8 
THE WILD SHEEP OF THE SIERRA. 
CROSSING. A CANON STREAM. 
At the base of Sheep Rock, one of the i "What!" said I, " jumped a hundred and 
winter strongholds of the Shasta flocks, fifty feet ! Did you see them do it ? " 
there Hves a stock-raiser who has the ad- " No," he replied, " I didn't see them 
vantage of observing the movements of wild going down, for I was behind them ; but I 
sheep ever\^ winter ; and, in the course of a saw them go off over the brink, and then I 
conversation with him on the subject of i went below and found their tracks where they 
their diving habits, he pointed to the front struck on the loose debris at the bottom, 
of a lava headland about a hundred and ; They J'^zz7<f<'/n]^///^, and landed on their feet 
fifty feet high, which is only eight or ten j right side up. That's the kind of animal //^^ 
degrees out of the perpendicular. "There," is — beats anything else that goes onfourlegs." 
said he, " I followed a band of them fellows On another occasion, a flock that was 
to the back of that rock yonder, and ex- pursued by hunters retreated to another 
pected to capture them all, for I thought I portion of this same cliff where it is still 
had a dead thing on them. I got behind j higher, and, on being followed, they were 
them on a narrow bench that runs along I seen jumping down in perfect order, one 
the face of the wall near the top, and behind another, by two men who hap- 
comes to an end where they couldn't get | pened to be chopping where they had a 
away without falling and being killed ; fair view of them and could watch their 
but they jumped off, and landed all right, ■ progress from top to bottom. Both ewes 
as if that were the regular thing with | and rams made the frightful descent without 
them." , evincing any extraordinary concern, hug- 
