CLIMBING FOR WHITE SHEEP 231 



country. Hardly had we got across the river and begun 

 ascending the benches on the opposite side from the 

 cabin when two tiny black points on the sky-hne of the 

 ragged mountain edge behind and above the camp 

 caught our eyes. They were two men, one of them 

 carrying a gun, in the snow just above us. We saw them 

 proceed along the ridge in a direction up the river, occa- 

 sionally lying down in the snow, looking about with their 

 glasses and acting as though they had seen game. It 

 needed but a short examination to convince us that it 

 was Elting and his guide Ben, evidently on their first 

 day's hunt after sheep, after a long detour to reach this 

 place. As we came back into camp that evening we 

 could see a column of smoke rising from the forest near 

 a Httle lake on a bench above the Killey River about two 

 miles below Steve's cabin, which confirmed our view. 

 And indeed it later proved, when we met Elting, that he 

 was just beginning to hunt sheep on this day. 



We had now decided that in order to find remaining 

 specimens we must go up into the snow and hunt there. 

 Straight up we went, a stiff cHmb of about two thousand 

 feet. The light dry covering of snow filled all the hol- 

 lows of the hill slope, leaving only the points of the 

 jagged stones projecting above its surface. Numerous 

 fox tracks crossed and recrossed the hills as we proceeded 

 westerly along the snow-covered slopes. A herd of seven 

 rams and some ewes appeared on one of the benches 

 below us, but separated from us by a considerable ravine. 



The men across the river had in the meantime been 

 moving up-stream along the benches in the snow and we 

 had lost sight of them. Just before noon, however, as 

 we were about to start approaching the sheep that we 

 had discovered, they began to fire. At the first shot the 



