294 The IVild Sheep of the Sierra. 



above the trees to gaze back over the valley into the heart of the 

 noble landscape, little knowing the while what neighbors were near. 

 After spending a few irregular minutes in this way, I chanced to 

 look across the fall, and there stood three sheep quietly observing 

 me. Never did the sudden appearance of a mountain, or water-fall, 

 or human friend, so forcibly seize and rivet my attention. Anxiety 

 to observe accurately on so rare an occasion checked boisterous 

 enthusiasm. Eagerly I marked the flowing undulations of their 

 firm, braided muscles, their strong legs, ears, eyes, heads, their 

 graceful, rounded necks, the color of their hair, and the bold, 

 upsweeping, cycloidal curve of their noble horns. When they 

 moved, I devoured every gesture, while they, in nowise disconcerted 

 either by my attention or by the tumultuous roar of the falling 

 water, advanced deliberately alongside the rapids between the two 

 divisions of the cataract, turning now and then to look at me. 

 Presently they came to a steep, ice-burnished acclivity, which they 

 ascended by a quick succession of short, stiff-legged leaps, reaching 

 the top without a struggle. This was the most startling feat of 

 mountaineering I had ever witnessed, and, considering only the 

 mechanics of the thing, one's astonishment could hardly have been 

 greater had they displayed wings and taken to flight. " Sure-footed 

 mules " on such ground would have fallen and rolled like loosened 

 bowlders. Many a time, where the slopes were far lower, I have 

 been compelled to take off my shoes and stockings, tie them to my 

 belt, and creep barefoot with the utmost caution. No wonder, then, 

 that I watched the progress of these animal mountaineers with keen 

 sympathy, and exulted in the boundless sufficiency of wild nature 

 displayed in their invention, construction, and keeping. But judge 

 the measure of my good fortune when, a few minutes later, I caught 

 sight of a dozen more in one band, near the foot of the upper fall. 

 They were standing on the same side of the river with me, distant 

 only twenty-five or thirty yards, and looking as unworn and perfect 

 as if created on the spot. It appeared by their tracks, which I had 

 seen on the meadow, and by their present position, that when I 

 came up the canon they were all feeding together down in the val- 

 ley, and in their haste to reach high ground, where they could look 

 about them to ascertain the nature of the strange disturbance, they 

 were divided, three ascending on one side the river, the rest on the 



