Big Game in the Rockies 



past you. The only safe rule is to travel high 

 and keep working up above their feeding- 

 grounds. In the spring of the year they are 

 much easier to kill than in the fall, for then 

 the heavy winter snows have driven them out 

 of the mountains, and they come low down 

 after the fresh green grass. The rams are then 

 in bands, having laid aside the hostility that 

 later in the year seems to possess each and 

 every one of them. 



I was much interested once in watching a 

 band of eight rams, all of them old fellows. 

 They would feed early in the morning and 

 then betake themselves to a large rock which 

 stood on a grassy slope, where they would 

 play for hours. One of them would jump on 

 the rock and challenge the others to butt him 

 off. Two or three would then jump up, and 

 their horns would come together with a clash 

 that I could hear from my position, which was 

 fully a quarter of a mile away. On one occa- 

 sion I saw them suddenly stop their play and 

 each ram became fixed ; there the little band 

 stood as though carved out of stone. They 

 remained that way for quite half an hour with- 

 out a movement. I could not detect with the 



7* 101 



