384 BIG GAME SHOOTING 
filled with air which acts on him like champagne, and on the 
skyline, as likely as not, he sees the great white sterns 
of half a dozen sheep feeding quietly on their way back to their 
sleeping ground. By ten o’clock at latest those sheep will lie 
down, and then where they lie down they will stay, motionless 
as the grey rocks they lie amongst, until nearly four o’clock, 
their eyes apparently open the whole time and fixed steadily 
upon the wzearest skyline. Generally, sheep will choose a 
little sheltered meadow at the foot of a small glacier, lying 
down in the very middle of it, each old ram with his head 
turned in a different direction, and each with his eyes fixed on 
a different skyline. When sheep have chosen such a position 
as this, the only thing to be done is to lie and watch them until 
they move away to some more accessible country. Many atime 
have I lain like this waiting until first one old ram and then ~ 
another rose, stretched himself, and then lay down again for — 
another forty winks. It is very exasperating, but when at last 
the whole band gets upon its legs and feeds slowly over a ridge 
from behind which it is possible to stalk them, verily you have 
your reward. : 
As illustrative of the nature of the country in which sheep 
west of the Rockies are killed, I have seen a well-known — 
British Columbian rancher ride up to a band of ewes in the 
highlands of the Ashnola country, ga//oping after them until — 
within range, then dismounting and killing two ‘out of the — 
band. This was in early autumn, and in what I consider the ~ 
easiest country I have ever seen ; in winter, of course, when ~ 
the snows are heavy on the mountains, the sheep come right — 
down on to the flat, by the edge of the Frazer river. Indeed, — 
in the winter (end of November 1890) I found a fair-sized — 
ram feeding amongst a band of cattle, and killed him before ~ 
he had put a hundred yards between himself and them. — 
Another recent statement to which I must take exception is — 
that ‘a man who can find a band of ten or fifteen (sheep) — 
after a week’s riding and climbing is a fortunate man.’ Sheep — 
- extend from the Missouri to Alaska, and whatever their — 
=.” 
