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by the limbs we were obliged to climb over these obstacles and sometimes both legs of trousers and skin would suffer sorely in other places we had tremendous snow drifts to wade through have passed through some as high as my head our mule would get stuck in these and sink down so as to be almost covered by letting him alone we would flounder out again in other places there was huge rocks to climb in one place it would be perpindicular steps two or three feet high. We toiled along over all these obstacles untill as we calculated by the sun it was noon we were now terribly hungry and the poor mule just as bad off, however there was no remedy for if but to push boldly forward. We were now greatly alarmed that perhaps we had lost our way in ? and might never get out of those inhospitable regions alive it was madness to attempt to turn back for supposing we could find the way it took us a day and a half to come this far and in our present famished state we could not expect to reach camp in less than two days before that time I knew we would fall on the road and perish by starvation. We knew the certain doom that lay behind us so we had to push on at all hazards. We kept a sharp look out for game but could not get a shot at any thing we saw a few mountain goats and shot and shot our rifles at them several times but without affect as they were out of range. The Rocky Mountain goat is a curious animal he delights in standing on some high inaccessible rock where nothing but the eagle can approach him there he will stay for hours bold haughty and defient looking, when he wishes to descend he scorns to come down by jumping from rock to rock but he takes a bold string and into air and alights