March 25, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
449 
where the ram was, but there was such a suc¬ 
cession of ridges and arroyos before us that I 
was unable to find him, and finally had to take 
Eleno s word for it, and we started out. 
After we had crossed three or four precipitous 
canons we got near the place where the ram 
was supposed to be, and for the next mile spent 
our time in going very slowly and trying to 
keep quiet. It was nearly a hopeless proposition, 
as the entire footing was loose rock, so that 
in spite of ourselves we made considerable noise. 
When we reached a point where we could see 
at close range the ram’s position, he had dis¬ 
appeared, and on climbing up to the spot where 
scended, and before us lay a flat-topped moun¬ 
tain surrounded on ali sides by an arroyo. We 
started down the arroyo, looking for sheep on 
all sides, and soon located one ewe standing 
against the skyline a couple of miles away to 
the north. We had about decided to hunt up 
that way and see if there were not some rams 
with her when, on looking back to the ridge 
which lay in front of the cliffs we had de¬ 
scended, we saw a ram looking over at us. He 
was on a sort of an isolated mountain with a 
canon all around him. On three sides this was 
very broad, and on the fourth, where we came 
down, it was merely a small gulch. 
evidently very much discouraged, as he shook 
his head and made signs that the wind came 
from every direction, and that macho had both 
seen and heard us, and he ended up by saying: 
Mui malo chance.” There was evidently no 
hurry, so we finished our lunch of bread and 
bacon and beans and drank almost all our water. 
Eleno then got out a cigarette and lit it and sat 
down for a smoke. It seemed to me that it 
was perfectly hopeless to get a shot at a ram 
at any reasonable distance in this country. It 
was so broken the wind blew among the gulches 
from every direction and shifted every five 
minutes. The footing was so rocky that it was 
THE author’s MOUNTAIN SHEEP. 
WHERE THE RAMS WERE BAGGED. 
Eleno had first seen him, we found the marks 
where he had lain and some tracks leading to 
an almost sheer precipice down which the ram 
had climbed. He seemed to have gone slowly, 
and it looked as though he might be somewhere 
directly under us. We chose a place where it 
seemed to be possible to get down and started 
after him. The mountain fell off in a series of 
steps. As we got to the edge of each one we 
could see a little further into the gulfs below. 
It was fearfully bad going, the whole surface 
of the mountain seemed to be rotten and the 
rocks broke under our feet and fell away in our 
hands. At last we reached the bottom without 
accident, only to find that the ram had evidently 
heard or smelt us, as in the sand at the bottom 
we saw where he had suddenly started off on 
the run. Behind us were the cliffs we had de- 
After much consulting in the sign language we 
finaily walked down the canon, then swung 
around and came back into the gulch where we 
had first descended from the cliffs. There we 
sat down and had lunch. It was about noon 
and there was evidently no use in rushing mat¬ 
ters, as our only hope of getting the ram would 
be to let him quiet down for a couple of hours 
and then try to stalk him. Our position also 
had this advantage, that if the ram tried to get 
on to any of the other mountains, we were in 
the place where he would naturally cross, un¬ 
less he went down into the big open canon 
where he had last seen us. 
While we were having lunch I succeeded in 
asking Eleno, by the use of a few Spanish words 
and many signs, whether he thought he could 
get a shot at the ram in the afternoon. He was 
almost impossible to go without noise, and I 
sympathized considerably with a remark that one 
of the other party had made to me. He said 
that he was tired seeing the white rumps of the 
sheep go over the mountain in front of him 
day after day. 
I did not feel much like smoking, so I took 
the glasses and leaving my rifle explained by 
signs to Eleno that I was going up the other 
side of the gulch to see if I could locate any 
sheep. I got a couple of hundred feet from 
where Eleno was sitting, and was just about to 
use the glasses when I heard a rock roll, and 
looking down the gulch I saw its whole side 
covered with sheep, evidently just in the act of 
crossing over to the cliffs where we had first 
seen the ram. I turned and ran as fast as I 
could back to Eleno, and snatching up my rifle. 
¥ 
