The IVild Sheep of the Sierra. 299 



and, on being followed, they were seen jumping down in perfect 

 order, one behind another, by two men who happened to be chop- 

 ping where they had a fair view of them and could watch their prog- 

 ress from top to bottom. Both ewes and rams made the frightful 

 descent without evincing any extraordinary concern, hugging close 

 to the rock, and controlling the velocity of their half falling, half 

 leaping movements by striking at short intervals and holding back 

 with their cushioned, rubber feet upon small ledges and roughened 

 inclines until near the bottom, when they "sailed off" into the free 

 air and alighted on their feet, but with their bodies so nearly in a 

 vertical position that they appeared to be diving. 



It appears, therefore, that the methods of this wild mountaineer- 

 ing become clearly comprehensible as soon as we make ourselves 

 acquainted with the rocks, and the kind of feet and muscles brought 

 to bear upon them. 



The Modoc and Pah Ute Indians are, or, rather, have been, the 

 most successful hunters of the wild sheep. Great numbers of heads 

 and horns belonging to animals killed by them are found accumu- 

 lated in the caves of the lava-beds and Mount Shasta, and in the 

 upper canons of the Alps opposite Owens Valley, while the heavy 

 obsidian arrowheads found on some of the highest peaks show that 

 this warfare has long been going on. 



In the more accessible ranges that stretch across the desert re- 

 gions of western Utah and Nevada, considerable numbers of Indians 

 used to hunt in company like packs of wolves, and being perfectly 

 acquainted with the topography of their hunting-grounds, and with 

 the; habits and instincts of the game, they were pretty successful. 

 On the tops of nearly every one of the Nevada mountains that I 

 have visited, I found small, nest-like inclosures built of stones, in 

 which, as I afterward learned, one or more Indians lay in wait 

 while their companions scoured the ridges below, knowing that 

 the alarmed sheep would surely run to the summit, and when they 

 could be made to approach with the wind they were shot and killed 

 at short range. 



Still larger bands of Indians used to make grand hunts upon 

 some dominant mountain much frequented by the sheep, such as 

 Mount Grant, on the Wassuck Range to the west of Walker Lake. 

 On some particular spot favorably situated with reference to the 



