MOUNTAIN-SHEEP HUNTING 



Indians and I started up the steep shale-slopes back of camp. 

 After a steady climb for two hours we reached the comparative- 

 ly level top of the mountain, only to find ourselves again en- 

 veloped in clouds of thick mists and a fine rain. Through these 

 we groped our way in the wake of our guide toward the sup- 

 posed whereabouts of the sheep. An hour later Mac left us 

 shivering in the shelter of a pile of bowlders and disappeared, 

 returning almost immediately with the news that, during a rift 

 in the fog, he had discovered the rams feeding on the slopes of 

 a small canon below us. This necessitated a dangerous and rapid 

 descent to the nearest creek - bottom, an arduous climb over 

 rocks and glacier, and a careful approach along the bowlder- 

 strewn ridge. Mac wormed his way forward into the mist, and 

 came back shortly with the news that the sheep were only a 

 short distance ahead. Following him, we crawled forward 

 about one hundred yards, and lay down in the wet grass to 

 wait until there was a rift in the fog. When the mist finally 

 cleared up, it revealed four rams, unconscious of danger, feed- 

 ing on a slope sixty yards below us. 



As prearranged, I selected the largest and darkest-colored 

 ram, which was feeding broadside, about fifty yards distant, 

 with its nose buried in the moss. As the report of the carbine 

 re-echoed through the gloomy canon, the ram at which I had 

 fired pitched headlong down the mountain-side, w^hile its three 

 companions got into immediate action to the accompaniment 

 of the reports of my friend's rifle. The sheep disappearing 

 around a near-by bluff, we made a rapid climb over the bowlders 

 to a position where we could see the ghost-like forms of the 

 animals as they bounded through the drizzle, one hundred 

 yards below us. We both fired several times at the departing 

 rams, and a lucky shot from Howe's rifle rolled one of them, 

 with a broken neck, into the creek a quarter of a mile below. 

 We found the ram that I had killed lodged in some stunted 

 bushes, one hundred yards from where it had been struck. 



335 



