XV.]

LOST OPPORTUNITIES.

205

had carried the Martini and ammunition all the morning, I said he had best right to the sport, so off he started. H. and I sat on a crag watching for the result. Ben first ran quickly down the snow, and then getting amongst some rocks, crept cautiously to within about 200 yards or less of the game; nearer than that there was no cover whatever. Puff! went the little cloud of smoke, and we saw the ball plough up the snow about six inches over the back of one of the goats. We grew excited-puff! again the elevation was too great. Now the goat stood up, and the next ball knocked up the snow between his legs. We were getting frantic but dare not stir. It was evident that Ben, well used to his own Winchester, could not manage our rifle at all.

The goats were now all standing and seemed quite puzzled at the disturbance. We hoped the next shot might do for one; but no! The effect was a general stampede. Crack! crack! seven shots, and they were all out of sight round the buttress of the mountain. Ben attempted to follow but quickly returned to us rather crestfallen. I am proud to say we succeeded in keeping our tempers, and fumed only inwardly. We were just thinking of resuming our journey when, high up on some rocks at the opposite side of the glen we were in, we saw a goat making his way upwards, and stopping every now and then to have a look around. H. said he would go after him;

so taking the rifle, he descended to the snow slope, and crossing it, gained the rocky cliffs opposite, and though he could not now. see the goat we could, so we directed his course by pointing. The goat now got on to an overhanging cornice of snow, and it was most ludicrous to see H. peering about to try and get a sight of his quarry, and the goat craning out his neck to see where H. was, but keeping carefully out of sight himself.

Then H. from below the cornice, caught sight of the top of the goat's head and horns at a distance of about 200 yards. He fired a most hopeless shot which awakened a thousand echoes, and the goat turned round and strolled away to a higher point. After a desperate climb H. got on to the snow cornice, and we could see the goat a few hundred yards ahead, anxiously awaiting his approach. H. caught sight of him, up went the rifle, but the goat depressed its head at the same instant, and walked along the face of some inaccessible-looking rocks as though he had been on a well-made road. We saw that this kind of a hunt promised very little result and tried to signal to H. to come back. But no on he went, so when I had completed a sketch, Ben and I shouldered our packs and descended to the grass slopes to look for a camping ground.

It was no easy matter to find one. We needed but a very small patch of level ground for a sleeping place, but

xv.]

THE GEIKIE GLACIER.

207

nothing of the sort existed, and the further we descended the steeper it got. The mountain was so planed down by snow-slides in the spring, that everything like a knob, or hollow, or level was completely rounded off. We dared not set down a pack without securing it with an ice-axe; even the smallest object showed a tendency to start off and tumble into the valley 2,000 feet below.

The Geikie glacier filling the bottom of the valley presented the most wonderful appearance. I never before saw a glacier so completely broken up into pinnacles of ice by longitudinal and transverse crevasses crossing each other. It presented the appearance of some basaltic formation with the blocks pulled a short distance asunder. A good deal of snow lay on its upper portion, and showed us what difficulties we must have encountered, had we continued our descent by it from the great Illecellewaet snow-field. The light was very good, and though a little smoke had drifted over the mountains into the valley, I succeeded in getting a very good half-plate negative of the glacier, with Mount Fox beyond. An hour had gone by since we had seen the last of H. and the goat, and as the climbing he had undertaken was as bad as any man need desire, we began to grow anxious. As we were also hungry we took advantage of a little dwarf scrub to collect materials for a fire, and with flour and Brand's Extract of Meat we concocted thick soup and enjoyed an invigorating meal. Two hours had now gone by