CHAPTER II 



A TRIP AFTER MOUNTAIN SHEEP 



LATE one fall a spell of bitter weather set in, 

 and lasted on through the early part of the win 

 ter. For many days together the cold was fierce 

 in its intensity; and the wheels of the ranch- wagon, 

 when we drove out for a load of firewood, creaked 

 and sang as they ground through the powdery snow 

 that lay light on the ground. At night in the clear 

 sky the stars seemed to snap and glitter; and for 

 weeks of cloudless white weather the sun shone 

 down on a land from which his beams glanced and 

 glistened as if it had been the surface of a mirror, 

 till the glare hurt the eyes that looked upon it. In 

 the still nights we could hear the trees crack and jar 

 from the strain of the biting frost ; and in its wind 

 ing bed the river lay fixed like a huge bent bar of 

 blue steel. 



We had been told that a small band of big-horn 

 was hanging around some very steep and broken 

 country about twenty-five miles from the ranch- 

 house. I had been out after them once alone, but 

 had failed to find even their tracks, and had made up 

 my mind that in order to hunt them it would be 

 necessary to make a three or four days trip, taking 

 along the buckboard with our bedding and eatables. 



(239) 



