98 HUNTING TRIPS 



tail for supper, making rather a neat shot, 

 the bird being eighty yards off. The night 

 was even colder than the preceding one, and 

 all signs told us that we would soon have a 

 change for the worse in the weather, which 

 made me doubly anxious to get a sheep be- 

 fore the storm struck us. We determined 

 that next morning we would take the horses 

 and make a quick push for the chain of high 

 buttes where we had seen the fresh tracks, 

 and hunt them through with thorough care. 

 We started in the cold gray of the next 

 morning and pricked rapidly off over the 

 frozen plain, columns of white steam rising 

 from the nostrils of the galloping horses. 

 When we reached the foot of the hills where 

 we intended to hunt, and had tethered the 

 horses, the sun had already risen, but it was 

 evident that the clear weather of a fortnight 

 past was over. The air was thick and hazy, 

 and away off in the northwest a towering 

 mass of grayish white clouds looked like a 

 weather-breeder ; every thing boded a storm 

 at no distant date. The country over which 



