Colorado -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Outdoor books; Rocky Mountain National Park (Colo.) -- History; Rocky Mountains
In one of the side cañons on the Colorado in Arizona, I was for a
number of days close to a flock of wild sheep which evidently had
never before seen man. On their first view of me they showed marked
curiosity, which they satisfied by approaching closely, two or three
touching me with their noses. Several times I walked among the flock
with no excitement on their part. I was without either camera or gun.
The day I broke camp and moved on, one of the ewes followed me for
more than an hour.
They become intensely alert and wild when hunted; but in localities
where they are not shot at they quickly become semi-domestic, often
feeding near homes of friendly people. During the winter sheep
frequently come from the heights to feed near my cabin. One day, after
a number had licked salt with my pony, a ram which appeared as old as
the hills walked boldly by my cabin within a few feet of it, head
proudly up. After long acquaintance and many attempts I took his
photograph at five feet and finally was allowed to feel of his great
horns!
[Illustration: A WILD MOUNTAIN SHEEP
_Copyright, 1913, by Enos A. Mills_]
A few years ago near my cabin a ram lost his life in a barbed-wire
fence. He and a number of other rams had fed, then climbed to the top
of a small crag by the roadside. While they were there, a man on
horseback came along. Indifferently they watched him approach; but
when he stopped to take a picture all but one fled in alarm, easily
leaping a shoulder-high fence. After a minute the remaining ram became
excited, dashed off to follow the others, and ran into the fence. He
was hurled backward and one of his curved horns hooked over a wire.
Finding himself caught, he surged desperately to tear himself free. In
doing this a barb severed the jugular vein. He fell and freed his horn
from the wire in falling. Rising, he ran for the crag from which he
had just fled, with his blood escaping in great gushes. As he was
gaining the top of the crag he rolled over dead.
A flock which is often divided into two, one of ewes and one of rams,
lives on the summit of Battle Mountain, at an altitude of twelve
thousand feet, about four miles from my cabin. I have sometimes
followed them when they were rambling. About the middle of one
September this flock united and moved off to the south. I made haste
to climb to the top of Mt. Meeker so as to command most of their
movements. I had been watching for several hours without even a
glimpse of them. Rising to move away, I surprised them as they lay at
rest near-by, a little below the summit; and I also surprised a lion
that evidently was sneaking up on them. This was close to the altitude
of fourteen thousand feet. The mountain lion is the game-hog of the
heights and is a persistent and insidious foe of sheep. He kills both
old and young, and usually makes a capture by sneaking up on his
victim. Sometimes for hours he lies in wait by a sheep trail.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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