A Trip After Mountain Sheep 255 



could not resist it, so knelt and fired. At the report 

 of the rifle (it was a miss, by the by) a head sud 

 denly appeared over a ridge some six hundred yards 

 in front too far off for us to make out what kind 

 of animal it belonged to, looked fixedly at us, and 

 then disappeared. We feared it might be a moun 

 tain sheep, and that my unlucky shot had deprived 

 us of the chance of a try at it; but on hurrying up 

 to the place where it had been we were relieved to 

 find that the tracks were only those of a black-tail. 

 After this lesson we proceeded in silence, making 

 a long circle through the roughest kind of country. 

 When on the way back to camp, where the buttes 

 rose highest and steepest, we came upon fresh 

 tracks, but as it was then late in the afternoon, did 

 not try to follow them that day. When near the hut 

 I killed a sharp-tail for supper, making rather a neat 

 shot, the bird being eighty yards off. The night was 

 even colder than the preceding one, and all signs 

 told us that we would soon have a change for the 

 worse in the weather, which made me doubly anx 

 ious to get a sheep before the storm struck us. We 

 determined that next morning we would take the 

 horses and make a quick push for the chain of 

 high buttes where we had seen the fresh tracks, and 

 hunt them through with thorough care. 



We started in the cold gray of the next morning 

 and pricked rapidly off over the frozen plain, col 

 umns of white steam rising from the nostrils of the 

 galloping horses. When we reached the foot of the 

 hills where we intended to hunt, and had tethered 



