Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 2.djvu/181

Rh That it was and yet is a magnificent sheep country, there is little doubt. Its long distance from the now small band of Stony Indians at Morley and the nearly exhausted game country intervening, is probably a sufficient reason for the greater abundance of animal life which we saw there. We had followed a most marvellous Indian trail over the worst bed of boulders I ever met for horses to travel, had climbed on and on, lured by the old trail, until well toward 9,000 feet, when we suddenly surprised a band of sheep. They had probably never seen a human being before. On the defensive at once, they were off like a flash before our astonished gaze, along a bare rock-face and up an almost perpendicular wall covered with ice that the most fearless Swiss guide would not have dared attempt, and over which they bounded as though it were but a meadow of upland grass. Reaching the high and inaccessible crags, they paused, and for a moment gazed upon us far below; then a magnificent ram appeared to take the lead. The others disappeared, but the massive head of the leader, with its great horns, stood motionless against the grey sky, his attitude alert, his body immovable. Only, as we moved back and down the valley, we could discern that he turned to keep us in view. Such a picture! The dreary wastes of naked rock, the cold glistening glaciers all about us, the early snows in the unexposed niches, the dying alpine flowers at our feet, then, high above, clinging to the superb crags outlined against an angry sky, stood that emblem of a noble and fast-disappearing creature—the Rocky Mountain sheep.

From the Brazeau country we made our way back toward Nigel Pass, crossed Cataract Pass and descended