Mountain Sheep. 235 



him. On this day I got rather tired, and committed one of 

 the blunders of which no hunter ought ever to be guilty ; 

 that is, I fired at small game while on ground where 

 I might expect large. We had seen two or three jack- 

 rabbits scudding off like noiseless white shadows, and 

 finally came upon some sharp-tail prairie fowl in a hollow. 

 One was quite near me, perched on a bush, and with its 

 neck stretched up offered a beautiful mark ; I could not 

 resist it, so knelt and fired. At the report of the rifle (it 

 was a miss, by the by) a head suddenly 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 mountain sheep, and that my unlucky shot had de- 

 prived 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 anxious 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. 



