With the Indians in the Rockies

by James Willard Schultz

"What is the matter with it?" he exclaimed. "Do you think it is sick, or hurt?"

"He looks as if he felt very sad," I replied.

And truly the animal did look very dejected, its head sunk on its brisket, its black eyes staring vacantly at the valley far below, as if it were burdened with all the pains and sorrows of the ages.

We were so interested in watching it that at first we did not see the others, thirteen in all, scattered close round on the little ledges above him. Some were standing, others lying down. One big old "billy" lay under a low-branched dwarf pine, and now and then would raise its head, bite off a mouthful of the long, coarse needles, and deliberately chew them. We had come out in plain view of the band, and now wondered that they had not seen us and run away.

"Let's back up step by step until we are in the shelter of the pines back there, then look out a way to get to them," Pitamakan proposed.

On starting to do so, we found that the goats had seen us all the time. Two or three of them turned their heads and stared at us with apparent curiosity; the old billy at the edge of the cliff gave us one vacant stare, and resumed his brooding; the others paid no attention to our movements. Unquestionably they had never seen man before, and did not consider us enemies because we were not four-legged, like the beasts that preyed upon them. So instead of backing cautiously, we turned and walked into the little clump of pines, and beyond them to a deep gutter, where we began the difficult task of stalking the animals. We had to climb for several hundred yards to a broad ledge, follow it for perhaps twice that distance, and then work our way, as best we could, straight down to the goats.

That was a terrible climb. As the angle of the mountain was such that the climb would have been difficult on bare rock, you can imagine how hard it was to go up in the deep snow. Using our snowshoes for shovels and taking the lead in turn, we fought our way through, upward, inch by inch. More than once a mass of snow gave way above our gouging, and swept us down a few feet or a few yards. Once Pitamakan was buried so deep in it that I was obliged to dig him out; he was gasping for breath by the time I uncovered his head.

On the ledge the going was so level that we wore our snowshoes a part of the way across, and then, wading to a point directly above the goats, we began the descent. That was easy. Straight ahead of us the mountain dropped in a series of little shelves, or cliffs, down which we could easily climb. Stopping when we thought we were near to the goats, we strung our bows and fitted arrows to them. As I was a poor shot, I took but one arrow, to be used only in an emergency. Pitamakan carried the other four.

In a few moments we struck a deep and well-packed goat trail that meandered along a shelf thirty, and in places fifty feet wide. Here and there were clumps of dwarf pine and juniper that prevented our seeing very far ahead, and Pitamakan gave me the sign to look sharp for the game.

A moment later, as we followed the trail round some pines, we came face to face with a big billy-goat. The instant that he saw us he bristled up his hair and came for us. Did you ever see a wild pig prance out for a fight? Well, that is the way that goat came at us—head down and prancing sidewise. I don't know whether we were more surprised or scared; probably scared. The sight of those round, sharp black horns made our flesh creep; indeed, the whole aspect of the uncouth animal was terrifying.