Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1895 — ROCKY MOUNTAIN BIG-HORN. [ARTICLE]

ROCKY MOUNTAIN BIG-HORN.

ts Ton Kill One of Theae Ton Max Call You met f a Sportsman. At last we have reached that gallant fellow, the mountain sheep or big-horn. A true cliff-dweller is he. Born under the shelving rocks of a beetling cliff, lometimes actually cradled in the snow, ■nd reared in the stormy atmosphere of high altitudes, he is a typical mountaineer. Wherever you find him at home, depend upon it that you will also find the finest scenery of the district This animal also loves a birds-eye view of a mountain landscape as well as does a member of the Geological Survey. A steep descent with a narrow, level valley and a thread-like river spread like a relief-map three thousand feet before him is his delight In former times he was venturesome, and often wandered miles away from his mountain home to explore tempting tracts of bad lands; and, being unmolested, he sometimes took up a permanent residence in such places. But the venturesome inhabitants of low, isolated mountains and shelterless bad lands have paid with their lives for their pioneering, and now a mountain sheep is rarely found elsewhere titan amid mountains worthy of the name. Kill one fine old mountain ram by your own efforts in climbing and stalking, and we will call you a sportsman, with a capital S —provided you save his head for mounting, and his flesh for the platter. But no ewes, mind yon! Ewes and lambs count against you, rather than to your credit Can I ever forget how I once traveled all the way from Washington to Wyoming, killed just one superb mountain ram amidst grand scenery, preserved him, carried bis “saddle”to Washington, and called my pleasure trip a complete success? Hardly. Even the recollection of it is worth four times the money it cost That particular mountain sheep stood four feet three inches in height at the shoulders. He was four feet ten inches in length of head and body, and his girth was three feet eight inches. He leaped off a low ridge of bare rock, foil dead on a foot of snow in the head of a rock-walled guloh, and oh, boys! how fine he was! Up in the mountain park he had been pawing through the biiow to get at the spears of dry grass that were there obtainable; and in spite of the difficulty of the process, and the pitiful scantiness of the grazing, I was astonished beyond measure at finding that his stomach contained fully half a bushel of that same grass. He was not only in good flesh, but positively fat; and from the fact that to save our lives Fleming, the packer, and I, both muscular men, could not lift him upon a mule to carry him to our camp, and for other reasons, I am certain that he weighed at least three hundred pounds. —St. Nicholas.