A Trip After Mountain Sheep 241 



beating their numbed hands together. In the midst 

 of the confusion word was brought by one of the 

 cowboys, that while hunting for the horses he had 

 seen two bears go down into a wash-out; and he 

 told us that he could bring us right to the place 

 where he had seen them, for as soon as he left it he 

 had come in at speed on his swift, iron-gray horse 

 a vicious, clean-limbed devil, with muscles like 

 bundles of tense wire; the cold had made the brute 

 savage, and it had been punished with the cruel curb 

 bit until long, bloody icicles hung from its lips. 



At once Merrifield and I mounted in hot haste and 

 rode off with the bringer of good tidings, leaving 

 hasty instructions where we were to be joined by the 

 buckboard. The sun was still just below the hori 

 zon as we started, wrapped warmly in our fur coats 

 and with our caps drawn down over our ears to keep 

 out the cold. The cattle were standing in the 

 thickets and sheltered ravines, huddled together 

 with their heads down, the frost lying on their backs 

 and the icicles hanging from their muzzles; they 

 stared at us as we rode along, but were too cold to 

 move a hand s breadth out of our way ; indeed it is 

 a marvel how they survive the winter at all. Our 

 course at first lay up a long valley, cut up by cattle 

 trails; then we came out, just as the sun had risen, 

 upon the rounded, gently sloping highlands, thickly 

 clad with the short nutritious grass, which curls on 

 the stalk into good hay, and on which the cattle 

 feed during winter. We galloped rapidly over the 

 hills, our blood gradually warming up from the 



K VOL. IV. 



