246 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 



an old ram will sometimes be almost as heavy as a 

 small cow elk. In his movements he is not light 

 and graceful like the prong-horn and other ante- 

 lopes, his marvelous agility seeming rather to pro- 

 ceed from sturdy strength and wonderful command 

 over iron sinews and muscles. The huge horns are 

 carried proudly erect by the massive neck; every 

 motion of the body is made with perfect poise; and 

 there seems to be no ground so difficult that the 

 big-horn can not cross it. There is probably no ani- 

 mal in the world his superior in climbing; and his 

 only equals are the other species of mountain sheep 

 and the ibexes. No matter how sheer the cliff, if 

 there are ever so tiny cracks or breaks in the sur- 

 face, the big-horn will bound up or down it with 

 wonderful ease and seeming absence of effort. The 

 perpendicular bounds it can make are truly startling 

 in strong contrast with its distant relative, the 

 prong-horn, which can leap almost any level jump, 

 but seems unable to clear the smallest height. In de- 

 scending a sheer wall of rock the big-horn holds all 

 four feet together and goes down in long jumps, 

 bounding off the surface almost like a rubber ball 

 every time he strikes it. The way that one will 

 vanish over the roughest and most broken ground is 

 a perpetual surprise to any one that has hunted 

 them ; and the ewes are quite as skilful as the rams, 

 while even the very young lambs seem almost as 

 well able to climb, and certainly follow wherever 

 their elders lead. Time and again one will rush over 

 a cliff to what appears certain death, and will gallop 



