A ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT
THE GOAT COUNTRY
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At last I had reached a game country, having seen a wolverine, a bear and goat in one afternoon.
September 21st. It had rained all night but cleared up in the morning. Before I had turned out, Kirby reported the wolverine crossing the same patch of snow opposite the camp about half-a-mile away. Slipping on a pair of boots, I rushed out in my sleeping clothes. Getting the glass on to the beast, I found that this time it was a bear making tracks for the valley we had come up, and no doubt after the salmon which were rotting in thousands on the bank of the river below.
He was into the cover before anything could be done in the way of a stalk, and did not appear again.
Examining the ground, I found the valley extended up to the base of Mount Kingcome for about one and a half miles. The sides were precipitous cliffs quite impossible to climb. The slope up to their base was clothed with dense undergrowth, while a creek fed by the melting snow and the rain from the surrounding hills was tumbling noisily down below our camp.
The head of the valley narrowed rapidly until completely shut in by the mountains, the tops of which were covered with snow. Large patches of snow lay in the hollows of the hills all round, never melting even in the summer months.