A Trip After Mountain Sheep 245 



them where we left the horses, and doing our still- 

 hunting in buckskin shirts, fur caps, and stout shoes. 

 Big-horn, more commonly known as mountain 

 sheep, are extremely wary and cautious animals, and 

 are plentiful in but few places. This is rather sur- 

 prising, for they seem to be fairly prolific (although 

 not as much so as deer and antelope), and com- 

 paratively few are killed by the hunters; indeed, 

 much fewer are shot than of any other kind of West- 

 ern game in proportion to their numbers. They 

 hold out in a place long after the elk and buffalo 

 have been exterminated, and for many years after 

 both of these have become things of the past the 

 big-horn will still exist to afford sport to the man 

 who is a hardy mountaineer and skilful with the 

 rifle. For it is the only kind of game on whose 

 haunts cattle do not trespass. Good buffalo or elk 

 pasture is sure to be also good pasture for steers and 

 cows; and in summer the herds of the ranchman 

 wander far into the prairies of the antelope, while 

 in winter their chosen and favorite resorts are those 

 of which the black-tail is equally fond. Thus, the 

 cattlemen are almost as much foes of these kinds of 

 game as are the hunters, but neither cattle nor cow- 

 boys penetrate into the sterile and rocky wastes 

 where the big-horn is found. And it is too wary 

 game, and the labor of following it is too great, for 

 it ever to be much persecuted by the skin or market 

 hunters. 



In size the big-horn comes next to buffalo and 

 elk, averaging larger than the black-tail deer, while 



