150 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



he set steel traps around it. One by one he caught five sheep of 

 various ages, but chiefly adults. The story of this interesting 

 performance is told in Outdoor Life magazine for March, April 

 and May, 1907. 



I am interested in the mental processes of those sheep as 

 they came in close contact with man, and were compelled by 

 force of circumstances to accept captivity. Knowing, as all 

 animal men do, the fierce resistance usually made by adult 

 animals to the transition from freedom to captivity, I was 

 prepared to read that those nervous and fearsome adult sheep 

 fought day by day until they died. 



But not so. Those sheep showed clear perceptive faculties 

 and good judgment. They were quick to learn that they were 

 conquered, and with amazing resignation they accepted the 

 new life and its strange conditions. In describing the chase 

 on foot in thick darkness of a big old male mountain sheep with 

 a steel trap fast on his foot, Mr. Frakes says: 



"A sheep's token of surrender is to lie down and lie still. 

 Once he 'possums, no matter what you do, or how badly you 

 may hurt him, he will never flinch. And when this sheep 

 ("Old Stonewall") was thrown down by the trap, he evidently 

 thought that he was captured, and lay still for a few minutes 

 before he found out the difference, which gave me time to come 

 up with him. ... So I went to camp, got a trap clamp 

 and some sacks, made a kind of sled and dragged him in. It 

 was just midnight when I got him tied down, and just sun-up 

 when I got to camp with him. I fixed him up the best I could, 

 stood him up beside the other big-horn and took their pictures. 

 He looked so "rough and ready" that I named him "Old Stone- 

 wall." But for all his proud, defiant bearing he has always 

 been a good sheep, and never tried to fight me. Still he can hit 

 quick and hard when he wants to, and I have to keep him tied 

 up all the time to keep him from killing the other bucks." 



Now, I know not what conclusion others will draw from the 

 above clear and straightforward recital, but to me it established 



