The Wild Sheep of the Sierra. 



289 



days, a little below the timber-line. It was a dark and stormy time, 

 well calculated to test the skill and endurance of mountaineers. 

 The snow-laden gale drove on, night and day, in hissing, blinding 

 floods, and when at length it began to abate, I found that a small 

 band of wild sheep had weathered the storm in the lee of a clump 

 of dwarf pines a few yards above my storm-nest, where the snow 

 was eight or ten feet deep. I was warm back of a rock, with 

 blankets, bread, and fire. My brave companions lay in the snow, 

 without food, and with only the partial shelter of the short trees, yet 

 made no sign of suffering or faint-heartedness. 



In the months of May and June, they bring forth their young, in 

 the most solitary and inaccessible crags, far above the nesting-rocks 

 of the eagle. I have frequently come upon the beds of the ewes and 

 lambs at an elevation of from twelve to thirteen thousand feet above 

 sea-level. These beds are simply oval-shaped hollows, pawed out 

 19 



