Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1908-12-11

across the faces OF the cliffs, Of eau
tiously creeping along the narrow
lodges, peering over every crest long
and carefully. and from the peaks
scanning the ground all about with the
ield-glasses. But WI saw no sheep.
and but little sign of them.
Finally we struck the head of a long.
winding valley with a smooth bottom,
n after cantering down 1t four or
five miles. came to the river. just after
the cold. pale-red sun had sunk behind
the line of hills ahead of us. Our
horses were sharp shod, and crossed
the ice without difficulty; and in a
grove of ~leafess cotton-woods, on the
opposite side, we found the hut for
which we had been making. the cow
boy already inside with the fire
started. Throughout the night the
temperature sank lower and lower,
and it was impossible to keep the
crazy old hut anywhere near freezing
point; the wind whistled through the
chinks and %crannies Of the logs, and.
after a short and by no means elab-
crate supper, we were glad to cover
down with our great fur coats still on.
under the pile of buffalo robes and
bear skins. My sleepins-bag came in
very handily. and kept me as warm as
possible, in spite Of the bitter frost.
We were up and had taken breakfast
next morning by the time the first
streak of dawn had dimmed the bril-
liancy of the stars. and Immediately
afterwards strobe Off on foot, as we
had been hampered by the horses or
the day before. This day. though the
weather had grown even colder, we did
not feel 1t, for we walked all the while
with q quick pace, and the climbing
was very hard work. The shoulders
and lodges of the cliffs had become
round and slippery with the ice, and 1t
was no easy eask to move up and
along them. clutching the gun in one
hand. and g%rasping each little projec-
ton with the other.
When on the way back to camp. where
the buttes rose highest and steepest,
we came upon fresh tracks, but as 1t
was then late In the afternoon. did not
try to follow them that day. When
near the hut | killed q sharptail for
supper, making rather a neat shot. the
bird being eighty yards off. The night
was even colder than the preceding
one, and all signs told us that we
would soon have a change for the
worse in the weather, which made me
doubly anxious TO get a sheep before
the storm struck us. We determined
that next morning we would take the
horses and make a quick push for the
chain of high buttes where we had
seen the fresh tracks, and hunt them
through with thorough care.
We started in the cold gray of the
morning and pricked rapidly off over
the frozen plain. columns of white
steam rising from the nostrils of the
galloplng horses. When we reached
the foot of the hills where we intended
TO hunt. and had tethered the horses,
the sun had already risen, but it was
evident that the clear weather of a fort
night past was over The air was thick
and hazy, and away off in the north
west a towering mass of grayish white
clouds looked like u weather-breeder
every thing BODIED a storm at no dis
tant date. The country over which we
now hunted was wilder and more
mountainous than any we had yet
struck. High, sharp peaks and ridges
broke off abruptly into narrow gorges
and deep rayiness they were bare of
all but the scantiest vegetation, saw
on some of the sheltered sides where
grew groves of dark pines. now laden
dnurn with fnafhorV cnnUr Thn alimh-
ing was as hard as ever. At first we
went straight up the side of the tallest
peak, and then along the knife-like
ridge which Joined 1t with the next.
The ice made the footing very slippery
as we stepped along the lodges or
crawled round the jutting shoulders.
and we had to look carefully for our
footholds: while in the cold. thin air
every quick burst we made up a steep
hill caused us to pant for breath. We
had gone but a little way before we
saw fresh signs of the animals We
were after, but it was some time be-
fore we came upon the quarry itself.
We left the high ground and de-
scending into a narrow chasm walked
along it's bottom, which was but a
couple of feet wide, while the sides
rose up from it at an acute angle
After following this for a few hundred
yards, we turned a sharp corner. and
shortly afterward u eyes were
caught by some grains of fresh earth
lying on the snow In front of our feet.
On the sides, some feet above our
heads, were marks in the snow which
n moments glance showed us had been
made by a couple of mountain sheep
that had come down one side of the
gorge and had leaped across to the
other. their sharp toes going through
the thin snow and displacing the earth
that had fallen to the bottom. The
tracks had evidently been made just