128 The Wilderness Hunter 



yond which they had disappeared. Taking advan 

 tage of a scrawny sage brush as cover I peeped over 

 the edge, and at once saw the sheep, three big young 

 rams. They had finished drinking and were stand 

 ing beside the little miry pool, about three hundred 

 yards distant. Slipping back I dropped down into the 

 bottom of the valley, where a narrow washout zig 

 zagged from side to side, between straight walls of 

 clay. The pool was in the upper end of this wash 

 out, under a cut bank. 



An indistinct game trail, evidently sometimes 

 used by both bighorn and blacktail, ran up this 

 washout; the bottom w r as of clay so that I walked 

 noiselessly; and the crookedness of the washout s 

 course afforded ample security against discovery by 

 the sharp eyes of the quarry. In a couple of min 

 utes I stalked stealthily round the last bend, my rifle 

 cocked and at the ready, expecting to see the rams 

 by the pool. However, they had gone, and the 

 muddy water was settling in their deep hoof marks. 

 Running on I looked over the edge of the cut bank 

 and saw them slowly quartering up the hillside, 

 cropping the sparse tufts of coarse grass. I whis 

 tled, and as they stood at gaze I put a bullet into the 

 biggest, a little too far aft of the shoulder, but rang 

 ing forward. He raced after the others, but soon fell 

 behind, and turned off on his own line, at a walk, 

 with dropping head. As he bled freely I followed 

 his tracks, found him, very sick, in a washout a quar- 



