The Mountain Sheep 199 



Our Rocky Mountains are a four-story build- 

 ing. The bottom is the sage-brush and cotton- 

 wood, the second is pines and quaking-asp, the 

 third is willow bushes, wet meadows, and mo- 

 raines, and the fourth is bald rocks and snow- 

 fields. The house begins about five thousand 

 feet high, and runs to fourteen thousand. We 

 have nothing to do with the prairie-dog and 

 others that live in the cellar; it is the antelope 

 to which the first floor belongs, and also the 

 white-tail deer, which, however, gets up a little into 

 the second. The elk, the black-tail, and the mule- 

 deer possess second and third stories in common, 

 while the fourth is the exclusive territory of the 

 sheep and the goat. But here is the difference ; 

 these latter (the sheep, certainly) descend to all 

 the other stories if the season drives or the humor 

 suits them ; they go from roof to ground, while 

 the other animals seldom, save when hunted, are 

 to be met above or below their assigned levels. 

 I have met a sheep on Wind River in July where 

 the sage-brush was growing, and another on a 

 wooded foot-hill just above Jackson's Lake. 



This day we went to the fourth story by a 

 staircase dear to the heart of a sheep. I mounted 

 through an uncanny domain where all about me 



