1 72 The Mountain Sheep 



at Billings, of every Rocky Mountain creature, 

 indeed, beneath whose observation the Eastern 

 tourist passes. Dear reader, go stand opposite 

 the lion at the zoo if you don't know what I 

 mean. So patent was the stigma cast that it 

 fantastically came into my head to step down and 

 explain to the animal that I was not a tourist, 

 that I had hunted and slain members of his 

 species before now, and should probably do so 

 again. And while thus I sat speculating among 

 the Pullman blankets, the ram leaped irrelevantly 

 off the earth, waved his fore legs, came down, ran 

 a tilt at the telegraph pole as though at a quintain, 

 and the next instant was grazing serene on the 

 flat with an air of having had no connection 

 whatever with the late disturbance. 



What had started him off like that ? Extreme 

 youth ? No ; for when I came to hear about 

 him, he was five years old a maturity corre- 

 sponding in us men to about thirty. It was 

 simply his own charming temperament. No 

 locomotive had approached ; moreover for loco- 

 motives he, as I was later to observe, did not 

 care a hang ; no citizen old or young of either 

 sex had given him offence ; nor was there stir of 

 any kind in Livingston, Montana, this fine early 



