Mountain Sheep. 



221 



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 buck-board with our bedding and 

 eatables. The trip had been delayed owing to two of my 

 men, who had been sent out to buy ponies, coming in with 

 a bunch of fifty, for the most part hardly broken. Some 

 of them were meant for the use of the lower ranch, and 

 the men from the latter had come up to get them. At 

 night the ponies were let loose, and each day were gathered 

 into the horse corral and broken as well as we could break 

 them in such weather. It was my intention not to start 

 on the hunt until the ponies were separated into the two 

 bands, and the men from the lower ranch (the Elkhorn) 

 had gone off with theirs. Then one of the cowboys was 

 to take the buck-board up to a deserted hunter's hut, which 

 lay on a great bend of the river near by the ground over 

 which the big-horn were said to wander, while my foreman, 

 Merrifield, and myself would take saddle-horses, and each 

 day ride to the country through which we intended to 

 hunt, returning at night to the buck-board and hut. But 

 we started a little sooner than we had intended, owing to 

 a funny mistake made by one of the cowboys. 



The sun did not rise until nearly eight, but each morn- 

 ing we breakfasted at five, and the men were then sent 

 out on the horses which had been kept in overnight, to 

 find and drive home the pony band ; of course they started 



