i'hoto by C'.forgc Shiras. jrd 
THE SKNTINEL EWE 
After a long stalk on all fours the author got within 50 feet. Note the extremely long 
legs of the ewe. The short black horns and white body have led many of the Alaskan miners 
from the Rock}- Mountain States to mistake the ewes of these sheep for white mountain goats 
(see pages 485 and 486). 
Cottonwood Creek ran on its short and 
rapid career to Skilak Lake, 3.000 feet 
below. 
It was here that I got my last photo- 
graphs of rock ptarmigan, and as we 
climbed up on the broken mass of rock, 
littering the pass between the cliffs of 
the divide, I ])nt away the lenses and 
boxed the camera in case of a fall 
through such insecure footing. Half 
way through the pass some one noticed 
seven or eight sheep, almost overhead, 
lying on a narrow ledge, with a peri)en- 
dicular drop of nearly 300 feet below 
them. To those who have seen large, 
Avhite gannets, nesting here and there 
upon the face of a maritime cliff', the re- 
semblance was a striking one. Before 
I could get the camera out and arranged, 
the sheep, noticing that we had stopped 
and were gazing upward, became 
alarmed, and in a series of awe-inspiring 
leaps took ledge after ledge until the top 
was reached, when, getting in line, they 
all looked over. And that constituted 
my last but still lingering picture of 
these graceful creatures, poised on the 
highest summit above Skilak Lake. 
Lnpressed once more with the agility 
and self-confidence of these nomads of 
the skies, I asked Tom whether he had 
ever seen the remains of any indicating 
that sometimes life paid the forfeit of a 
careless gambol or in the desperate ef- 
fort to avoid pursuit. He replied that 
during nearly 16 years in the sheep 
ranges of Alaska he had never seen a 
single case of the kind, though several 
times having found carcasses at the foot 
of a snow avalanche. 
And then occurred within a few short 
hours and at the same spot a tragedy 
constituting" a most remarkable sequel to 
my inquiry. 
After returning to the lake and re- 
maining over night, Tom and Charlie 
started back in the morning" for the tent 
and the remainder of our outfit. In 
passing through the same divide Tom 
saw, hanging partly over a ledge and 
midway between top and bottom, the 
crumpled body of a large, fine ewe, 
while running about below was a little 
lamb, which, whimpering and bleating, 
continued to look up toward the spot no 
feet could scale. 
490 
