CHAPTER I 



THE TRIP TO THE OGILVIE ROCKIES 1904 



THE mountain sheep of America are among the noblest 

 of our wild animals. Their pursuit leads the hunter into 

 the most remote and inaccessible parts of the wilderness 

 and calls into play his greatest skill and highest qualities 

 of endurance. 



My first experience with sheep was in northern Mexico, 

 where they dwell among the isolated groups of rugged 

 mountains that rise abruptly from the great waterless des- 

 erts deserts beautiful in their wealth of color, weird in the 

 depth of their solitude, impressive in their grim desolation. 

 It was there that I became fascinated by the exhilaration 

 of the sport of hunting the wild sheep, and dominated by 

 the desire of following them in other lands. 



I was familiar with what had been written about the 

 white sheep, Ovis dalli, of Alaska, and the darkest of the 

 American sheep, Ovis stonei, of the Stikine water-shed in 

 northern British Columbia; and when in 1901 still an- 

 other form of sheep, Ovisfannini, was described from the 

 ranges of the Canadian Rockies in Yukon Territory an 

 animal with a pure white head and gray back I decided 

 to explore for it if the chance ever offered. Indeed, so 

 little was known about the variation, habits, and distribu- 



