FOURTH CHAPTER 



SHEEP— BOTH WHITE AND DARK— A 

 DIGRESSION 



'\X7'E were now camped within a few hours' 

 ' ' walk of the mountain that was destined 

 to yield us the greatest number of sheep 

 trophies of any spot on the line of our journey. 

 And next morning we were to start hunting 

 for these rare animals — a species of our Ameri- 

 can wild life than which there is none more 

 interesting, none so little understood, none 

 shrouded in greater mystery. For Mr. and Mrs. 

 Ovis have only been close friends of ours for 

 something like loo years — a very short spell 

 from the scientist's standpoint. The Lewis & 

 Clark expedition (which in 1804-05 traversed 

 the most ideal sheep ranges on this continent) 

 knew nothing authentic about the bighorn — in 

 fact, when these animals were killed by its mem- 

 bers for meat there was some doubt cast as to 

 their being sheep at all. Considering the fact 

 that Mother Nature holds no bones of the ovis 

 family in her cemetery, I am just a little puzzled 

 at the variety of species that some of our scientists 



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