The Dillon herald. [volume] (Dillon, S.C.) 1894-????, 1911-11-02


ing to what l am told about those
sheep of the Rockies, 1t would seem
Ia be about as easy thing for a
person to get his hands on one or
those wary and agile animals as 1t
would be to grab streak OF light
ming. They tell me about hunters
following bighorn for days and
weeks and almost to the clouds on
the breast of the Sierras before
they managed to get within rifle
reach of it. Consequently the cap
ture of one in a mixup at close
quarters is something of feat.
Frank Baker went to Montana
to become a cattleman, and he start
ed ranch somewhere in the neigh
borhood of Boulder. If he had
been out hunting bighorn sheep that
day perhaps he wouldn't have got
within a mile of one, but he wasn't
out hunting sheep or anything else.
He was simply out for a stroll
among the hills, accompanied by
his shepherd dog, Dan. Dan wasn't
trained to herd bighorn sheep, but
when he and his master came sud
denly upon one at the foot of a
sloping bank which was crowned
by a perpendicular rocky cliff thirty
feet high he pitched right in to
round that sheep up.
THE sheep, thus taken by sur
prise, bounded up the sloping bank,
Dan at his heels. The high cliff
cut off its retreat up the mountain,
and when the sheep came to the rise
of the rocks it recognized the
critical situation at once and con-
cluded that the only way to get re-
lief from it was to do up the dog,
and it turned on Dan.
The bighorn presented a front to
the dog that instantly caused him
to pause and ponder. Wisely keep
ing out of reach of the tremendous
battering ram the sheep welded, the
/ dog Dan was still some onto his
job, for he kept the animal stand
ing at bay, backed up against the
cliff, by safe and noisy manoeuvres.
/ up on the Susquehanna water
shed Frank Baker was always quite
a thinker and he sized up the
strategic points of the unpreced-
ented situation and found himself
remarking to himself:
There's a first rate chance of
my breaking my neck in trying 1t,
but if l don't break it I will do
something that 1 never heard OF
any one doing yet, and that's to
make a prisoner of bighorn and
and take it home alive. Guess I'll
take the chance
$50 he sneaked around until he
found = place he could Chamber up
the cliff to the summit. Returning
along the top of the cliff until he
was directly above the sheep, which
was still standing on the defensive
against the dog. Baker took the
thirty foot drop and landed astride
the sleeps back. Without a Sec
shook him up until his teeth rat
tied he threw his arms around the
sleeps neck and locked his fingers
together, bringing all the pressure
he was capable of bearing on the
bighorn's breather.
THE instant Frank struck the
sleeps back the sheep then
lost all interest in the dog, making
a couple of tremendous hounds, the
effect of which on it's rider was suf.
fictent to make that of the coming
down of the buckingest of the buck
ing broncos feel like landing or
downy feathers, and finding that i
could not shake off the incubus
the sheep threw itself on it's side
and rolled over down 1.-THE slope
Frank was showed along as tht
From that time on the sheep
rose he was on it's back again like
a flash.
Prom that time onn the sheep
man and dog, Dan having taken
part in the downward trip, bound.
ed, rolled and slid, until the bot.
tom or the hill was reached. The
Journey was not long but it was full
| OF action W. -
the bottom Frank Baker had scarce.
ly a stitch of clothes on him, and
he was mashed and slashed, and as
near out OF wind as one could well
De and still had enough left to keen
thlngs going. But he held on to
the sheep, still on its back, and
clasping it around the throat.
In the melee the sheep had put
Ian out of commission, and the
dog was raising his yells with the
SHOUTS Frank was lifting up. In the
nope that some one at the ranch,
which was only quarter of a mile
away, would hear and hasten to his
The racket at the foot of the
nil was heard after while by one of
the men at the ranch, who grabbed
gun and scooted for the seat of
trouble. Frank was naked, bleed
IHs and covered with dirt, but
when his man arrived and was
TO shoot thesheep, he shouted to
him not to shoot but to go back and
get rope and rope the critter. The
man wasn't long in obeying orders,
and he got back in time to rope the
sheep before Frank fell exhausted
from his struggle to hold it. 9th
er help came and got Frank back
10 The ranch and took the lassoed
sheep along.
III that bighorn had only known
wnat was well for it it would have
acted differently, for Frank intend
ed TO send it East to me, and it
could have spent the rest of it's days