196 The Mountain Sheep 



indiscriminately stampeded to the edge, and there 

 went the sheep, hustling down over the stones, 

 sliding, springing, and dissolving away. And 

 now, suddenly, when it was of no use at all, we 

 remembered that we carried rifles, and like a 

 chorus in a comic opera we stood on the brow of 

 the mountain, concertedly working the levers, 

 firing our Winchesters into space. 



It's all fifteen years ago ; yet as I read over my 

 relentless camp-diary, I blush in spite of laughter ; 

 it's hot work staring truth in the face ! And now 

 comes the last feeble pop of the ridiculous. We 

 turned our heads, and beheld the sheep we had 

 come for, the sheep we had climbed two moun- 

 tains for, the sheep we had at length got within 

 a hundred yards of, just disappearing over a final 

 ridge so far away that there remained to them no 

 color, and only one dimension length. They 

 looked like a handful of toothpicks. They natu- 

 rally had not been idle while we were so busy ; 

 while we were losing our heads, they had kept 

 theirs ; and during that brief fusillade of ours 

 the whole preposterous affair could not have filled 

 more than three minutes they had put such a 

 stretch of ups and downs between us, that going 

 after them any more was not to be thought of. 



