A Trip After Mountain Sheep 247 



away from the bottom unharmed. Their perfect 

 self-confidence seems to be justified, however, for 

 they never slip or make a misstep, even on the nar- 

 rowest ledges when covered with ice and snow. 

 And all their marvelous jumping and climbing is 

 done with an apparent ease that renders it the more 

 wonderful. Rapid though the movements of one 

 are they are made without any of the nervous hurry 

 so characteristic of the antelopes and smaller deer; 

 the onlooker is really as much impressed with the 

 animal's sinewy power and self-command as with 

 his agility. His strength and his self-reliance seem 

 to fit him above all other kinds of game to battle 

 with the elements and with his brute foes; he does 

 not dare to have the rough ways of his life made 

 smooth; were his choice free his abode would still 

 be the vast and lonely wilderness in which he is 

 found. To him the barren wastes of the Bad Lands 

 offer a most attractive home; yet to other living 

 creatures they are at all times as grimly desolate and 

 forbidding as any spot on earth can be; at all sea- 

 sons they seem hostile to every form of life. In the 

 raging heat of summer the dry earth cracks and 

 crumbles, and the sultry, lifeless air sways and 

 trembles as if above a furnace. Through the high, 

 clear atmosphere, the intense sunlight casts unnat- 

 urally deep shadows; and where there are no shad- 

 ows, brings out in glaring relief the weird, fantastic 

 shapes and bizarre coloring of the buttes. In win- 

 ter snow and ice coat the thin crests and sharp sides 

 of the cliffs, and increase their look of savage wild- 



