200 The Mountain Sheep 



stood little pillars of round stones baked together 

 in mud, and planted on end, each supporting a 

 single rock of another color set upon them trans- 

 versely ; shafts of necromancy they would have 

 seemed in the age of witches, altars which might 

 flame by night while some kind of small, naked 

 beings with teeth held rites over the traveller's 

 crushed body, for from one's feet here the little 

 stones rolled down to right and left into depths 

 invisible. You who have not seen cannot imag- 

 ine how here and there in the Rocky Mountains 

 these masonries of nature suggest the work not 

 of men but demons. Silence drew around me as 

 I passed upward through the weird dwarf Stone- 

 henge; and on top we found ourselves looking 

 down the other side at a gray stump which pres- 

 ently moved. The glasses showed us the stump's 

 legs and fine curling horns ; and our hearts, 

 which had been for some time heavy at the poor 

 luck, grew light. Only, how to get at him .? 



We had almost given up the game when we 

 spied the ram ; we had come so far for so long ; 

 and we now had been sitting upon — almost 

 straddling — this ultimate ridge, with the Indian 

 every little while lugubriously repeating, " No 

 sheep." The ram had not a suspicion of us, and 



