“Yes; I wouldn’t advise you to get the habit,” commented Harry Ware.
Not long after, they watched Jim separate the fine heads of the three dead animals, and, as it proved, there was one for Harry Ware, after all. Mountain Jim had shot so many of the goats in his time that a head more or less meant nothing to him, and he gladly gave his to Harry when he saw the latter’s rather long face.
They took the choicest parts of the meat back to camp with them. Not all of a mountain goat is very good eating, some of the flesh being strong flavored and coarse, so that they had no more than they could easily carry amongst them. That night, as you may imagine, Persimmons “rode the goat” all over again amidst much laughter and applause, and the other young hunters told their stories till they all grew so sleepy that it was decided to turn in.
Three days of traveling amidst the big peaks followed, and they all helped the professor collect specimens to his heart’s content. His note books were soon bulging, and he declared that his trip had added much to the knowledge of the world concerning the Canadian Rockies.
One evening as they mounted a ridge, Mountain Jim paused and pointed down to the valley below them. Through it swept a great green ribbon of water amidst rocky, pine-clad slopes.
“That’s it,” declared Jim.
“What?” demanded Persimmons eagerly, not quite understanding.
“The Big Bend of the Columbia River,” was the rejoinder.
The party broke into a cheer. The end of one stage of their journey was at hand, for they were to return by a more civilized route. And yet they were half sorry, for they had enjoyed themselves to the full in those last days amidst the great silences.
It is at the Big Bend that the mighty Columbia turns after its erratic northeast course and starts its southern journey to the Pacific Ocean, which it enters near Portland, Oregon.