THE WILD SHEEP 307 



Great Basin adjacent to the Sierra. They never 

 make haste, however, and seem to have no dread 

 of storms, many of the strongest only going down 

 leisurely to bare, wind-swept ridges, to feed on 

 bushes and dry bunch-grass, and then returning up 

 into the snow. Once I was snow-bound on Mount 

 Shasta for three days, a little below the timber line. 

 It was a dark and stormy time, well calculated to 

 test the skill and endurance of mountaineers. The 

 snow-laden gale drove on night and day in hissing, 

 blinding floods, and when at length it began to 

 abate, I found that a small band of wild sheep had 

 weathered the storm in the lee of a clump of Dwarf 

 Pines a few yards above my storm-nest, where the 

 snow was eight or ten feet deep. I was warm back 

 of a rock, with blankets, bread, and fire. My brave 

 companions lay in the snow, without food, and with 

 only the partial shelter of the short trees, yet they 

 made no sign of suffering or faint-heart edness. 



In the months of May and June, the wild sheep 

 bring forth their young in solitary and almost inac 

 cessible crags, far above the nesting-rocks of the 

 eagle. I have frequently come upon the beds of the 

 ewes and lambs at an elevation of from 12,000 to 

 13,000 feet above sea-level. These beds are simply 

 oval-shaped hollows, pawed out among loose, disin 

 tegrating rock-chips and sand, upon some sunny 

 spot commanding a good outlook, and partially shel 

 tered from the winds that sweep those lofty peaks 

 almost without intermission. Such is the cradle of 

 the little mountaineer, aloft in the very sky ; rocked 

 in storms, curtained in clouds, sleeping in thin, icy 

 air ; but, wrapped in his hairy coat, and nourished 



