
ing himself with standing at bay, or making a 
dignified retreat up the steepest place he can 
find, but woe betide the dog that presumes upon 
his apparent slowness. His fighting ability may 
be judged by the well authenticated fact that he 
has been known to kill a grizzly bear in open 
fight. 
The climbing of the mountain goat is beyond 
comparison the most wonderful exhibition of 
nerve, combined with strength, that I have ever 
seen. He thinks no more of wandering along a 
ledge so narrow as io be invisible a hundred feet 
away, across the face of a perpendicular cliff 
hundreds of feet high, than you or I would of 
taking a stroll along the middle of a paved street. 
He never seems to hesitate or look for an easy 
path, and he never curiously enough seems to 
find it necessary to retrace his steps or change 
his predetermined course. He climbs by rising 
on his hind legs, getting a good hold with his 
big Indian rubber-like hoofs, and slowly lifting 
himself with his tremendous shoulder muscles 
until his hind feet reach a new starting place. 
He never seems to hurry, and yet he can cover 
the most broken ground in a surprising manner. 
Occasionally a goat can be frightened into a 
clumsy gallop, but usually his fastest gait is a 
shambling walk. 
By most of the mountain men and consequent¬ 
ly by many others, the goat is considered stupid 
and dull of sight and scent. This certainly was 
not borne out by any evidence during my sojourn 
among them. The argument is usually based on 
the ease of finding and stalking goats as com¬ 
pared with sheep, but I believe that if the sheep 
were snow white and could be seen as easily as 
the goats, one would be about as hard to get as 
the other. The goat is a slow-moving animal 
and once within range one is sure of several 
less powder prevents him from locating his 
enemy, and the direction of sounds in the moun¬ 
tains is often extremely deceptive. The goat, 
therefore, is likely to come toward the hunter, 
apparently rank stupidity, but more likely merely 
the natural endeavor to escape by climbing. That 
this is so is indicated by the action of the nanny, 
accompanying the first, goat I killed. She was 
on that mountain, and then they were on a dif¬ 
ferent ridge. The big goat which discovered us 
at a thousand yards, and after watching us, close¬ 
ly crouched on the rocks as we were, turned and 
hurried away, certainly seemed to have eyesight 
that would do credit to any animal. 
We made the river at the moifth of Gunn 
Creek just as it was getting too dark to see, and 
AT TIMBER LINE. 
coming up directly toward me and would un¬ 
doubtedly have continued to do so in spite of 
repeated shots at the other goat, had I not ex¬ 
posed myself. Instantly she wheeled and made 
off in the opposite direction, diagonally down 
hill. Furthermore, after the shooting the goats 
left the mountain entirely, as of the seven goats 
AT THE HEAD OF EDITH GLACIER. 
shots at him, while the sheep leaves' the county 
so suddenly after the first shot that a second one 
is almost impossible. This does not indicate 
superior intelligence, however; merely different 
physical chaaracteristics. The sheep depends on 
his fleetness of foot to save him from danger, ' 
while the goat relies on his ability to climb 
where only a rifle bullet can follow. 
When a goat is fired upon from above, smoke¬ 
we saw when leaving camp we could find none, 
and all of the rest of the eighteen seen that day 
were getting away as fast as they could, except 
one on the far side of the mountain, which we 
surprised and shot. Nor did they come back 
during the next two. days. A similar thing oc¬ 
curred later on Grizzly Mountain. The band we 
hunted scattered at the first shot at the kid, and 
not until the second day after did we see others 
too tired to pitch a tent, rolled into our beds. 
After a refreshing sleep and one of Bonapart’s 
good breakfasts, we crossed the Bridge River 
and followed its south bank to Cadwallader 
Creek, down which we turned, past the Lome 
and other small gold mines to its fork. 
Mineral deposits of various kinds are found 
all through the mountains, gold being among the 
commonest, although not always in paying quan¬ 
tities. Along the Fraser River one sees every 
few miles a big heap of clean-washed water- 
worn boulders, showing where an old placer 
operation was. Several dredges are busy suck¬ 
ing up the sand from the river bed and separat¬ 
ing the tiny particles of gold with which it is 
enriched. Some of these dredges are, I under¬ 
stand, operating at a considerable profit. Every 
man in these regions has one or more gold claims 
back in the mountains, but few of them are 
worked beyond the requirements of the law, as 
transportation facilities are so poor. A few 
hydraulic operations are being carried on, nota¬ 
bly one which we passed on our way in from 
Tyaughton Creek, the discharge from the eight- 
inch monitor of which has overflowed a creek 
and turned the trail into a rushing stream for a 
mile or more. 
We came across the trail of a real outlaw one 
day. We first saw his tracks in the hunting trail 
we were following, and knowing that no one 
wearing boots was supposed to be within miles, 
we were interested. The next day from a high 
shoulder of the mountain we saw his camp, and 
on picking up one of our caches a few days later, 
found evidences that he had been investigating 
on his own hook to learn our identity. We 
hoped he might come into our camp, as we 
should have been only too glad to give him a 
good feed, sympathizing with him sincerely. He 
had stopped at the ranch of French Ch? lie, and 
after some words had left the house a.id started 
