I Turned To Descend, And As I Did So I Could See The Valley Below
Alive With Indians Passing Rapidly Through It, On Horseback And On
Foot.
A little farther on, all were stopping as they came up; the
camp was preparing, and the lodges rising.
I descended to this spot,
and soon after Reynal and Raymond returned. They bore between them a
sheep which they had pelted to death with stones from the edge of a
ravine, along the bottom of which it was attempting to escape. One
by one the hunters came dropping in; yet such is the activity of the
Rocky Mountain sheep that, although sixty or seventy men were out in
pursuit, not more than half a dozen animals were killed. Of these
only one was a full-grown male. He had a pair of horns twisted like
a ram's, the dimensions of which were almost beyond belief. I have
seen among the Indians ladles with long handles, capable of
containing more than a quart, cut from such horns.
There is something peculiarly interesting in the character and habits
of the mountain sheep, whose chosen retreats are above the region of
vegetation and storms, and who leap among the giddy precipices of
their aerial home as actively as the antelope skims over the prairies
below.
Through the whole of the next morning we were moving forward, among
the hills. On the following day the heights gathered around us, and
the passage of the mountains began in earnest.
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