"See only one. And he's standing!"
And I answered: "Let's get down around to the left where we can get a better chance." It was only a few feet down. We got there.
When he peeped over at this point he exclaimed: "They're gone!"
It was a keen disappointment. "They winded us," I decided.
We looked and looked. But we could not see to our left because of the bulge of rock. We climbed back. Then I saw one of the stags loping leisurely off to the left. Teague was calling. He said they had walked off the promontory, looking up, and stopping occasionally.
Then we realized we must climb back along that broken ridge and then up to the summit of the mountain. So we started.
That climb back was proof of the effect of excitement on judgment. We had not calculated at all on the distance or ruggedness, and we had a job before us. We got along well under the western wall, and fairly well straight across through the long slope of timber, where we saw sheep tracks, and expected any moment to sight an old ram. But we did not find one, and when we got out of the timber upon the bare sliding slope we had to halt a hundred times. We could zigzag only a few steps. The altitude was twelve thousand feet, and oxygen seemed scarce. I nearly dropped. All the climbing appeared to come hardest on the middle of my right foot, and it could scarcely have burned hotter if it had been in fire. Despite the strenuous toil there were not many moments that I was not aware of the vastness of the gulf below, or the peaceful lakes, brown as amber, or the golden parks. And nearer at hand I found magenta-colored Indian paint brush, very exquisite and rare.
Coming out on a ledge I spied a little, dark animal with a long tail. He was running along the opposite promontory about three hundred yards distant. When he stopped I took a shot at him and missed by apparently a scant half foot.
After catching our breath we climbed more and more, and still more, at last to drop on the rim, hot, wet and utterly spent.
The air was keen, cold, and invigorating. We were soon rested, and finding our horses we proceeded along the rim westward. Upon rounding an out-cropping of rock we flushed a flock of ptarmigan—soft gray, rock-colored birds about the size of pheasants, and when they flew they showed beautiful white bands on their wings. These are the rare birds that have feathered feet and turn white in winter. They did not fly far, and several were so tame they did not fly at all. We got our little .22 revolvers and began to shoot at the nearest bird. He was some thirty feet distant. But we could not hit him, and at last Fox, getting disgusted, tried to catch the bird and made him fly. I felt relieved, for as we were getting closer and closer with every shot, it seemed possible that if the ptarmigan sat there long enough we might eventually have hit him. The mystery was why we shot so poorly. But this was explained by R.C., who discovered we had been shooting the wrong shells.