Our last descent of fifteen hundred feet in three miles brought us to the neat log tavern kept by W.L. Bailey, where we found a supper of trout just from the river, together with mountain-raspberries and delicious cream, and clean, comfortable beds. When we looked out next morning everything appeared so pleasant in this sheltered valley, and the house was so comfortable, that we determined to stay here a day and enjoy some sketching and fishing. Sepia took her pencils and ascended the hill behind the house, and we others got out our rods and followed the example set us by Simon Peter. The Platte, which ran through the meadow about a quarter of a mile away, was a brown, shallow stream, twenty feet wide, fretting over a rocky bed, with little pools and rapids which had a promising look; so we looped on a red and a brown hackle and began to cast. Levell walked down stream about a quarter of a mile before he began, so as to leave a piece of water for the Scribe. The sun shone very bright and hot, and only a few small trout answered my invitations. They were darker and less brilliant in color than our _Salmo fontinalis_, and were, I think, _Salmo Lewisii_, which inhabits these waters. The valley was about half a mile wide, and shut in on each side by mountains of red granite, crowned with pines. Bailey's people were making hay in the valley, and I sat down on a fragrant haycock to await the return of my companion. Presently I observed a horseman coming up the valley: he was a hunter, followed by a couple of hounds, with the carcass of a mountain-sheep, or bighorn (_Ovis montana_), on the saddle in front of him. He told me he had killed it on the mountain behind us, and was taking it to Bailey's for sale. It was an animal something in color like a deer, and about as heavy, though shorter in the leg, with very large curved horns, like those of a ram. He said they were numerous in these mountains, and he had killed six of them in a day, but had to lower them down the precipices with a lariat, which was hard work. I asked if the story was true that these creatures would throw themselves from high rocks, and, turning over in the air, pitch upon their horns with safety. He said he had hunted them many years, but never saw that performance. Being asked if he thought they could do it, he replied that he reckoned they _could_, but would be smashed if they did. Being interrogated on the subject of grizzly bears, he replied that there _were_ grizzlies hereabouts, but that he never hunted them: he had no use for grizzlies. In a couple of hours Levell returned, having fished the stream for a mile or more: he had got about twenty small trout. We found that Sepia had been more successful than ourselves, for she had made some effective water-color sketches of the scenery.