TWENTY YEARS IN THE ROCKIES. 167 



toward me and I sprang up the tree without loss of time. 

 What a howl he uttered as he came toward the tree, passed 

 on over our bed and almost through the fire. He struck the 

 bush which sheltered Little Horn and almost shook him 

 from his perch. 



Like an infuriated bull he went flying down the moun- 

 tains, evidently as blind as a bat, and when he reached the 

 precipice, he stumbled over into the water below. I found 

 the Indian still in his bush, looking like a superannuated 

 ghost, so great was his superstitious dread of bears. I 

 coaxed him down, and, his fears having subsided, he said: 

 "Bear crazy, heap no good." After breakfast we walked 

 over to the precipice to view the remains of the grizzly, and 

 he lay there in the gorge below, stone dead. 



Wending our way through forests of pine, over hills 

 and rocks, I became exhausted and was heartily regretting 

 this fruitless journey, when my companion called my atten- 

 tion to a high mountain which overlooks the Big Horn 

 canyon, and said that was the mountain where the money 

 grew. I had visited the place before and was sure nothing 

 was to be found there except some base metal in the quartz. 

 It seemed that we would never reach the top of the moun- 

 tain, but when we did, it looked as though all the game in 

 the Northwest had congregated to celebrate our coming. 



We rounded a narrow ledge which overhung the river, 

 so high above it that the roar of the rapids could not be 

 heard, and the river, thousands of feet below, looked like a 

 silver thread. About fifty yards in front of us stood a moun- 

 tain ram with the largest pair of horns I had ever seen, and 

 it was for these that I shot him through the heart. In his 

 death struggles, however, he managed to kick himself off 

 the shelf and fell into the abyss below, robbing me of the 

 prize I so much coveted. 



