“Now’s your opportunity,” returned her husband.
“But we are too far away to focus the camera.”
“If the goat will wait, you might go over there,” laughed Mr. Gilroy.
“Verny, we could ride across this plateau and manage to get a much better focus,” suggested Julie.
“And there may be a whole herd feeding on the grass down in the glade between these cliffs,” said Mr. Gilroy.
“Oh, let’s go and see!” teased the scouts; so the horses were left with Tally, and their riders crept carefully across the grassy knolls and glades that hid from their view the ravine where they hoped to see the goats.
They were well rewarded for their trouble, too. Down in the green basin, under the crag where the ram kept guard for his sheep and ewes, grazed a large flock of Rocky Mountain goats. The scouts had a sight such as few tourists ever are blessed with, and Mrs. Vernon took a whole film of excellent snapshots,—all but one exposure, and that was left on the chance of an unusual sight.
While they stood watching the herd, a great ram was seen bounding recklessly along the edge of the cliff that formed the wall of the glade directly opposite the scouts. He nimbly jumped from ledge to ledge down this almost perpendicular wall, and soon reached the herd.
Then another ram, that first sighted by the riders, also started down, going where there seemed to be absolutely no foothold for him. He would spring from the ledge and, scarcely touching the side rock with his hoofs, land upon a bit of shelf, thence on down to another tiny ledge far beneath, and so on until he reached the glade.
The two rams now conveyed an alarm to the sheep, and forthwith they started up the perpendicular wall at the end of the glen, winding a way along one ledge after another where no visible foothold was seen with the naked eye. Yet they found one, for they climbed, and having reached the top of the wall, they disappeared.