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Show 314 THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL. young .. quaw, to whom he was addressing various insinuating compliments. All the old squaws in the neighborhood watched his proceedings in great admiration, and the girl herself would turn aside her head and laugh. Just then the old mule thought proper to display her vicious pranks; she began to rear and plunge most furiously. Raymond was an excellent rider, and at first he stuck fast in his seat ; but the moment after, I saw the mule's hind-legs flourishing in the air, and my unlucky follower pitching head foremost over her ears. There was a burst of screams and laughter from all the women, in which his mistress herself took part, and Raymond was instantly assailed by such a shower of witticisms, that he was glad to ride forward out of hearing. , Not long after, as I rode near him, I heard him shouting to me. f-Ie was pointing toward a detached rocky hill that stood in the middle of the valley before us, and from behind it a long file of elk came out at full speed and entered an opening in the side of the mountain. They had scarcely disappeared, when whoops and exclamations came from fifty voices around me. The young men leaped from their horses, flung down their heavy buffalo-robes, and ran at full speed toward the foot of the nearest mountain. Reynal also broke away at a gallop in the same direction, 'Come on ! come on !' he called to us. 'Do you see that band of big-horn up yonder? If there's one of them, there's a hundred!' In fact, near the summit of the mountain, I could see a large number of small white objects, moving rapidly upward among the precipices, while others were filing along its rocky profile. Anxious to see the sport, I galloped forward, and .en· tcring a passage in the side of the mountain, ascended among PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 315 the loose rocks as far as my horse could carry me. Here I fastened her to an old pine-tree that stood alone, scorching in the sun. At that moment Raymond called to me from the right that another band of sheep was close at hand in that direction. I ran up to the top of the opening, which gave me a full view into the rocky gorge beyond ; and here I plainly saw some fifty or sixty sheep, almost within rifle-shot, clattering upward among the rocks, and endeavoring, after their usual custom, to reach the highest point. The naked Indians bounded up lightly in pursuit. In a moment the game and hunters disappea'red. Nothing could be seen or heard but the occasional report of a gun, more and more distant, reverberating among the rocks. I turned to descend, and as I did so, I could sec 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 amono- the Indians ladles with long 5 handles, capable of containing more than a quart, cut out from such horns. There is something peculiarly interesting in the character |
