450 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[March 25, 1911. 
stepped out into the bottom of the gulch. As I 
did so 1 saw a big ram just at the top of a 
little point about 150 yards away and 1 at once 
tired both barms at him, the first a side shot 
and the second at his rump as he turned. 
The ram disappeared at the shot and I fol¬ 
lowed, reloading my rifle as 1 ran. I scramb.ed 
up the side of the gulch where the ram had 
gone and reached the top in a few seconds. Be¬ 
fore me was a long flat piece of country lying 
at the base of the mountains, and in front of me 
a band of sheep were running with the big ram 
in advance. I fired four times at him and saw 
him fall to the ground at the fourth shot. An¬ 
other part of the band were running in the 
other direction and I ran after them, hoping to 
get a second ram. By the time I came to a 
place where I could get a shot they had dis¬ 
appeared, and as there were no more sheep in 
sight I turned and ran back to where the ram 
fell. 
As I came up, a very remarkable sight met 
my eyes. A ram with an enormous head was 
standing up amid the ocatilla and greasewood 
bushes, evidently badly hurt. Eleno was about 
twenty feet away from him, with his sheath 
knife out, and every time he would advance 
toward the ram the latter would lower his head 
and walk toward Eleno, evidently quite ready 
to fight it out with him. It at once struck me 
what a remarkable picture this would make, 
and I cried out “Camera” to Eleno. He knew 
what the word meant and motioned that the 
camera was back in the lunch sack where we 
had been eating. The ram was evidently badly 
hurt and suffering. I was out of breath, and I 
knew that it would take me some time to get 
the camera and come back. So, much as I 
wanted the picture, it seemed to me a cruel 
thing to let the animal suffer for five or ten 
minutes while I made preparations to photo¬ 
graph him, and after a moment’s consideration 
raised my rifle and killed him by a shot through 
the neck. 
I went up to him and looked at the size of his 
horns with astonishment. He was a magnificent 
specimen with tremendously long horns, which 
seemed to grow bigger as they left the base. 
Eleno and I were both much excited over the 
size of the ram, and we slapped each other on 
the back and he talked Spanish and I talked 
English for some time without caring how much 
the other understood. I gathered from Eleno’s 
Spanish, however, that it was a “muy grande 
macho,” and that he was well satisfied with my 
shooting. Then when our jubilation was over, 
Eleno took me by the wrist and led me over a 
little ridge, and there on the further side, about 
fifty yards away, another ram was lying dead. 
He also had a very large head, though not so 
big as the first one. I was very much surprised, 
as I had up to that minute thought all my shoot¬ 
ing had been done at one ram. 
On comparing the two I found that they rep¬ 
resented the two types of heads which the moun¬ 
tain sheep seem to produce. The horns of the 
first ram were very large and heavy, curling 
around his head and somewhat injured at the 
points. The head of the second ram, however, 
was perfect, with a long slender curl decreasing 
steadi'y from the measurement at the base. I 
had no tape measure with me, and therefore 
could not measure the heads until next day, but 
I had seen enough sheep heads to realize that 
I had two uncommonly beautiful specimens, ffhis 
was especially pleasing, as I had told Captain 
Funcke that I wanted no heads unless they were 
bigger than those I had got in the North, and 
these were both bigger than my British Columbia 
heads. 
Though the heads were very large, the bodies 
were comparatively small, and the animals seemed 
to • me to be much more lightly built than the 
sheep in the North. The sheep of British Colum¬ 
bia surprised me by their large and heavy set 
legs and bodies, but the sheep of Lower Cali¬ 
fornia looked more as I had always supposed 
mountain sheep should look. Both of the rams 
were rather thin, but their stomachs were full 
of the little twigs of the brittle bush on which 
they had been feeding. 
It was too late to hope to get the rams in that 
evening, so we cleaned them and then stretched 
them out in a little hollow in the rocks and 
piled ocatilla stems over them to protect them. 
The ocatilla has long straight stalks, covered 
with numberless -thorns, and before we were 
through, I felt that the heads were secure from 
any marauders during the night. We then tied 
our red bandannas on nearby bushes to mark the 
place. 
I could not help thinking what a remarkable 
example this was of luck in big-game shooting. 
Within a few minutes of the time that Eleno 
and I had decided there was no possib’e chance 
for a shot, I had been successful in killing two 
especially large rams. 
It was a long hard pull back to camp, and 
we were badly tortured with thirst, but about 
half way in we found a little tank in the rocks 
where we had a good drink and refilled our 
canteens. We got in, at last, a little before dark 
to receive the congratulations of the captain and 
T. G. M. The latter unfortunately had spent 
another day without seeing sheep. We at once 
decided that both Eleno and Captain Funcke 
woult go with me the next day to bring in the 
heads and meat, and that J. G. M. should take 
a day off around the camp. 
The next morning we started off on horses, 
leading two burros with pack saddles, and by 
making a long circle through the mountains and 
keeping mostly to the arroyos, we got the horses 
within a mile and a half of where the rams were. 
We then tied the horses, and leading the burros 
succeeded in working around to the place where 
the rams lay. They had not been disturbed dur¬ 
ing the night and we got them out, photographed 
them and measured the horns with the tape. 
The big ram's horns measured: Base, 15F2 
inches; one foot from base, 14F2 inches; 19^2 
inches from base, I3 3 4 inches; 7 inches in diam¬ 
eter at the point, 39 inches in length and 24F2 
inches spread. On account of the way the horns 
flattened as they curved, it seemed as though 
the horn was smaller at the base than it was 
half way out, but this did not prove to be the 
case. 
The smaller ram had 15 inches base, 12 inches 
half way out and was 36 inches on the curve 
with 24 inches spread. 
We took off the heads carefully and cut up 
and skinned out the animals and cut off most 
of the meat. On examination we found that 
the first ram had been shot straight through the 
center of the body with my first bullet, the shot 
being a little bit too far back to kill him in¬ 
stantly. The second bullet had struck him in 
the center of the rump and tore through his 
body, but in some way without killing him. 
There was also the third shot through the neck 
made at close quarters, and which had killed 
him instantly. The second ram at which I had 
shot four times had three bullet holes through 
him, the first one having smashed a fore shoul¬ 
der, the other going through the fleshy part of 
the hind leg and the third shot, which killed 
him, being straight through the heart. This 
made a score of five hits out of six attempts, 
and I felt that I had somewhat redeemed my¬ 
self from my previous bad shooting. 
When we had cut up the rams we went down 
to the place where Eleno and I had eaten lunch 
the previous day. On the way I noticed the 
place where the ram had stood when I had first 
shot him. There was the little palo verde tree 
which had partially covered his forequarters; 
there was a splash of blood on the rocks where 
he had been struck, and on walking down to 
where we had taken lunch I saw the two empty 
shells lying where I had thrown them out of 
the gun and the place where I had stood behind 
a big rock and shot at the ram. It at once struck 
me that here was a chance to really determine 
the range at which I had done the shooting, so 
I got out my fifty foot tape, and the captain 
and I staked the distance from the bottom of 
the arroyo. It proved to be just 427 feet. 
A comparison of the distances showed that the 
second ram was killed at what seemed to be a 
little longer range, though the ground was so 
broken there that it was impossible to take an 
accurate measurement. I was very glad for once 
to know the exact distance at which shooting 
was done, and as I looked over the ground I 
felt that it would probably generally appear in 
a story as a 200 to 250 yard shot. 
When we had eaten our lunch we packed the 
heads and meat on the burros and started back 
for camp. The burros did wonderfully well, 
climbing up places that were difficult going for 
a man, aand we finally got them down to the 
horses without accident, though I thought at 
times that there was at least an even chance of 
serious trouble. We were back in camp again 
by dark, and J. G. M. was duly impressed with 
the size of the heads. 
On our way we killed another big rattler, the 
last we saw on the trip. This made a total of 
four, as we had killed a very small one in the 
fire wood at Valdez camp. We also saw a num¬ 
ber of tarantulas during the trip, all of which 
we killed. Some of them were small, though 
one which we saw at Valdez was the grand¬ 
father of all the spiders, with a body as big as 
a grown mouse and a spread of at least six 
inches between his feet as he stood on the desert. 
We photographed him, then he too met his end 
under a boot heel. 
This day’s work ended my sheep shooting for 
the trip, for though our permit allowed us to 
kill six rams, yet I had no use for more heads 
and did not feel justified in shooting the animals. 
Neither did I want to disturb the sheep country 
as long as J. G. M. had not yet secured his 
head. The presence of sheep in the neighbor¬ 
hood made me feel very confident that J. G. M. 
would finally get a shot, though he was some¬ 
what discouraged, as he had not yet had the 
luck to even see a sheep of any kind. 
For the next two days I loafed around the 
camp at the Red Tanaka, occasionally climbing 
