e 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.

It was a long hard ride down the rough winding trail. But riding down
was a vastly different thing from going up.

On September third we were up at five-thirty. It was clear and cold
and the red of sunrise tinged the peaks. The snow banks looked pink.
All the early morning scene was green, fresh, cool, with that mountain
rareness of atmosphere.

We packed to break camp, and after breakfast it took hours to get our
outfit in shape to start--a long string, resembling a caravan. I knew
that events would occur that day. First we lost one of the dogs. Vern
went back after him. The dogs were mostly chained in pairs, to prevent
their running off. Samson, the giant hound, was chained to a little
dog, and the others were paired not according to size by any means.
The poor dogs were disgusted with the arrangement. It developed
presently that Cain, the bloodhound, a strange and wild hound much
like Don of my old lion-hunting days, slipped us, and was not missed
for hours. Teague decided to send back for him later.

Next in order of events, as we rode up the winding trail through the
spruce forest, we met Teague's cow and calf, which he had kept all
summer in camp. For some reason neither could be left. Teague told us
to ride on, and an hour later when we halted to rest on the Flattop
Mountain he came along with the rest of the train, and in the fore was
the cow alone. It was evident that she was distressed and angry, for
it took two men to keep her in the trail. And another thing plain to
me was the fact that she was going to demoralize the pack horses. We
were not across the wide range of this flat mountain when one of the
pack animals, a lean and lanky sorrel, appeared suddenly to go mad,
and began to buck off a pack. He succeeded. This inspired a black
horse, very appropriately christened Nigger, to try his luck,