But by far the most interesting mountain-top dwellers were the Bighorn sheep, which adopted those frigid regions as a winter resort. I had often wondered about those lofty-minded animals I had tracked over in the Wild Basin country. Were they still on those wind-blown heights? It seemed incredible that they could stand a whole winter of such bitter buffeting. Yet, on the days when I climbed above the timberline, no matter the weather, they were always there, contentedly feeding on the sweet, early-cured tufts of grass that the raging alpine gales kept uncovered. It was fascinating to watch them; neither wild winds nor blinding snow seemed to disconcert them; their thick wool coats were impervious to the keenest, most penetrating blasts. True, on terribly stormy days they sought the shelter of giant upthrusts of rock, towering cliffs or sky-piercing spires that faced eastward, away from the prevailing winds. There they probably stayed for days at a time, as long as the worst storms prevailed. Such days I did not dare venture upon the heights, but I often found signs of their bedding down among similar crags. And such nerveless or nervy creatures as they were! From the top of a cliff, one day, I watched a band of them go down a nearly perpendicular wall. I could not follow, though I did go part way down to where the wall bulged outward. There the ledges had crumbled away, leaving sheer, smooth rock. It did not seem possible that anything could go down that smooth face. But half a dozen sheep in succession made the descent safely, as I watched, breathless, from above. They seemed to defy the laws of gravitation in walking over the rim rock; for, instead of tumbling headlong as I feared, they went skidding downward, bouncing, side-stepping, twisting and angling across the wall like coasters on snow; they could not stop their downward drop, but they controlled their descent by making brakes of their feet, and taking advantage of every small bump to retard their speed. By foot pressure they steered their course for a shelving rock below. One after another, in quick succession, they shot down, struck the shelf and leaped sidewise to a ledge a dozen feet beneath. In spite of their efforts to retard their speed, they had gained tremendous momentum before reaching the ledge and landed with all four feet bunched beneath them. It seemed that their legs would surely be thrust through their bodies. Their heads jerked downward, their noses threatened to be skinned on the rock! Yet that rough descent neither disabled nor unnerved them. They recovered their balance instantly and trotted away around a turn of the wall.