At the base of the mountain, where rock sloped up steeply from sand, he checked his horse and a joyful exclamation burst from him. An eager whine came from Blaze, as he, too, snuffed in the sand. Here they had discovered a regular mountain sheep runway! The big cloven tracks, like pairs of roll biscuit prints, were plentiful and deeply graven in the sand. They ran both ways, but a vague impulse, coupled with a decided penchant for climbing up and exploring these mountains, led Sid to halt at the first lone track that led off upward from the main game trail. It was now nearly noon, and he knew that the sheep would be high in the mountains at this time of day. He picketed Pinto out on a patch of grass and started up on foot. Helped by Blaze’s nose it would not be very hard to follow that track. Where a print lacked in the rocky soil, eager barks from the Airedale now led Sid on. They were climbing fast and furiously before they knew it, the impetuous dog leading Sid up and up the immense craggy slopes. Below him the garden of the Pass rolled out in a great gray plain. A mile down it the faint belling of Ruler told him that the mule deer was still leading them a busy chase. His own sheep tracks were rising toward the ridge in a series of steep bounds, climbing with ease where Sid had to haul himself up or make toilsome detours to avoid formidable white choya bushes. Sid hoped it was a ram. Since the Montana hunt for the Ring-Necked Grizzly he had not shot a single specimen of that king of American game animals, the Big-Horn. A Pinacate head, to match his Montana one, would look mightly well in the Colvin trophy den now located at their new ranch up in the Gila Cañon. Presently Blaze let out a volleying bray and raced on up the rocks toward the ridge. There came a clatter of rolling stones, and Sid looked up to see a huge ram, followed by two ewes, silhouetted for an instant against the blue skyline. Immense curled horns encircled the big sheep’s head. For a moment he stopped and looked back, his superb head poised grandly, his horns branching out in regular symmetrical spirals, his white ears standing out like thumbs in front of the horns and his white nose, cleft with the black mouth and nostril lines, a circle of white against his brown neck. Sid shouted to the dog sharply and raised his rifle, but before he could steady the sights the ram wheeled and was gone like a silent shadow. Blaze yelped and roared out his ferocious challenge, then at Sid’s repeated yells he turned and came back whining with impatience. The youth began to feel that Blaze would be a mere nuisance in this sheep hunting because of his lack of experience. Ruler would have circled craftily to head off the Big-Horn and drive him back on the hunter, but Blaze was always for the stern chase and the pitched battle!