American Big Game in its Haunts 



the Indians, has often told me of the Blackfoot 

 method of securing sheep when their skins were 

 needed for women's dresses. On such an occasion 

 a large number of the men would ride out from 

 the camp to the neighborhood of one of these 

 buttes, and on their approach the sheep, which had 

 been feeding on the prairie, slowly retreated to 

 the heights above. The Indians then spread out, 

 encircling the butte by a wide ring of horsemen, 

 and sending three or four young men to climb its 

 heights, awaited results. When the men sent up 

 on the butte had reached its summit, they pursued 

 the sheep over its limited area, and drove them 

 down to the prairie below, where the mounted 

 men chased and killed them. In this way large 

 numbers of sheep were procured. 



Of the hunting of the sheep by the Indians who 

 inhabited the rough mountains in and near what is 

 now the Yellowstone National Park, Mr. Hofer 

 has said to me: 



"It is supposed that when the Sheep Eater In- 

 dians inhabited the mountains about the Park they 

 kept the sheep down pretty close, but after they 

 wejit away the sheep increased in that particular 

 range of country, the whole Absaroka range ; that 

 is to say, the country from Clark Fork of the 

 Yellowstone down to the Wind River drainage. 



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