A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



grouse and several feeding porcupines. An hour later found 

 us crawling along ledges on bare cliff-faces, where we were 

 obliged to move with infinite caution in order to avoid dis- 

 turbing the game with dislodged rocks and debris. Eventually 

 Manson, who was creeping along ahead, peered cautiously 

 around an angle in the cliffs, and turned with every indication in 

 his features that we were close to the game. In a few minutes 

 I found myself with one foot on a gnarled spruce, w^hich ex- 

 tended horizontally in space from a crevice in the cliffs, and 

 with the other knee braced against perpendicular rocks, peer- 

 ing across a hundred-and-twenty-five-foot chasm at the face 

 of the lick. 



Dozing in the warm sunshine, and with its white nose resting 

 on bare rock, the old ram lay broadside to us on a narrow ledge 

 a few feet below the lick. This was the first time that I had 

 ever discovered the wariest of game asleep, and it might have 

 been the cause of my missing the sheep completely with the 

 first shot. A spurt of dust blew from the face of the cliffs 

 several inches above the back of the animal, which at the report 

 of the rifle lurched to its feet, unable to decide w^hether it had 

 heard a shot or rolling stone. At this a soft-nosed bullet from 

 my rifle broke its neck, and caused it to collapse and pitch head- 

 long over the ledge. 



For a few brief seconds we saw the ram soaring downward 

 through space with all four feet outstretched, and then it was 

 lost to sight as it crashed through the branches of some dwarf 

 pines clinging to the face of the cliffs. We clung to the sides of 

 the wall of rock for several minutes, listening to the noise of 

 dislodged rocks dying away in the space below, before we care- 

 fully descended to the vicinity of the river, and discovered that, 

 after loosening much debris, the ram had lodged against a tree- 

 trunk several hundred feet below where it had struck. This 

 necessitated an exhausting climb up to the carcass, which we 

 pulled out from behind the tree and allowed to roll down almost 



270 



