The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-01-06
TRUTH ABOUT BIG HORNS.
4 Nan From The Foothills Puts The
Wild Sheep Right.
Dow's story Of the l,5oo-foot jump
Taken by a Flock Of 3Oo-Their 1000
foot stairways in the Mountains-A
Lions Fate.

81 object" SAID the man from the foot
hills. Il draw the line right here. Read
thatr'
lie handel out this newspaper clipping
". Is. Dow Of the Green Mountain Cat
tic Company relates that he saw near his
ranch on Powder river. not long ago.
band of 80 mountain sheep. They were
browsing on lofty cliff. when, for some
unac-ountable reason. the flock became
stamueded and rushed away like the
whlriw.nd. on they scame pell-men TO
the edge Of the cliff. which was cut sharp
into O perpend!cular decline Of fully 500
feet The leaders paused, but there was
no help for a.; the rear guard crowded
them over, and the entire.nock went neck
over heels down into space It was no
doubt "A curious sight to see 300 mountain
sheep doubled up into balls and falling
over such a lofty precipice. Down they
came, one after another until the
whole band had made the awful jump.
AZ this was such a frightful leap for
any breathing creature to make and live,
10 Is not surprising to know that thirteen
ont of the 300 We're killed by the concus-
sion. The cowboys of the ranch secured
the meat which they declared far SUI
peror to their cho.ce Montana steers.
what DO you think of him." continued
the man from the foothills. What do
YOU think Of Dow?" / don't know him.
ana ] don't know his cattle company.
Never heard Of either Of 'em. But III
say it right now that there has been a
good many lies told about the Rocky
Mountain sheep. but this thing of Dow's
beats EN- all. 1 don't see how he can ever
look a big horn sheep ia the face without
feeling sheepish himself after that !
draw the line at Dow
Fifteen hundred feetw said the man
who was listening. "The idea Of anything
tumbling 500 feet and living / should
say IL was q lier'
"EIuh?' said The man from the foothills.
THAT 800 feets all right. Fifteen hun
| dret feet Amt surprising for a big horn
| to jump. That Amt what I'm kicking
about. Dow's all right on the 150O feet"
Where does the lie come in them
! asked the man who was listening.
Where does the lie come in? Why.
| Dow says thirteen of them sheep were
/ killed don't he2"
yves"
| Wen, that's where the lie comes in!
/ The idea that there ever was a Rocky
/ Mountain sheep that would let "a little
| drop of a quarter of a mile or so wipe it
QUIT Thirteen o. those sheep killed! Why,
blamed f / don't doubt the 800 now. and
/ the 1,50O-foot jump"
! If the man who was listening had any
/ further opinion on the subject he didn't
/ mention f.
"Its time now, that there was a little
/ truth told about the Rocky Mountain
/ sheep" continued the man from the foot
! hills. I'm the first place, you'd think
/ from what Dow says. and from what most
/ everybody else has always said about the
big horn. that this top-heavy, but cute
q nj Of ha md xHrega a
ways in the habit of going down stairs.
so to speak, IA that simple and easy way
of just doubling up and tumbling down,
but he isn't. He only does that when
/ he's feeling gay, and IS out for a lark.
| His regular business way of getting
down from the top OF precipice to the
/ bottom is good deal slleker piece Of
work, and Il makes me mad, knowing that
/ he can do st, to have a chap like this Dow
| stand up and say that a big horn would
| hesitate to take a leap Of 1900 feet, and
had to be pushed off before he'd do H..
Never saw any of them 9OOo-feet-h!gh
I chuncks of the Rockies, where the big
horn gets its fodder did you? Thought
you never did from the way you spoke up
a while ago. That's about as high up as
the big horn climbs, for the air amt quite
heavy enough for him any further up.
Wei sir, them hills most of EN- are
split here and there clear from bottom to
one part of a hill had been yanked away
from the other part for twenty, fifty or
even hundred feet. and left there. I
don't know whatever did the yanlling,
but 1t was done, and there amt any doubt
in my mind that it was done on purpose
to make stairs for the big horn sheep to
get down toward bottom when he WASH t
exactly pleased with having hunters or
mountain Hons on his track, and wanted
to set away, How do I know them hills
were yanlSed apart? Why, by looking
at the sides of the big split. on one side
you Will see rock sticking out couple Of
feet or so, and on the opposite side,
straight across from where the rock juts
out, you'u see a hole in the wall just the
shape of the rock opposite 1t. And youN
see them rocks sticking out all the way
down. sometimes on one side and some
times on the other, cut with u hole OPP
pos.te each one. What does that show?
Why, it shows that, if YOU could shove
that split together, the rocks would every
one fix plumb and snug into the hole OPP
pOsIte it, just the same as they id before
the hill was yanked apart. Maybe one
Of these rocks VIII be a hundred feet be-
low the one above il, and maybe more,
and SO on down, all the way to the bottom
of the split Now do you see? Them
splits are scattered around all over the
big horn sheep pastures and whenever
you see a big horn, or ten, or no matter
how many, shipping the bunchgrass and
shifting now and then for danger, you
can bet that one O. them Straightforward
down stairways isn't far away, and that
If the danger they're always looking for
comes, every big horn in sight WI be
out Of sight in less than the jerk of one
of their lambs tails. Where would they
go? Downstairs, of course,
Here you are! Top of the split Zip
coes the biz; horn down to the first rock
that sticks out on the other side. Maybe
it's twenty feet. maybe it's a hundred
It's all the same to the big horn. He
lights on the shelf and drops down to the
next rock on the opposite side. And sc
on. zg-zag. to and fro, criss-cross, until
he has climbed to the bottom. That's the
way the big horn sheep goes down from
his mountain home when he's on business
bent. Does he climb up the same way
I can't say as to that 1 never saw hin
DO it. I viii wait to see what this mar
Dow says about it, If he says that the bis
horn can't climb up stairs then I shall
believe that the big horn can.
Il suppose that Dow would say that
what I'm going to tell you now about G
big horn is way off, but I started in tC