The party picked its way carefully over slippery, slimy, ooze-covered shale to the specimen beds. Geodes, rounded nodules of rock, filled with waxy uncrystallized deposits of infiltrated silicious waters were broken open, presenting in some instances masses of infinitesimal stalactites, in others the beautiful ribbon agate so much prized by the mineralogist, with its alternate rows of different colors. Much more difficult to find was chrysoprase in green, and the flesh red carnelian, all of these known as chalcedony and of which in Rev. 21:19 and 20, St. John describes the third foundation of the wall of the holy city as "a chalcedony," the tenth foundation "a chrysoprasus." Hours were spent in digging these precious souvenirs from their resting place. Far above, an occasional mountain sheep appeared for a moment, reconnoitering to see if it was safe for him to descend with his family to the night camp of the Big Horn, for the oozy, slimy deposit was salty and this "lick" was the most famous in all the great length and breadth of the Rocky Mountains. It consequently became the resort of thousands of those wary, intelligent animals, but there were times when the insatiable desire for alkali grew so strong that no danger appalled them, and they rushed recklessly only to meet death at the hands of the hunter who took advantage of this weakness. Skulls, broken horns and bones could be discerned upon the apex of many of the spires or truncated cones which rose at intervals from the eruptive lava, that in ages gone by had broken forth from the earth's crust, the surface of one of these beds being, in many cases, not over three feet in width, while the precipitous sides of the cone varied from one foot to a thousand feet. To these dizzy spots, which formed the Big Horn's aerial stairway, did this wonderful animal bound, whether pursued or in search of a resting place, alighting with sure foot, and immediately curling down for a nap or another bound in event danger was scented. That leap from danger was in itself marvelous--with all four feet curled beneath that ponderous body, the iron muscles warmed by the heavy hair coat, it was not the laborious effort of a steer elevating its hindquarters, unfolding one foreleg and then the other with a groan; it was a propulsion of a seemingly inert mass into space, a touch of toes to the earth and another bound into the air and probably out of sight, for that stairway is a mass of intricate, steep sided fissures, deep rifts opening one into another, each presenting a ledge sufficiently large to enable one of these sure-footed travelers to find "bouncing room" and so down, down, down for a thousand or more feet this denizen of the clouds would make his escape. This method of retreat being so sudden and the disappearance so sure, tales have been ofttimes told of the wonderful leaps into mid air, dropping to the bottom of one of those cañons and of