‘BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA 381 
V. THE BIGHORN (Ovis montana) 
_ Toaman who loves the hill-tops, where the winds blow 
_ keen and pure over the red gold of sun-dried grass and the 
. deep blue of snow-fed tarns, there is no game in America to 
compare with the bighorn of the Rocky Mountains, Other 
_beasts may hide away in the dense timber of Oregon, Wash- 
ington Territory, and Vancouver Island ; other beasts may 
sneak out only at dusk and dawn, but the gallant bighorn still 
lives out in the open, trusting for safety to the grey-faced ewes 
-who watch over him, or to his own marvellously keen sight 
_and scent. In spite of this, the man who kills a 16-in. ram 
generally deserves his good luck, for there is no beast better 
able to take care of himself than an old bighorn, nor any more 
- difficult to stalk, Where he lives the wind seems never still, 
_ and never constant in any given direction; at night it strains 
at the hunter’s tent-rope and makes his fire roar and blaze like 
a mad thing, and in the morning it curls round the hill-tops and 
__ heralds the stalker’s coming from every quatter. It is the fashion 
' in books of sport to describe the haunts of Ovis montana as being 
| ‘the highest, raggedest, and most forbidding mountain ranges.’ 
_ Nothing could be further from the truth than this, if the state- 
_ ment is intended to be general. Sheep are undoubtedly some- 
_ times found in difficult and even dangerous places, but to 
describe sheep shooting as anything like ibex or chamois 
hunting is pure folly. The first sheep it was ever my good 
fortune to see was in the Bad Lands, on an eminence not 
_ 200 ft. above the level of the Northern Pacific Railway line, 
- and the last I shot in 1892 was not 1,000 ft. above the level 
_ of the Frazer. As a rule, sheep in early autumn keep to the 
- bald knolls above the timber-line (where patches of snow still 
_ linger), seeking refuge when disturbed in the abrupt rock 
_ faces with which the hills abound. When the snow comes 
they retire to the edge of the timber, sheltering among the 
juniper bushes and stunted balsams from the early winter 
