234 Mountain Sheep. 



would be deemed a mountain of no inconsiderable size in 

 the East. We hunted carefully through the outlying foot- 

 hills and projecting spurs around its base, without result, 

 finding but a few tracks, and those very old ones, and 

 then toiled up to the top, which, though narrow in parts, 

 in others widened out into plateaus half a mile square. 

 Having made a complete circuit of the top, peering over 

 the edge and closely examining the flanks of the butte 

 with the field-glass, without having seen any thing, we 

 slid down the other side and took off through a streak of 

 very rugged but low country. This day, though the 

 weather had grown even colder, we did not feel it, for we 

 walked all the while with a quick pace, and the climbing 

 was very hard work. The shoulders and ledges of the 

 cliffs had become round and slippery with the ice, and it 

 was no easy task to move up and along them, clutching 

 the gun in one hand, and grasping each little projection 

 with the other. Climbing through the Bad Lands is just 

 like any other kind of mountaineering, except that the 

 precipices and chasms are much lower ; but this really 

 makes very little difference when the ground is frozen as 

 solid as iron, for it would be almost as unpleasant to fall 

 fifty feet as to fall two hundred, and the result to the 

 person who tried it would be very much the same in each 

 case. 



Hunting for a day or two without finding game where 

 the work is severe and toilsome, is a good test of the 

 sportsman's staying qualities ; the man who at the end of 

 the time is proceeding with as much caution and deter- 

 mination as at the beginning, has got the right stuff in 



