THE STORY OF A RAM 69 



toiled, the straight-stemmed pines below us gradually 

 dwindling to toy Christmas trees, and then to tiny 

 bushes. Never a sound broke the stillness, save 

 perhaps a woodpecker hammering industriously away 

 in the valley, hundreds of feet below, or the indig- 

 nant squeak of a frightened porcupine crouched far 

 back in his chamber amidst the rocks, as he presented 

 a spiky tail to the intruder on his solitude. Yet 

 always before us stretched that trampled line in the 

 snow, made by the ram and his followers in the night, 

 deep and narrow where the band converged on some 

 known high-road which we could not see, shallow 

 and wide where its scattered units spread. Bare 

 patches revealing the long yellow hill grass marked 

 a resting place, but the trampled line went wavering 

 on over the crest which marked our skyline, and 

 always the thought of those mighty horns drove 

 us forward. Three long weary hours it took us, 

 ere we drew near the summit, full of hope, yet not 

 knowing what we should see. This uncertainty 

 it is which makes the fascination of hunting in an 

 unknown mountain country so intense. What vista 

 will unfold itself as you reach that distant height ? 

 A great spreading forest, or an open treeless plain ; 

 a towering range of mountains, or an undulating 

 prairie ; what will the promised land give you ? 

 Whatever else it may be, it cannot be uninterest- 

 ing ; and among the mountains there is an element 

 of luck, if so you Irke to designate it, which must 

 always be absent elsewhere. 



