Mountain Sheep. 225 



gulches, wash-outs, and canyons dig out the sides of each 

 butte, while between them are thrust out long spurs, with 

 sharp ragged tops. All such patches of barren, broken 

 ground, where the feed seems too scant to support any 

 large animal, are the favorite haunts of the big-horn, 

 though it also wanders far into the somewhat gentler and 

 more fertile, but still very rugged, domain of the black- 

 lail deer. 



Between all such masses of rough country lay wide, 

 grassy plateaus or long stretches of bare plain, covered with 

 pebbly shingle. We loped across all these open places ; 

 and when we came to a reach of broken country would 

 leave our horses and hunt through it on foot. Except 

 where the wind had blown it off, there was a thin coat 

 of snow over every thing, and the icy edges and sides 

 of the cliffs gave only slippery and uncertain foothold, 

 so as to render the climbing doubly toilsome. Hunting 

 the big-horn is at all times the hardest and most difficult 

 kind of sport, and is equally trying to both wind and 

 muscle ; and for that very reason the bigh-horn ranks 

 highest among all the species of game that are killed by 

 still-hunting, and its chase constitutes the noblest form 

 of sport with the rifle, always excepting, of course, those 

 kinds of hunting where the quarry is itself dangerous 

 to attack. Climbing kept us warm in spite of the bitter 

 weather ; we only wore our fur coats and shaps while on 

 horseback, leaving them where we left the horses, and 

 doing our still-hunting in buckskin shirts, fur caps, and 

 stout shoes. 



Big-horn, more commonly known as mountain sheep, 



