The Bolivar County Democrat., 1923-01-27

tbe oct,t unon that tiny patch of turquoise water
half a mile below, Choke Berry cove looked ABOUT
as big as q washtub. 1nstinctvely, L measured
our wings through the corners of my goggles then
looked down at the cove again. TO all appear
ances we could not land the seapane there with
out knocking down mountain But the cove was
bigger than it looked from half a mile above,
and two minutes after ears began to crack
from the increasing. atmospheric pressure, we had
glided over the treacherous rocks at the land end
of the little bay and slipping along over
the surface of the with the ease of a surf
scooter coming in to roost.
1t wild goat hunting that had attracted us
to San Clemente. We might have gone there by
boat from Los Angeles but we had chosen to wing
our way across the sixty miles of open
half mile above the and we did it in 45
minutes.
San Clemente is OF the several large islands
off the coast of southern California that has
but slight development. 1t is useful to man only
as sheep range. Cabrilo, the Spanish naviga-
tor who discovered the island in 1912 pronounced
the island worthless. Cabrillo did construc-
tive piece Of work there however. On a voyage to
the island subsequent to his discovery of it, he
brought over herd of Spanish goats, and liber-
ated them for the purpose of propagating source
of food supply for mariners who might be COM
PEELED to land on the island in distress. The goats
found a favorable habitat Their numbers have
increased tremendously. so that today the island
is literally infested with myriad herds of wild
mountain goats. Through countless generations
the animals have reverted to the wild state until
they have lost nearly every trace of their original
domestcity. They now the widest Of wild
mountain stock. They mature enormous horns, in
habit the toughest and most inaccessible crags of
the islands extraordinary ruggedness, and as
fleet of hoof as deer over ground w.Nere is
scarcely able to move.
After breakfast next morning we donned our
cartridge belts and hunting knives, shouldered our
Winchesters, and set out up the cactus strewn
waterccurse of the canyon above our camp. 1t
difficult going and in spite of our best efforts to
avoid them, gathered up cactus stickers until
we felt like human pin cushions. Less than half
a mile from the camp we dropped in our tracks
in the sand wash when an unmstakable "Bab-
ah-ah " came echoing around the face of the ridge.
There no way of approaching the herd
without the old sentinel goat" getting wise to
us, so we just remained hidden until he hoped
down off his perch. The moment he jumped down
our campaign Of action was outlined We would
scale the 500-foot ridge in front of u.s. work our
way toward the goats along the summit of the
ridge and then shoot down upon them from the
other side, and at the expense of innumerabe cac-
tus stickers in our flesh we reached our objec-
tive
The goat aimed at collapsed in his tracks as If
every bone in his body had turned to water
Johnstons billy did backward 1ip-fop, dove
headlong off the cliff, and crashed into the bot
tom of the canyon 500 feet below followed by an
avalanche of loose dirt and bouders
Getting our game into camp consumed the rest
OF the day. and 1t was mans work at that.
-Four days of trampng the hills, and Juggling
goats into camp reduced weight considerably
and set me to thinking about how simple it would
be to fly over the island with the seapane locate
our game from the air, dive down, and shoot it.
Could we hit the goats while going over their
backs at 80 miles an hour? There was the uues-
tlon. The only way to decide this was to try it.
We were discussing this plan of aerial hunting