WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 95 



huge hound Plunk after them, jumped off our 

 horses, and put out up the mountain on foot after 

 the dog. What a pace those sheep went up that 

 mountain, and what a pace old Plunk went up after 

 them, and what a ludicrously long way behind we 

 were left ! It made one quite ashamed of being a 

 man to see the manner in which the sheep and the 

 dog got away up the mountain and out of sight before 

 we had panted and perspired up a few hundred feet. 

 We might have saved ourselves the trouble of chmb- 

 ing, for presently down came one of the sheep, 

 followed closely by Plunk and preceded by a small 

 avalanche of rattling gravel and bounding stones, in 

 such a hurry that he as nearly as possible ran 

 between the legs of one of the sportsmen. The 

 animal passed literally within two yards of him with 

 such startling effect that he had no time to do any- 

 thing but fire his rifle off in the air in a kind of vague 

 and general way. Plunk stuck to the sheep gallantly, 

 and pressed him so hard that he went to bay in the 

 bed of the river, at a place where the water rushes 

 foaming down a steep descent among a mass of 

 huge boulders, and there he met his fate. 



" That was my first experience," said Willie, 

 " with Ovis Montana, the bighorn or mountain 



