THE WILD SHEEP OE THE SIERRA. 
9 
ging close to the rock and controlling the 
velocity of their half falling, half leaping 
movements by striking at short intervals and 
holding back with their cushioned, rubber feet 
upon small ledges and roughened inclines 
until near the bottom, when they "sailed 
off" into the free air and ahghted on their 
feet, but with their bodies so nearly in a 
vertical position that they appeared to be 
diving. 
It appears, therefore, that the methods 
of this wild mountaineering become clearly 
comprehensible as soon as we make our- 
selves acquainted with the rocks, and the 
kind of feet and muscles brought to bear 
upon them. 
The Modoc and Pah Ute Indians are, 
or, rather, have been, the most successful 
hunters of the wild sheep. Great numbers 
of heads and horns belonging to animals 
highest peaks show that this warfare has 
long been going on. 
In the more accessible ranges that stretch 
across the desert regions of western Utah 
and Nevada, considerable numbers of In- 
dians used to hunt in company like packs 
of wolves, and being perfectly acquainted 
with the topography of their hunting- 
grounds, and with the habits and instincts 
of the game, they were pretty successful. 
On the tops of nearly every one of the 
Nevada mountains that I have visited, I 
found small, nest-like inclosures built of 
stones, in which, as I afterward learned, 
one or more Indians lay in wait while their 
companions scoured the ridges below, know- 
ing that the alarmed sheep would surely 
run to the summit, and when they could 
be made to approach with the wind they 
were shot at short range. 
INDIANS HUNTING WILD 
killed by them are found accumulated in 
the caves of the lava-beds and Mount Shasta, 
and in the upper canons of the Alps oppo- 
site Owens Valley, while the heavy obsid- 
ian arrow-heads found on some of the 
Vol. XXII.— 2. 
Still larger bands of Indians used to make 
grand hunts u])on some dominant mountain 
much frequented by the sheep, such as 
Mount Grant on the Wassuck Range to the 
west of Walker Lake. On some particular 
