320 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA 



half leaping movements by striking at short in 

 tervals and holding back with their cushioned, 

 rubber feet upon small ledges and roughened in 

 clines until near the bottom, when they " sailed off " 

 into the free air and alighted on their feet, but 

 with their bodies so nearly in a vertical position 

 that they appeared to be diving. 



It appears, therefore, that the methods of this 

 wild mountaineering become clearly comprehensi 

 ble as soon as we make ourselves acquainted with 

 the rocks, and the kind of feet and muscles brought 

 to bear upon them. 



The Modoc and Pah Ute Indians are, or rather 

 have been, the most successful hunters of the wild 

 sheep in the regions that have come under my own 

 observation. I have seen large numbers of heads 

 and horns in the caves of Mount Shasta and the 

 Modoc lava-beds, where the Indians had been feast 

 ing in stormy weather ; also in the canons of the 

 Sierra opposite Owen's Valley ; while the heavy ob 

 sidian arrow-heads found on some of the highest 

 peaks show that this warfare has long been going on. 



In the more accessible ranges that stretch across 

 the desert regions of western Utah and Nevada, 

 considerable numbers of Indians used to hunt in 

 company like packs of wolves, and being perfectly 

 acquainted with the topography of their hunting- 

 grounds, and with the habits and instincts of the 

 game, they were pretty successful. On the tops of 

 nearly every one of the Nevada mountains that I 

 have visited, I found small, nest-like inclosures built 

 of stones, in which, as I afterward learned, one or 

 more Indians would lie in wait while their compan- 



