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Krag, the Kootenay Ram 



this well ; a hundred times he had proved it. 

 Then, as he sat and smoked, some evil spirit 

 entered in and sketched a cunning plot. He 

 emptied his pipe deliberately, put it away, then 

 cut some rods of the low-creeping birch behind 

 him ; he gathered some stones ; and the great 

 Ram watched afar. The man moved to the 

 edge of the ridge, and with sticks, some stones, 

 and what clothing he could spare, he made a 

 dummy of himself. Then, keeping exactly be- 

 hind it, he crawled backward over the ledge and 

 disappeared. After an hour of crawling and 

 stalking he came up on a ridge behind the Ram. 

 There he stood, majestic as a bull, graceful 

 as a deer, with horns that rolled around his 

 brow like thunder-clouds about a peak. He 

 was gazing intently on the dummy, wondering 

 why his follower was so long still. Scotty was 

 nearly three hundred yards away. Behind the 

 Ram were some low rocks, but between was 

 open snow. Scotty lay down and threw snow 

 on his own back till he was all whitened, then 

 set out to crawl two hundred yards, watching 

 the great Ram's head, and coming on as fast as 

 he dared. Still old Krag stared at the dummy, 



94 



