“Toe” wasn’t satisfied until he did 
some branding personally. 
Through our glasses, Jim and I could 
see several small herds of deer peace- 
fully feeding in the scrub oak across 
the river, and as I focused my glasses 
on some cliffs farther away I spotted 
four mountain goats out on a ledge. 
We both watched them for a long 
while. Finally they could be seen to 
cross some slide rock and go out of 
sight, but we were determined to go 
up there the next morning, as it was 
too late to get to them that day. 
Nie morning Henry was off before 
sun up to bring in the horses, re- 
turning soon with eight head, Dyna- 
mite in the lead. We had laid out 
what looked enough supplies to keep 
four hungry men for a week — with 
some to spare. Our grub horse was 
packed and soon we were on our way 
again, this time headed for the high- 
est camping spot Albert knew of, where 
there was enough water and horse feed 
to keep our mounts. 
The trail led over some of the worst 
pitches we had yet experienced, so 
much so in fact that even Albert took 
to his feet, in preference to the sad- 
dle. After crossing three of these high 
summits we came out on a high point 
looking across a stretch of level land 
along the river’s edge far below us. 
From here looking far out on the 
mountain the guide pointed out our 
proposed goat camp. 
Our horses were tired so we decided 
to go down to the flat as there was 
plenty of drift wood for a camp with 
some good horse feed. We camped for 
the night in a little old deserted log 
cabin, probably left by some old pros- 
pector in the gold rush to Thunder 
Mountain. The hut had only three 
sides, the other being open, and there 
was a little old tin camp stove in one 
corner, which after some little over- 
hauling we fired up to cook supper on. 
Jim and I cut pine boughs for our bed, 
while our fisherman “Doc” went to the 
river with his rod for some trout. Soon 
we had a green bed made, and Albert 
had supper almost ready. By this time 
“Doc” appeared on the scene with some 
“beauties” for our breakfast. 
Just before we retired someone fool- 
ishly mentioned that this was a fine 
place for rattlesnakes, so we went to 
bed with this on our minds, not real- 
izing that it was too late in the year 
for snakes. Just as we dozed off 
“Doc,” who was sleeping in the middle, 
moved a little and was tickled in the 
face by a pine twig, at which he hit 
me in the face thinking it was a snake. 
We all did a lot of crabbing, but by 
morning we were not half so afraid of 
snakes, for a snake would have to have 
fur in order to live in that cold. Jack 
Frost had visited us during the night 
and left his glistening coat. The sur- 
rounding country was beautiful, and if 
we could have taken a picture it would 
have been a prize winner. 
Owing to our ratler restless night, 
we got a late start. It was nearly 
sun-down before we reached our final 
camp, however, a camp was again 
made, the horses watered and driven 
up into a little nook in the rocks, where 
there was a little picking. We made 
a huge campfire and sat around a long 
while, smoking and planning the next 
day’s activities. We were all that an- 
xious that we hated to go to bed, for 
this was the beginning of the real ex- 
citement of the trip. We were aware 
that our “white-whiskered quarry” was 
no easy thing to get, and we were all 
equally anxious to bring home a “Billy” 
—TI being no exception, although I had 
killed mountain goat before. A big 
owl perched himself on a high pine tree 
outlined against the sky, saying 
“Who-o,” and the coyote set in on the 
chorus, giving our camp a real wild 
atmosphere. Albert remarked that we 
were out so far in the wilds that the 
canary birds sing bass. 
Bee daylight next morning AI- 
bert had a roaring campfire going. 
The aroma of trout and bacon frying 
and the coffee now and then boiling 
over was more than the most of sleepy 
heads could resist. We were out of 
bed with a bound, and huddled around 
the fire while we thawed out our boots. 
Jim got one of his boots too close to 
the fire and it scorched badly, causing 
him to curse his carelessness at great 
length. By this time Albert had a 
tempting stack of flapjacks on a plate, 
so we waited for no further formali- 
ties, each seeming to think that the 
fastest eater would be the best fed. 
We put up a couple of sandwiches 
each, filled our canteens at the little 
spring, took our field glasses and rifles, 
starting out as we had planned the 
night before, “Doc” and the Guide go- 
ing in one direction, Jim and I in the 
other. 
IM was an excellent climber, with 
very good wind, and we climbed 
quite rapidly, until we reached a huge 
lookout rock on the back bone of the 
ridge that went up and up. From this 
point we scanned the whole side hill, 
but could locate nothing but two or 
three little bunches of deer peacefully 
feeding on the sunny side of the slope, 
for the sun was shining brightly by 
now, promising a wonderful day for 
our long looked-for goat hunt. 
After we had convinced ourselves 
that there were no goats on the hill- 
side we took a sparing sip of water and 
started to pick our way for a saddle 
far up ahead and:in the snow, but 
from where we were sure we could 
command a view, with the glasses, of 
more country than we could hunt in 
two or three days. Before reaching 
this objective we crossed many coyote 
tracks, and not a few goat tracks, but 
the latter seemed several days old; 
nevertheless it was encouraging to 
know that they had been right where 
we were standing, which gave us in- 
creased energy to make our next look- 
out. We were both perspiring freely 
by now, notwithstanding the fact that 
we had come away in nothing but lit- 
tle light leather-hunting jackets. 
As we neared the top we walked 
with all cautiousness, not making a 
sound and with rifles ready for action, 
as there were plenty of signs of game 
here; but when we peered out across 
this pass there was nothing in sight 
but a snow-shoe rabbit, scurrying for 
the cover of the heavy pines in the 
(Continued on page 760) 

716 
The pack train crosses the Salmon River. 
