238 Mountain Sheep. 



report he staggered and pitched forward, but recovered 

 himself and crossed over the ridge out of sight. We 

 jumped and slid down into the ravine again, and clam- 

 bered up the opposite side as fast as our lungs and the 

 slippery ice would let us ; then taking the trail of the 

 wounded ram we trotted along it. We had not far to 

 go ; for, as I expected, we found him lying on his side a 

 couple of hundred yards beyond the ridge, his eyes already 

 glazed in death. The bullet had gone in behind the 

 shoulder and ranged clean through his body crosswise, 

 going a little forward ; no animal less tough than a moun- 

 tain ram could have gone any distance at all with such a 

 wound. He had most obligingly run round to a part of 

 the hill where we could bring up one of the horses with- 

 out very much difficulty. Accordingly I brought up old 

 Manitou, who can carry any thing and has no fear, and the 

 big-horn was soon strapped across his back. It was a fine 

 ram, with perfectly-shaped but not very large horns. 



The other ram, two years old, with small horns, had 

 bounded over the ridge before I could get a shot at him ; 

 we followed his trail for half a mile, but as he showed 

 no signs of halting, and we were anxious to get home, 

 we then gave up the pursuit. 



It was still early in the day, and we made up our 

 minds to push back for the home ranch, as we did not 

 wish to be caught out in a long storm. The lowering 

 sky was already overcast by a mass of leaden-gray clouds ; 

 and it was evident that we had no time to lose. In 

 a little over an hour we were back at the log camp, 

 where the ram was shifted from Manitou's back to the 



