The boys approached them slowly and carefully, stopping whenever the ducks ceased the operations to look about them, and then going on when the birds were busy, and at last they had come to within thirty or forty yards of them, and through the glasses could see them almost as plainly as if they had been within arm’s length.
They were beautiful birds and their curiously variegated colors stood out plainly. The deep rich blue of the body, spotted here and there with white and rich brown and black, and their trim smooth appearance made them very pretty objects. During one of Jack’s inspections, Joe, whose eyes were wandering about up the valley and over the mountainside, touched Jack’s arm, and said, “I think I see a goat.”
“Where?” asked Jack, without moving.
“Look up the valley down close to the grass on that red cliff. There’s something white lying against it. I thought I saw it move just now.”
Jack turned his glasses in the direction in which Joe pointed, and after a little search, discovered a goat lying in what looked like a sort of cave in the rock. “Sure enough,” he said, “it’s a goat, Joe, but how can we get at it? It will surely see us before we can reach any cover.”
“Yes,” said Joe, “pretty sure to see us, of course; nothing to hide behind at all.”
“I don’t see how to get at it, except to crawl up to the edge of the hill and there maybe we’ll find rocks to get behind. Let’s try it anyway,” said Jack.
They started, Joe in the lead, and crept slowly toward the edge of the valley, but before they had reached it the goat slowly rose to its feet, and immediately the two boys sank to the ground and waited, without moving. The goat did not seem to be alarmed. It took a long look down the valley and then looked up at the mountainside opposite. Then it turned and very slowly walked away from the cave by which it had been lying, and, turning, began to ascend what looked to the boys like an absolutely perpendicular cliff. The animal did not hurry, but walked along in deliberate fashion, sometimes stopping and lowering its head, as if to take a bite of grass, and again, turning and looking back over the way it had come or out over the valley. Still its advance was steady, and presently it walked behind a projection of rock and was not seen again.
“Well,” said Jack, “did you ever see anything like that? That beast just walked right straight up the face of that cliff as a fly would walk up the wall of a room.”
“It’s queer,” answered Joe; “I could hardly believe that I saw what I saw. Those goats must have powerful medicine to be able to do things like that.”