"But this ain't getting _my_ big-horn, you know," remarked Step Hen, as though the feel of those massive curved head-pieces had thrown him into a new fever of impatience to secure his own trophies; for it would be a shame if the greenhorn of the party should be the only one to exhibit positive evidences of their having shot game. "Come along then, and we'll soon git around to whar p'raps ye might climb down, if so be ye're keerful not to slip," and the guide once more started off. "Oh! do we abandon my big-horn, then?" cried Smithy, as though half tempted to refuse to leave the spot on what might prove to be a wild-goose chase; to him it seemed like leaving the substance to try and catch the shadow. "We kin come back this way, and take keer of it then," said Toby; and with this assurance Smithy had to rest content. After some further scrambling along the face of the steep slope, digging their toes into the shale that often crumbled under them, when they might risk a serious ride down the side of the mountain only for the fact that they managed to cling fast with their hands, they reached a point where it was extra rocky, and a pretty sheer descent. "Down thar your sheep lies," the guide said, pointing as he spoke. Step Hen immediately laid his gun aside, and crawling to the edge he looked over. "I don't see hide or hair of it, though, Toby?" he complained. "No more you kin," returned the other, with decision marked in both voice and manner; "but all the same it's down thar, not more'n a hundred feet at most. I got my bearin's fine. Look off yonder, and yell see whar we lay when ye did the shootin' at the big horns." "He's right, Step Hen," said Davy Jones, after looking to where the guide was pointing so confidently. "I'd know that rock among a thousand. I'll never forget it, either. And yes, your sheep must be lying below us right now." "I think the same, fellows," asserted Smithy, who was beginning to feel that he ought to give his opinion of things after this, since he was now an actual _boni fide_ hunter, and had even secured one of the most wary of all wild animals in the whole West. "But why don't I see it, then?" demanded Step Hen, always very stubborn, and needing to be shown. "Ye see," the guide explained, "the face of the mountain backs in some, in a general way. That tells the story. The only thing that bothers me is, if I had ought to let ye try and get down thar, so's to shove the sheep off, and land it at the bottom; or make the riffle myself." "Oh! I wouldn't think of letting you try it," declared Step Hen, quickly. "I'm young and spry, and used to climbing up cliffs and such stunts, besides," he added as a clincher, "it's _my_ big horn, you know."