“Maybe so,” said Joe, “I don’t want to be too sure, for I have heard that these animals are hard to kill.”
Without waste of time Joe started down the mountainside after the animal, springing from rock to rock, almost like a goat or sheep.
“Look out, Joe,” called Jack, “you’ll break your neck.”
But Joe kept on. Where the goat had tumbled into the ravine the rocks were smeared with blood, and fifty or sixty yards further down, at the foot of a steep cliff, the animal lay dead.
It took some time to drag the carcass to a place convenient for working on it and to get it in shape to carry down the mountain. The sun was getting low, and as they worked the sky became overcast. After they had partly skinned the goat, Joe wrapped the hide around the shoulders and put it on his back, while Jack followed with the hams. They traveled as fast as possible, but it was dusk before they reached the ledge on which the camp was located.
“Well, boys,” said Hugh, who was sitting by the fire and had supper ready, “what did you find and what have you got? I heard you shoot a couple of times.”
“Joe killed a fat nanny-goat,” replied Jack, “and we brought in the meat and the hide. The hide, of course, doesn’t amount to anything, because there isn’t much hair on it, but the meat ought to be good.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “we’ll try it. I am no great hand to eat goat meat, but that sheep that we got down on the lower lake is about all gone and it’s time we had some fresh meat. What did you see on the other side of the mountain? Is there any feed there? Any show at all for the stock?”
“No,” replied Jack, “nothing there but snow and rocks. A goat might live there, but a horse would quickly starve.”
“Well, then,” said Hugh, “there’s nothing left for us to do but to get down toward the prairie. Maybe we’ve got to go away from the hills to where the grass is good and the flies won’t bother much, or else, on a pinch, we can go up Swift Current. There’s likely to be feed all the way up there until we get into the right high mountains.”