BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA 383 
cae proper places 00 hunt them in. To 
enjoy sheep shooting to perfection a man should leave the 
Pacific coast in September, pass through the belt of water 
meadows and pine forests, where the pink fireweed contrasts 
vividly with the grey stems of the pines and the soft green of 
the ferns, and through the country of sage brush and rolling 
_ yellow bluffs. From this point his road will lie steadily upwards, 
over the rolling prairie, through belts of green timber where the 
deer swarm in winter, and then by thread-like trails over side- 
hills and stone-slides along the course of some tributary of the 
Frazer, until at last a great yellow cone, patched here and 
there with snow, rises clear above the timber-line in front of 
him. This is sheep-land, the land of the roaring wind (Skul- 
loptin), but it will take him a good long day to reach it, and 
both he and his horses will be dead tired by the time they stop 
-tocamp. At first a sheer rock wall rises from the river ; on the 
__ top of the rock is a bench of golden grass, and then again there 
_ isa sharp ascent and another bench of grass. Finally the 
ladder of benches is lost in the forest, which goes climbing away 
uphill in resolute fashion until towards nightfall the hunter 
‘reaches the land of stone-slides and burnt timber, and passing 
through that comes out upon the edge of the sheep downs, 
where the stream becomes no more than a succession of small 
pools amongst the moss, and the only trees still left are dwarfed, 
stunted, and twisted into all manner of forms by the violence of 
the mountain winds. If the sun has left the landscape when the 
hunter first sees it, the effect is weird and cheerless. The great 
__ brown wastes above, the soft silent mosses underfoot, the trees 
- huddled together in little groups as if for mutual support, the 
hanging fringes of blackened beard moss, all help to accentuate 
| the bleakness of the land over which the mountain wind sobs 
> orshrieks. But in the morning all changes as if at a magician’s - 
| word. The skies are cloudless, the sunlight dances on snow- 
‘| field and streamlet, and even the grey stems of the trees are 
| = beautiful when contrasted with the ruddy orange of the Indian 
} = pinks at their feet—better than all, the hunter’s lungs are 
