SEARCHING FOR RAMS 71 



On the way we looked over some cliffs and could 

 see lying on the talus below seven ewes and lambs, 

 which we left undisturbed. Rungius soon afterward sep- 

 arated from me to kill a ewe from a small band which 

 he had seen in the morning nearer camp, in order to 

 replenish our stock of meat. I kept on, descending to 

 the south basin, where a marmot was sitting up like a 

 woodchuck near its burrow. There were many marmot 

 burrows in the bottom of this basin among coarse, broken 

 rocks. 



I reached camp at 9 p. M. and Rungius came in soon 

 after, having failed to find the ewes. Later, Osgood 

 returned, bringing the head and scalp of a three-year- 

 old ram. He had persistently followed them all day and 

 finally made a successful stalk. He had shot as one 

 was running, and thought that he had only wounded it 

 as it disappeared in a hollow; and when one appeared 

 on the other side he killed it. The next day, when he 

 returned with Gage for the meat, he found the other 

 ram dead in the hollow, a three-year-old, the one that 

 he had fired at first. His persistent stalk on difficult 

 ground deserves much credit. Apparently those rams 

 were from the band which I had first seen. 



For several days I had tramped many miles and had 

 climbed high mountains in search of rams, and was some- 

 what doubtful of finding other big rams before we must 

 depart; hence, the next day, I decided to hunt the ranges 

 east of Coal Creek, below the forks. 



