THE BIGHORN, OR MOUNTAIN SHEEP. 105 



Again they look forward, when the flag is once more raised 

 and waved slowly backward and forward. The antelopes have 

 now their curiosity excited to the utmost ; for a moment they 

 step irresolute, then advance a few steps snuffing the air. 

 Onice more the flag sinks out of sight ; they seem to be asking 

 each other what is the cause of the strange sight they have 

 seen. Again it is raised ; they draw nearer and nearer, till 

 they are within range of the hunter's deadly rifle ; he fires, 

 and almost to a certainty one of the beautiful animals springs 

 into the air and tumbles head-foremost on the ground. For 

 a moment the survivors run off from their fallen friend, hut 

 seldom go far. Once more they return within easy rifle-shot 

 of the hunter. Unless, however, he requires the meat, he 

 must be greatly lacking in right feeling if he slaughters use- 

 lessly so beautiful an animal. The antelope becomes so easily 

 confused, that when met on the prairies it frequently runs 

 headlong into the midst of the travellers. The creatures are 

 often killed by being surrounded, when the whole herd are 

 driven into an enclosed spot and become the easy prey of the 

 hungry hunters. 



THE BIGHORN, OR MOUNTAIN SHEEP. 



Amid the almost inaccessible peaks of the Rocky Mountains, 

 herds of animals with enormous horns may be seen leaping 

 from rock to rock, sometimes descending at one spring from a 

 height of twenty or thirty feet — when, the Indians assert, they 

 invariably alight on their horns, and by this means save their 

 bones from certain dislocation. They are bighorns, or moun- 

 tain sheep, and are considered the chief game of these regions. 

 The animals appear to partake both of the nature of the deer 

 and of the goat. They resemble the latter more especially in 



