Dec. 31, 1910 ] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
1049 
tiny of the nearby rocks disclosed to us the 
owner of the cricket-like voice impudently sit¬ 
ting on a stone twenty feet away and bidding us 
defiance. A funny little gray fellow about seven 
inches long, quite tailless, but with large round 
white-rimmed ears—the little chief hare or pika, 
that queer little haymaker of the rocks. Many 
times had we come across wisps of long weedy 
stems carefully spread out on a flat stone to dry, 
and had known this for his work, but this was 
the first one we had seen, as he is a hard little 
chap to find. In the fall he cuts his hay on the 
edge of the slide rock and carries it to a rock 
near the mouth of his den. When he has ac¬ 
cumulated quite a pile, he carefully straightens 
it out, lays all the stems the same way and 
leaves the neat little pile to be cured by the sun 
before storing it away in his rocky den against 
the long cold winter. Through our glasses we 
could see him as plainly as if he were within 
arm's reach, and we 
watched him for a long 
time. He finally disap¬ 
peared. 
A couple of big white 
goats meanwhile had 
wandered into view on 
the opposite ledge, and 
we -saw a third asleep 
half way down the face 
of an apparently smooth 
precipice. We decided 
to go after them in the 
morning. Bill assuring 
me they would be found 
in the same place. On the 
way to camp we remem¬ 
bered that we needed 
some gun oil and decided 
to get a marmot, whose 
fat renders an oil highly 
esteemed by hunters and 
prospectors. “Ground 
hogs,” as they are local¬ 
ly called, more proper¬ 
ly hoarj- marmots or 
whistlers, were very numerous throughout near¬ 
ly all of the district in which we hunted. Many 
a one had we seen, sitting up at the mouth of 
his burrow like a big prairie dog, and warning 
all animals of the presence of danger by his 
whistle. He is simply a big overgrown moun¬ 
tain woodchuck, with thick, soft fur of a grizzly 
gray color, and so wary is he, dodging into his 
deep hole at the first sign of danger, that he is 
not easy to get. His shrill cry, sounding exactly 
like a child's tin whistle, and persistently re¬ 
peated as long as the danger continues, effect¬ 
ually warns any game within hearing, and he is 
in consequence rather unpopular with hunters. 
Some prospectors and hunters firmly believe he 
whistles through his fingers, but after a careful 
observation of many of them through my glasses 
I satisfied myself that he does not. His fur 
being thick and soft is much in demand for 
robes and mitts, but he is not easily trapped. To 
secure one he must be killed instantly by the 
first shot, as otherwise he crawls into his deep 
burrow which, being usually dug under or among 
rocks, is hard to open without proper tools. 
Bonaparte borrowed my .22 pistol one day to 
shoot a ground hog. “Me fix him,” he said. I 
asked him how he proposed to get one. “Ground 
hog see me, go down hole, then me run quick, 
stop by hole. By’m’by ground hog come out 
again, me shoot um.” To wait, that is the In¬ 
dian idea of hunting, expressed in two words. 
The patience which finally brings the game with¬ 
in easy range of the old-time gun is, I am 
afraid, beyond the capability of us. Bonaparte’s 
patience was never properly rewarded on our 
trip, however. Each time he returned empty- 
handed, explaining, “Me shoot um. fall down 
hole,” summing up in these few words several 
hours of patient waiting. My high power rifle 
put matters on a different basis. On our way 
down the slide rock we saw a big gray patriarch 
sitting at his threshold, whistling like a whole 
crowd of small boys. The distance was a full 
200 yards, so I lay flat, and getting his head 
plainly against my sights, pulled the trigger. The 
tremendous shock of the bullet knocked him 
several feet away, and he lay where he fell. He 
was a fat old fellow and no light load to carry. 
Afterward we each tried a little target practice 
at other whistlers, but could never get within 
300 yards, and the best we succeeded in doing 
was to cut some hair from a couple of them. 
Night came on clear and cold, and we planned 
great things for the morrow, which was to be 
our last day of hunting, only to wake to find 
everything covered with a thick blanket of snow 
and the fog thick. Greatly disappointed, we hung 
around camp ail morning, patching moccasins, 
cleaning rifles and telling stories. After noon 
the fog suddenly lifted and we could see the 
mountains about us for the first time. We 
started hastily up the steep climb, to make the 
most of our last afternoon. Up we went till 
we reached the top of a very rocky broken ridge 
we had not before explored. At the end of the 
ridge, where it jutted out over a great rock 
slide, splitting it in two parts which joined again 
far below, we looked down to our left and saw 
on the slide and about 200 yards away a band 
of four goats, and a little further off another 
goat with a kid. Disregarding Bill’s advice to 
sit down, I opened fire on the biggest billy. Two 
shots dropped him and I turned my attention to 
the others which had started on their funny 
shambling walk toward the right hand slide, ex¬ 
cept the lone goat and kid which turned off in 
the opposite direction. All disappeared for a 
moment as they passed below the point of the 
ridge, but soon one came into sight again, head¬ 
ing for the cliffs. At the second shot he fell 
and started rolling heels over head down the 
slide. This left two unaccounted for, so we 
climbed down the rocks and found one which 
had fallen dead just at the foot of the ridge. 
While we were examining this one, we heard 
a noise further round the point, and scrambling 
in that direction saw the fourth goat just dis¬ 
appearing behind the rocks. Bill managed to get 
in one shot before the broken ground hid it, but 
he could not find a way round or over the rocks 
at that point, so he climbed up on the side of 
the ridge on which I had shot the second one. 
Then, just as we thought it was going to get 
away after all, it stumbled, fell and rolled down 
the slide to join the other, finally stopping with¬ 
in a few feet of it, almost a quarter of a mile 
down the slide. 
Well pleased, we set 
to work to take the 
head of the goat be¬ 
side the point, and then 
Bill went down after 
the other two while I 
scrambled down to 
where my first Billy had 
rolled. Skinning and 
taking the head of a 
mountain goat weigh¬ 
ing in the neighborhood 
of 250 pounds, lodged 
precariously on the side 
of a 43 degree, slope, and 
ready to start downward 
again at the slightest 
provocation, is rather a 
job, but when it was 
done I climbed back to 
the foot of the ridge 
where Bill soon joined 
me with the other two 
heads. All were of good 
size, the horns being 
respectively 8 V 2 , 8 %. and and 7 inches, and 
with good beards. Bill hung all four of them 
over his shoulder and we started for camp. We 
had to climb up the steepest kind of a house 
roof, with broken rocks for shingles, to the top 
of the main ridge, perhaps 1.000 feet. Then over 
the edge and down the slide on the other side 
to camp where we arrived, tired, but well satis¬ 
fied, and just > n time, too, for within ten 
minutes the fog closed in again and snow 
began to fall. Of course we were soaking wet, 
and I at least was tired, but the satisfaction of 
knowing that the hunt had ended in a blaze of 
glory, and that there were actually six goat 
heads in camp, made everything look rosy. 
Snow fell all night, and when we started our 
pack train down' the mountain in the morning we 
slipped through several inches of beautiful but 
very wet whiteness. It was rather ticklish work 
in places and we were glad it had not frozen 
as well, as that would have made it utterly im¬ 
possible to descend at that place, and wou'd have 
necessitated a long and dangerous detour. Our 
horses again proved that they were near-goats, 
and we finally reached the bottom of the valley 
where the snow gave place to rain. The thick 
brush, through some eight miles of which our 
way now led, was far from attractive. Difficult 
