1 86 The Mountain Sheep 



the easy levels of the earth, but up in the air a 

 great distance. 



The Washakie Needle, for steepness, is truly a 

 heartrending country, and that is why the sheep 

 are there. In it rise Owl Creek, Grey Bull, and 

 certain other waters tributary to the Bighorn ; 

 and I have never gone with pack-horses in a 

 worse place. A worse place, in fact, I have never 

 seen ; though they tell me that where Green 

 River heads on the Continental Divide (in plain 

 sight from the Washakie Needle across the inter- 

 vening Wind River country) you can, if you so 

 desire, enmesh yourself, lose yourself among 

 cleavages and canons that slice and slit the 

 mountains to a shredded labyrinth. From the 

 edge of that rocky web I stepped back, discour- 

 aged, a year later; and for vertical effects the 

 Washakie Needle remains, as they say, "good 

 enough" for me. We struggled to it through 

 a land of jumping-off places, a high, bald, bris- 

 tling clot of mountains that, just beyond the 

 southeast corner of the Yellowstone Park, come 

 from several directions to meet and tie themselves 

 into this rich tangle of peaks, ledges, and descents. 

 You really never did see such a place ! and my 

 memory of it is made lurid by an adventure with 



