“It is a regular trail, but if you will look closer you’ll see the hoof marks. Horses do not have split toes, my boy. In fact, I have no doubt this is the regular stairway of the goat family that lives on this mountain. Like enough they’ve been down in here to get some different sort of grass or water. They’ve evidently been using this path quite a while.”
“How high do you suppose they are now?” inquired John.
“Who can tell? A mile or two, or three, or five, for all I know. It will take us two or three hours to get up to the rim-rock, at least, and I’ve usually noticed that goats don’t stop much short of the rim-rock when they start to go up a hill. The sign is fresh, however, made late last night or very early this morning; I think with you, Rob, that it was yesterday.”
“How many are there?” inquired Jesse, bending over the broad trail.
“Hard to tell, for they’ve used this trail more than once. A dozen or more, I should say. Well, all we can do is to follow after them and thank them for showing us a good path.”
They climbed on up all the more eagerly now, and when they reached more open country where the sun shone fairly on them they soon were dripping with perspiration. But, young as were these hunters from Alaska, they were not inexperienced in mountain-climbing. They knew that the way to get up a mountain is to keep on slowly and steadily, not hurrying, and never resting very long at a time. Thus they advanced for three-quarters of an hour, until they could see still farther out over the country below them. Now they could see that the game had sometimes wandered about feeding, and the trail itself divided and grew fainter.
Uncle Dick pointed out all these things quietly and suggested that they would better be on the lookout. They advanced now more carefully, and whenever they came to the edge of an open reach or topped some shoulder of the slope they paused and examined the country ahead very carefully. At last, when they had reached an altitude where the trees were much smaller and more scattering, Uncle Dick stopped and took his field-glasses from the case. He lay for some time, resting the glasses on a big rock, sweeping all the country ahead of him with the glasses. At last they saw him stop and gaze steadily at one spot for quite a while.
“See anything?” asked Jesse, eagerly.
Uncle Dick did not reply at once, but after a time handed Jesse the glasses. “Look over there,” said he, “about half a mile, right at the foot of that rock wall. You’ll see something that looks like a flock of snowballs, rather large ones.”
Jesse tried the glasses for a time, and at last caught the spot pointed out to him. “I see,” said he, in a whisper. “Goats! Lots of them.” They showed so plainly in the glasses, in fact, that he spoke carefully, as though he feared to frighten them.