146 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



probably a buck, doe, and pair of kids, ascending leisurely 

 to more elevated ground. 



Slowly plucking the tender grass at each step, they graze 

 upward; but ever on .guard against danger, the male or fe- 

 male pause to watch, or not unfrequently post themselves 

 on some rocky excrescence to note what may be occurring 

 in the lower world. At length their slow approach has 

 brought them within range of your rifle ; but be not impa- 

 tient ; rest a little longer if you wish to make certain work, 

 for the bullet must be well and strongly placed, or else f our 

 labor will be fruitless, for few animals possess greater vi- 

 tality ; and unless, in Yankee parlance, you tumble the quar- 

 ry in his track, the wounded game will struggle upward 

 with speed lent by fear, or fall headlong over the nearest 

 ravine into some rugged canon impossible to descend into, 

 or where, even if successful in reaching its bottom, the car- 

 cass would be found pounded and torn into a shapeless mass 

 of flesh, only fit food for the loathsome vultures who proba- 

 bly have already commenced to congregate, in expectation 

 of a feed on their beloved carrion. 



In the days of De Bonneville, and Lewis and Clark, big- 

 horns and Rocky Mountain sheep were very abundant in 

 the mountain ridges that encompass the upper waters of 

 the turbulent Columbia River; but the tide of emigration 

 which has flowed into Oregon and British North-western 

 possessions has had the effect of lessening their numbers, 

 and driving a large proportion of the survivors from what 

 at one time must have been one of their chief habitats. 

 However, both these species are not likely soon to be- 

 come extinct, for the nature of the country they inhabit 

 is a safeguard which the poor buffalo unfortunately does 

 not possess ; ay, and what will the undulating prairie be 

 to the Indian and hunter when you deprive it of the 

 v ordly bull, who in times gone by caused each tree, rock, 



