The Mountain Sheep and its Range 



sprang well out into the air and alighted on the 

 slide rock, it seemed to me, twenty-five feet below 

 where she had been. A little cloud of dust arose 

 and she appeared to be buried to her knees in the 

 slide rock. I could not see how it was possible 

 for her to have made this jump without breaking 

 her slender legs, yet she repeated it again and 

 again, until she had come down about to my level 

 and had passed out of sight. Nor was this ewe 

 the only one that was coming down. From a num- 

 ber of points on the precipice round about I could 

 hear rocks rolling and sheep calling, and before 

 very long eight or ten ewes and four or five lambs 

 had come together in the little basin, and presently 

 marched almost straight up to where I lay hid. 

 There was meat in the camp, and so no reason for 

 shooting at these innocents. Later when I returned 

 to camp, one of the packers informed me that for 

 an hour or two before a yearling ram had been 

 feeding in the meadow with the pack animals, close 

 to the camp. 



The sheep now commonly shows himself to be 

 the keenest and wariest of North American big 

 game. Yet we may readily credit the stories told 

 us by older men of his former simplicity and inno- 

 cence, since even to-day we sometimes see these 

 characteristics displayed. I remember riding up 



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