IN THE ALASKA- YUKON GAMELANDS 



this here tenderfoot would have bet his Water- 

 bury that they were 400, and so informed Cap 

 midst a volley of warm adjectives from him that 

 were intended to tell me exactly where I stood as 

 a poor judge of Alaska distances. 



Cap insisted that we couldn't possibly get any 

 closer, while I contended just as strongly that 

 we could. A week or two later, while climbing 

 up the same ridge that these sheep were on — on 

 the last hunt of the trip — I proved to Cap that 

 we could have stalked them from the gulch and 

 got much closer than we did on this occasion. 



After I had lost out as a distance guesser, I 

 argued against shooting at such a small target 

 as a lamb (they proved to be a ewe and two 

 lambs, but we needed no more ewes) at that dis- 

 tance. Cap was worked up to a little heat over 

 my slowness to shoot, so I decided to try. I 

 fired at one of the lambs, but as the ground was 

 damp I couldn't tell where I was hitting, except 

 that I missed the game. Immediately the 

 mother and lambs began to climb to higher 

 ground on the ridge. We each fired some ten or 

 more shots at the fleeing youngsters when we 

 discovered that both of them had been hit. One 

 laid down and the other was tottering. Cap 

 said, "Don't shoot any more." Soon the other 

 laid down also, and the mother looked down on 

 them with concern from the ridge above. We 

 felt sure of our lambs, and were much pleased, 

 as they were just what we needed to fill in on 



128 



