As we were finishing breakfast my eye was attracted to a snow speck on the mountainside some two thousand feet above us and slightly westward that somehow looked to me different from other snow specks.  For nearly a minute I stared at it through my glasses.  At last the speck moved.  The game was in sight!

We drew straws for the shot, and Fisher won.  Then we began our climb.  It was the same old story of pumping lungs and pounding hearts; but with the incentive before us we made excellent time.  A shallow ravine and a fringe of woods afforded us the cover we needed.  At the end of an hour and a half we crawled out of our ravine and to the edge of the trees.  There across a steep canon and perhaps four hundred yards away were the goats, two of them, lying on the edge of small cliffs.  We could see them very plainly, but they were too far for a sure shot.  After examining them to our satisfaction we wormed our way back.

“The only sure way,” I insisted, “is to climb clear to the top of the ridge, go along it on the other side until we are above and beyond the goats, and then to stalk them down hill.”

That meant a lot more hard work; but in the end the plan was adopted.  We resumed our interminable and toilsome climbing.

The ridge proved to be of the knife-edge variety, and covered with snow.  From a deep, wide, walled-in basin on the other side rose the howling of two brush wolves.  We descended a few feet to gain safe concealment; walked as rapidly as possible to the point above the goats; and then with the utmost caution began our descent.

In the last two hundred yards is the essence of big-game stalking.  The hunter must move noiselessly, he must keep concealed; he must determine at each step just what the effect of that step has been in the matters of noise and of altering the point of view.  It is necessary to spy sharply, not only from the normal elevation of a man’s shoulders, but also stooping to the waist line, and even down to the knees.  An animal is just as suspicious of legs as of heads; and much more likely to see them.

The shoulder of the mountain here consisted of a series of steep grass curves ending in short cliff jump-offs.  Scattered and stunted trees and tree groups grew here and there.  In thirty minutes we had made our distance and recognized the fact that our goats must be lying at the base of the next ledge.  Motioning Harry to the left and Fisher to the front, I myself moved to the right to cut off the game should it run in that direction.  Ten seconds later I heard Fisher shoot; then Harry opened up; and in a moment a goat ran across the ledge fifty yards below me.  With a thrill of the greatest satisfaction I dropped the gold bead of my front sight on his shoulder!

The bullet knocked him off the edge of the cliff.  He fell, struck the steep grass slope, and began to roll.  Over and over and over he went, gathering speed like a snowball, getting smaller and smaller until he disappeared in the brush far below, a tiny spot of white.