386 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



if I do, can I ever get back up here? Well, I'll chance 

 that. 



It required no effort to go down, but it did require all 

 my strength to keep from going so fast as to break my neck 

 and all the rest of my bones. I had to hang on to every 

 bush, tree, and projecting rock that I could get hold of, and 

 let myself down with one until I could reach another. 

 Finally, after descending about six hundred feet, I found 

 the object of my pursuit hanging to a small fir-tree. One 

 of his horns had fortunately caught the tree, completely 

 encircled it near the ground, and held him securely. It 

 required all my strength to release him and get him in 

 I)osition for dressing. If he had not caught on this or some 

 other friendly tree, he would doubtless have gone into Ash- 

 anola Creek, fully two thousand feet below, before stop- 

 ping. The ball I fired at him when looking at me had cut 

 the tip of one horn as he swung his head; the next had 

 IDassed through his fianks, and the third through both 

 shoulders. 



And now arose another serious question — Could I get 

 the game, or any portion of it, to camp ? It would seem to 

 require all the skill and all the power of the most expert 

 Alpine-climber to scale that mountain-side without any 

 incumbrance. But I said to myself that I would take the 

 head of the Sheep to camp or stay with it till the Indian 

 should come to hunt me. So I cut it off, skinning the neck 

 back to the shoulders, and started with it. Then I bethought 

 me that there was too much meat there to be wasted; 

 so I turned back and dressed the carcass, that we might 

 come after it next day, if I succeeded in getting to 

 camp with the head. I now tied a piece of quarter-inch 

 rope to the horns, forming a large loop of it, and i^utting it 

 over my shoulders, so as to swing the head well up on my 

 back, began the terrible ascent. I used my heavy rifle as 

 an Alpine-stock, and with the otliei' hand caught every 

 bush, tree, and rock that could afford me any help, pull- 

 ing myself up foot by foot and inch by inch. Once I 

 caught hold of a currant-bush that grew in shallow soil on 



