George Bird Grinnell

Jack the Young Explorer George Bird Grinnell

Excerpt from Jack the Young Explorer: A Boy's Experiences in the Unknown Northwest
For untold ages the mountain goats had clambered undisturbed along the face of the steep precipices that overhang the St Mary's River and Swift Current. Over the slide rock fallen from their cliffs the wild sheep had beaten out paths and trails zigzagging from the valley below to the heights above. On the lower wooded slopes the elk browsed in spring and fall, climbing high above the timber at the season when the flies were bad, and again when snows fell at the approach of winter, working their way down toward the lower lands and the foothills of the prairie. In the thick swamps and morasses of the river bottom the moose dwelt, sometimes clambering up toward the heights, but more often escaping the summer flies by burying their huge bodies beneath the waters of the lakes, or perhaps by wallowing in some great bog, from which they emerged covered with black mud which, drying, formed, a coating that protected them. Everywhere through the valleys, on the hillsides, far up on the bald knolls, and even higher still, where the sheep and goats delighted to climb, the buffalo of the mountains - called by old mountaineers bison, to distinguish them from the yellower, sunburned animals of the plains wandered singly or in little groups.
These rough and rocky fastnesses protected them well.
The Indians of the plains never tried to pass beneath these gloomy walls.
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