LETTER XL 



LETTER XL 



' The Sheep-trimmed Downs/ 

 MY SYMPATHETIC FRIEND, 



You will easily understand that after the 

 drive stalking was a thing hardly worth consider- 

 ing. The rams might be anywhere, but were 

 less likely to be in the open country than any- 

 where else. The Indians always have stories of 

 inaccessible crags to which the wily bighorn 

 retires in times of persecution, but I have never 

 yet been able to find these fastnesses, though I 

 have always made a point of getting to the top 

 of any country in which I happened to be 

 camped. They talk, too, of the old beasts with 

 the mythical heads, measuring eighteen or twenty 

 inches round the butt, and curling twice against 

 the brow, dwelling in some remote peaks, and 

 only coming down in the rutting season to woo 

 and make war, or in the depth of winter, when 

 all the heights are buried in snow, and even a 

 mountain sheep cannot live far above the level 



