388 BIG GAME SHOOTING 
After waiting for awhile we followed the wounded beast, 
hoping that as we had given him time he would lie down and 
afford us a chance of another stalk. But, as the Indian said, 
‘there was no lie down in that ram.’ He could only go very 
slowly (at a walk), but he could keep going, and over the 
ground to which he took us we could do no more. 
We tried everything that we could think of to circumvent 
him, but it was no good. When the dusk was falling I got 
my last view of his great white quarters, lurching slowly over — 
yet another ridge. He was evidently bound for a far country, 
and had no intention of stopping until he reached it ; I was 
limping almost as badly as he was, and was far more ‘ done.’ 
I had left a nasty piece of rock and ice behind me to recross 
on my way to camp, I had not a notion how far I had come, 
where my Indian was, or which was the nearest way to my 
camp, so with a heart full of bitterness I turned back, vowing 
to track him on the morrow and stay with him as long as he 
stayed in British Columbia. 
But then I knew only that he was a very big ram. When 
I stood beside the beast which the Indian and myself had 
taken for a two-year-old at most, and taped his horns at 143 
ins., I had a better idea what the beast must have been like 
beside which this fair ram had seemed a pigmy. Of course, 
that night enough snow fell to hide the tracks of a mammoth ! 
I try sometimes to console myself with the reflection that after 
all he was probably only a 16- or, at most, 17-in. ram, but it 
won't do. I know better. From blood-stains upon the rocks 
{my Indian had my glass) I am pretty sure that I shot through 
the withers the first time, and probably hit him very far back 
with one of the others. 
It is an extraordinary thing that though sheep so often turn 
and bolt downhil/ when merely frightened, a wounded ram, 
especially a big one, will struggle on higher and higher as long 
as life and the possibility of ascending lasts. 
I have noticed the same habit in Caucasian ¢#r; but, of 
course, my experience may be exceptional. 
