146 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



beside a creek on a hot and thirsty day, the super-heated 

 buffaloes suddenly espied the water, twenty feet or so below 

 the road. Without having been bidden they turned toward 

 it, and the windlass failed to stop them. Over the cut bank 

 they went, wagon, man and buffalo bulls, "in one red burial 

 blent." Although they secured their drink, their reputation as 

 draught oxen was shattered beyond repair, and they were 

 cashiered the service. 



Elsewhere I have spoken of the bison's temper and 

 temperament. 



THE WILD SHEEP. It takes most newly-captured 

 adult mountain sheep about six months in palatial zoo quarters 

 to get the idea out of their heads that every man who comes 

 near them, even including the man who feeds and waters them, 

 is going to kill them, and that they must rush widly to and fro 

 before it occurs. But there are exceptions. 



At the same time, wild herds soon learn the large difference 

 between slaughter and protection, and thereafter accept man's 

 hay and salt with dignity and persistence. The fine big-horn 

 photographs that have been taken of wild sheep herds on 

 public highways just outside of Banff, Alberta, tell their own 

 story more eloquently than words can do. The photograph 

 of wild sheep, after only twenty-seven years of protection, 

 feeding in herds in the main street of Ouray, Colorado, is an 

 object lesson never to be forgotten by any student of wild 

 animal psychology. And can any such student look upon such 

 a picture and say that those animals have not thought to 

 some purpose upon the important question of danger and 

 safety to sheep? 



Is there anyone left who still believes the ancient and bizarre 

 legend that mountain sheep rams jump off cliffs and alight 

 upon then* horns? I think not. People now know enough 

 about anatomy, and the mental traits of wild sheep, to know 

 that nothing of that kind ever occurred save by a dreadful 

 accident, followed by the death of the sheep. No spinal 



