370 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



The heel-plate of the rifle was already pressing my 

 shoulder, and my first view of him was over the gleaming 

 barrel. Instantly, the little gold front sight gleamed like 

 a spark of fire on his great, broad, muscular chest, and ere 

 he had determined what the strange apparition was that 

 had risen so stealthily on the horizon, a cloud of smoke hid 

 him momentarily from me, a deafening detonation went 

 rolling and echoing across the canon, and the sultan fell 

 struggling in his tracks. He was nearer to me than I had 

 thought, and having taken a little coarser aim than neces- 

 sary, the bullet had gone three or four inches higher than 

 I intended, and had broken his neck. 



Nearly all writers who have written of this animal have 

 told us of its wonderful vitality, and that if shot, almost 

 anywhere, even through the heart, it will invariably run 

 from two hundred yards to a mile before falling; and not 

 knowing that my bullet had gone above the point aimed at, 

 I was surprised to see this ram drop in his tracks. 



We have furthermore been told, by these same writers, 

 that the wild Sheep of the mountains always run up-hill 

 when alarmed. This is also an error. All my experience 

 with them has been directly in contradiction of this state- 

 ment; and this herd (like all the others I have ever fright- 

 ened) lit out down the hill at the best speed they could 

 make. I fired two shots at them as they went, but none of 

 them stopped. They went to the bottom of a deep canon, 

 crossed it, and climbed the other side, disappearing around 

 the point of a mountain half a mile away. I counted them 

 as they went up, and there were twenty -three of them, 

 nearly all ewes and lambs. 



Then I turned my attention to the ram. He had stood on 

 the brink of the hill, and in his dying struggles was gradu- 

 ally working over it. If he should once get started down 

 it, he would go to the bottom of the canon, which was at 

 least six hundred feet deep, and I had to catch him by a 

 hind foot and hold him till he was dead. 



Immediately after I finished my fusillade, I heard my 

 companion fire four shots in rapid succession, away across 



