hissing
up to their feet.

"I wonder if the tide is coming in or going out," said Chuck, vaguely.

CLIMBING FOR GOATS

CHAPTER I

Near the point at which the great Continental Divide of the Rocky
Mountains crosses the Canadian border another range edges in toward it
from the south. Between these ranges lies a space of from twenty to
forty miles; and midway between them flows a clear, wonderful river
through dense forests. Into the river empty other, tributary, rivers
rising in the bleak and lofty fastnesses of the mountains to right and
left. Between them, in turn, run spur systems of mountains only a little
less lofty than the parent ranges. Thus the ground plan of the whole
country is a good deal like that of a leaf: the main stem representing
the big river, the lateral veins its affluents; the tiny veins its
torrents pouring from the sides of its mountains and glaciers; and the
edges of the leaf and all spaces standing for mountains rising very
sheer and abrupt from the floor of the densely forested stream valleys.
In this country of forty miles by five hundred, then, are hundreds of
distinct ranges, thousands of peaks, and innumerable valleys, pockets,
and "parks." A wilder, lonelier, grander country would be hard to find.
Save for the Forest Service and a handful of fur trappers, it is
uninhabited. Its streams abound in trout; its dense forests with elk
and white-tailed deer; its balder hills with blacktail deer; its upper
basins with grizzly bears; its higher country with sheep and that dizzy
climber the Rocky Mountain goat.

He who would enter this region descends at a little station on the Great
Northern, and thence proceeds by pack train at least four days,
preferably more, out into the wilderness. The going is through forests,
the tree trunks straight and very close together, so that he will see
very little of the open sky and less of the landscape. By way of
compensation the forest itself is remarkably beautiful. Its undergrowth,
though dense, is very low and even, not more than a foot or so off the
ground; and in the Hunting Moon the leaves of this undergrowth have
turned to purest yellow, without touch or trace of red, so that the
sombre forest is carpeted with gold. Here and there shows a birch or
aspen, also bright, pure light yellow, as though a brilliant sun were
striking down through painted windows. Groups of yellow-leafed larches
add to the splendour. And close to the ground grow