The Mountain Sheep 209 



come in April, and that it is scarcely correct to 

 limit their season to the single month. The 

 lambs, from the time of their birth on into the 

 late fall, follow their careful mothers receive, in 

 fact, a half-year's bringing up. And I had, one 

 day in September, 1896, the singular good fortune 

 to watch a mamma with her child for a period 

 even longer than my observation of the ram at 

 Livingston. 



The Tetons lie just south of the Yellowstone 

 Park, and directly upon the borders of Wyoming 

 and Idaho. Any recent map might seem to prove 

 this geography inaccurate, because, as I under- 

 stand it, a late extension of the timber reservation 

 reaches below these mountains, and most wisely 

 includes both them and Jackson's Lake with the 

 whole piece of country eastward to the Conti- 

 nental Divide. Of all places in the Rocky Moun- 

 tains that I know, it is the most beautiful ; and, 

 as it lies too high for man to build and prosper 

 in, its trees and waters should be kept from man's 

 irresponsible destruction ; those forests feed the 

 great river system of the Columbia and Snake. 

 But I have been a poacher, according to the 

 recent map. In 1896, however, the line was 

 north of me by a few miles ; and the day before 



