THE COUNTRY OF THE BLACK SHEEP 263 



45-90. It paid no attention to the shot, grand craft was about fifty feet in 



and stood quietly looking at them as length and hewn from a single cedar, 



they approached. On examination they It was beautifully decorated fore and 



found that the heavy bullet had struck aft with totemic paintings. Chief Shakes 



at the base of the horn. The ram be- of the Thlinkits was our boat-steerer, 



haved in a perfectly natural way, ex- and we had a sturdy crew. The cold 



cept that it showed no fear. After tying blue crags of the Cheeonees loomed 



a pack-strap to its horns they led it to through the winter clouds as we entered 



their camp, where, being in need of the coast range, 



meat, they shot it. For 150 miles the great Stikine lit- 



Our last hunt for sheep was in the erally eats its way through the Alaskan 



Cheeonee Mountains. Winter was Mountains. As we plowed swiftly 



coming on rapidly ; the mountains were through the rapids bands of mountain 



masses of snow and ice, and the tern- goats looked down on us from the 



perature dropped below zero. Among frowning cliffs. Past the Orloff Gla- 



those crags of ice and iron rocks we cier — named by the Russians when 



hunted for a big head. Many ewes and Alaska belonged to the White Bear — 



young were there, but no mighty ram with its seven miles of blue ice fronting 



fell to our rifles. On returning to the the river; through the Stikine Canon, 



Stikine we found that the great war- with its smother of foam, and once 



canoe of the Thlinkits, which had come more the moist winds of the Pacific 



up the river with the U. S. mail, was Ocean fanned our faces, 



starting for the coast. When one looks back on such a trip 



As the slush ice began to run in the as we had taken, and the memory of 



rivers we loaded all our heads and skins toil, fatigue and exposure is softened 



and, climbing aboard the canoe, bore by time, it seems wonderfully worth 



majestically down the Stikine. This while. 



TO THE MOUNTAINS 



BY ORRICK BAYLOR METCALFE. 



I'm sick of heart, I'm sad to-day, 



This city life is not my way. 



Where man meets man, they harbor strife ; 



Give back my boyhood mountain life. ■ 



Oh mother land where I was born ! 

 Where I was free from strife and scorn. 

 Oh mother mine of jagged arms ! 

 Take back your child from human harms. 



