American Big Game in Its Haunts Part 15

"I went around to station my man where he could get a rest for his rifle, and when I had done this, I went around above to make the sheep get up to drive him out, so that the man could shoot him. After I got well up the gulch, above him, the sheep could see me plainly, and I could see his eyes. I hesitated about making him get up, thinking perhaps it was somebody's tame sheep, but we were the first ones up there that spring, and of course it was not a tame sheep. If we had not been out of meat I would not have disturbed the animal. I walked toward it to make it get up, but it would not, and still lay there. When I was within thirty feet of it I took up a stone and threw it, and called at him. The sheep stood up and looked at me. I said, 'Go on, now,' and he started in the direction I wished him to take. When he came in sight, the man fired two or three shots at him, but did not hurt him, and the sheep again lay down in sight of camp. Afterward I fired at him about 300 yards up the side of the mountain, but I did not touch him. However, he was disturbed by the shooting, and moved away.

"It is often difficult to find a reason for the way sheep act. It is possible that this young ram, which was in the Sunlight Mining District, had seen many miners, and that they had not disturbed him, and that so he had lost his fear of man. He was not at all afraid of horses, perhaps because he was accustomed to seeing miners' horses; or he may have taken them for elk. I do not see why our wind did not alarm him. At all events, for some reason, this one showed no fear.

"Along the Gardiner River, inside the northern boundary of the Yellowstone Park, there are always a number of sheep in winter, and they become very tame, having learned by experience that people pa.s.sing to and fro will not injure them. Men driving up the road from Mammoth Hot Springs to Gardiner, constantly see these sheep, which manifest the utmost indifference to those who are pa.s.sing them. Sometimes they stand close enough to the road for a driver to reach them with his whip. One winter the surgeon at the post, driving along, came upon a sheep standing in the road, and as it did not move, he had to stop his team for it. He did not dare to drive his horse close up to it. Finally the ram jumped out to one side of the road, and the surgeon drove on. He said he could have touched it with his whip."

One winter when Mr. Hofer made an extended snowshoe trip through the Park, he pa.s.sed very close to sheep. It appeared to him that they fear man less along the wagon roads than when he is out on the benches and in the mountains. They seem to care little for man, but if a mountain lion appears in the neighborhood, the sheep are no longer seen. Just where they go is uncertain, but it is believed that they cross the Yellowstone River by swimming.

In winter, and especially late in the winter, sheep frequent southern and southwestern exposures, and spend much of their time there. I have seen places on the St. Marys Lake, in northern Montana, where there were cartloads of droppings, apparently the acc.u.mulation of many years, and have seen the same thing in the cliffs along the Yellowstone River. On the rocks here there were many beds among the cliffs and ledges. Often such beds are behind a rock, not a high one, but one that the sheep could look over. In places such as this the animals are very difficult to detect.

Although the wild sheep was formerly, to a considerable extent, an inhabitant of the western edge of the prairies of the high dry plains, it is so no longer. The settling of the country has made this impossible, but long before its permanent occupancy the frequent pa.s.sage through it by hunters had resulted in the destruction of the sheep or had driven it more or less permanently to those heights where, in times of danger, it had always sought refuge.

To the east of the princ.i.p.al range of the wild sheep in America to-day there are still a few of its old haunts not in the mountains which are so arid or so rough, or where the water is so bad that as yet they have not to any great extent been invaded by the white man. Again to the south and southwest, in portions of Arizona, Old Mexico, and Lower California, there rise out of frightful deserts b.u.t.tes and mountain ranges inhabited by different forms of sheep. In that country water is extremely scarce, and the few water holes that exist are visited by the sheep only at long intervals. There are many men who believe that the sheep do not drink at all, but it is chiefly at these water holes that the sheep of the desert are killed.

At the present day the chief haunts of the mountain sheep are the fresh Alpine meadows lying close to timber line, and fenced in by tall peaks; or the rounded gra.s.sy slopes which extend from timber line up to the region of perpetual snows. Sitting on the point of some tall mountain the observer may look down on the green meadows, interspersed perhaps with little clumps of low willows which grow along the tiny watercourses whose sources are the snow banks far up the mountain side, and if patient in his watch and faithful in his search, he may detect with his gla.s.ses at first one or two, and gradually more and more, until at length perhaps ten, fifteen or thirty sheep may be counted, scattered over a considerable area of country. Or, if he climbs higher yet, and overlooks the rounded shoulders which stretch up from the pa.s.ses toward the highest pinnacles of all--he will very likely see far below him, lying on the hill and commanding a view miles in extent in every direction, a group of nine, ten or a dozen sheep peacefully resting in the midday sun. Those that he sees will be almost all of them ewes and young animals. Perhaps there may be a young ram or two whose horns have already begun to curve backward, but for the most part they are females and young.

The question that the hunter is always asking himself is where are the big rams? Now and then, to be sure, more by accident than by any wisdom of his own, he stumbles on some monster of the rocks, but of the sheep that he sees in his wanderings, not one in a hundred has a head so large as to make him consider it a trophy worth possessing. It is commonly declared that in summer the big rams are "back along the range," by which it is meant that they are close to the summits of the tallest peaks. It is probable that this is true, and that they gather by twos and threes on these tall peaks, and, not moving about very much, escape observation.

During the spring, summer, and early fall the females and their young keep together in small bands in the mountains, well up, close under what is called the "rim rock," or the "reefs," where the gra.s.s is sweet and tender, the going good, and where a refuge is within easy reach. While hunting in such places in September and October, when the first snows are falling, one is likely to find the trail of a band of sheep close up beneath the rock. If the mountain is one long inhabited by sheep, they have made a well-worn trail on the hillside, and the little band, while traveling along this in a general way, scatters out on both sides feeding on the gra.s.s heads that project above the snow, and often with their noses pushing the light snow away to get at the gra.s.s beneath. I have never seen them do this, nor have I seen them paw to get at the gra.s.s, but the marks in the snow where they have fed showed clearly that the snow was pushed aside by the muzzle.

Like most other animals, wild and tame, sheep are very local in their habits, and one little band will occupy the same basin in the mountains all summer long, going to water by the same trail, feeding in the same meadows and along the same hillsides, occupying the same beds stamped out in the rough slide rock, or on the great rock ma.s.ses which have fallen down from the cliff above. Even if frightened from their chosen home by the pa.s.sage of a party of travelers, they will go no further than to the tops of the rocks, and as soon as the cause of alarm is removed will return once more to the valley.

I saw a striking instance of this some years ago, when, with a Geological Survey party, I visited a little basin on the head of one of the forks of Stinking Water in Wyoming, where a few families of sheep had their home.

Our appearance alarmed the sheep, which ran a little way up the face of the cliff, and then, stopping occasionally to look, clambered along more deliberately. When we reached the head of the basin we found that there was no way down on the other side, and that we must go back as we had come. The afternoon was well advanced and the pack train started back and camped only a mile or two down the valley, while I stopped among some great rocks to watch the movements of the sheep. Though at first not easy to see, the animals' presence was evident by their calling, and at length several were detected almost at the top of the cliff, but already making their way back into the valley.

I was much interested in watching a ewe, which was coming down a steep slope of slide rock. There was apparently no trail, or if there was one, she did not use it, but picked her way down to the head of the slope of slide rock, stood there for a few moments, and then, after bleating once or twice, sprang well out into the air and alighted on the slide rock, it seemed to me, twenty-five feet below where she had been. A little cloud of dust arose and she appeared to be buried to her knees in the slide rock. I could not see how it was possible for her to have made this jump without breaking her slender legs, yet she repeated it again and again, until she had come down about to my level and had pa.s.sed out of sight. Nor was this ewe the only one that was coming down. From a number of points on the precipice round about I could hear rocks rolling and sheep calling, and before very long eight or ten ewes and four or five lambs had come together in the little basin, and presently marched almost straight up to where I lay hid. There was meat in the camp, and so no reason for shooting at these innocents. Later when I returned to camp, one of the packers informed me that for an hour or two before a yearling ram had been feeding in the meadow with the pack animals, close to the camp.

The sheep now commonly shows himself to be the keenest and wariest of North American big game. Yet we may readily credit the stories told us by older men of his former simplicity and innocence, since even to-day we sometimes see these characteristics displayed. I remember riding up a narrow valley walled in on both sides by vertical cliffs and at its head by a rock wall which was partly broken down, and through which we hoped to find a way into the next valley to the northward. As we rode along, a mile or more from the cliff at the valley's head, I saw one or two sheep pa.s.sing over it, and a few minutes later was electrified by hearing my companion say: "Oh, look at the sheep! Look at the sheep!

Look at the sheep!" And there, charging down the valley directly toward us, came a bunch of thirty or forty sheep in a close body, running as if something very terrifying were close behind them, and paying not the slightest attention to the two hors.e.m.e.n before them. I rolled off my horse and loaded my gun. The sheep came within twenty-five or thirty steps and a little to one side, and pa.s.sed us like the wind, but they left behind one of their number, which kept us in fresh meat for several days thereafter.

The first shot I fired at this band gave me a surprise. I drew my sight fine on the point of the breast of the leading animal and pulled the trigger, but instead of the explosion which should have followed I heard the hammer fall on the firing-pin. There was a slow hissing sound, a little puff at the muzzle of the rifle, and I distinctly heard the leaden ball fall to the ground just in front of me. In a moment I had reloaded and had killed the sheep before it had pa.s.sed far beyond me; but for a few seconds I could not comprehend what had happened. Then it came back to me that a few days before I had made from half a dozen cartridges a weight to attach to a fish line for the purpose of sounding the depth of a lake. Evidently a lubricating wad had been imperfect, and dampness had reached the powder.

Like others of our ungulates, wild sheep are great frequenters of "licks"--places where the soil has been more or less impregnated with saline solutions. These licks are visited frequently--perhaps daily--during the summer months by sheep of all ages, and such points are favorite watching places for men who need meat, and wish to secure it as easily as possible. At a certain lick in northern Montana, shots at sheep may be had almost any day by the man who is willing to watch for them. In the summer of 1903 a bunch of nine especially good rams visited a certain lick each day. The guide of a New York man who was hunting there in June--of course in violation of the law--took him to the lick. The first day nine rams came, and the New Yorker, after firing many shots, frightened them all away. Perhaps he hit some of them, for the next day only seven returned, of which three were killed. In British Columbia I have seen twenty-five or thirty sheep working at a lick, from which the earth had been eaten away, so that great hollows and ravines were cut out in many directions from the central spring.

Examination of such licks in cold--freezing--weather, seems to show that the sheep do not then visit them. I have seen mule deer and sheep nibbling the soil in company, and have seen white goats visit a lick frequented also by sheep.

Of Dall's sheep, Mr. Stone declares that it is rapidly growing scarcer, and this statement is based not only on his own observation, but on reports made to him by the Indians. Mr. Stone describes it as possessing wonderful agility, endurance, and vitality, and gives many examples of their ability to get about among most difficult rocks when wounded. He adds: "From my experience with these animals, I believe they seek quite as rugged a country in which to make their homes as does the Rocky Mountain goat. They brave higher lat.i.tudes and live in regions in every way more barren and forbidding." He reports the females with their lambs as generally keeping to the high table lands far back in the mountains. Among the specimens which he recently collected, broken jaw bones reunited were so frequent among the females killed as to excite comment. Notwithstanding Mr. Stone's gloomy view of the future of this species, we may hope that the enforcement of the game laws in Alaska will long preserve this beautiful animal.

Our knowledge of the habits of the Lower California sheep inhabiting the San Pedro Martir Mountains has been slight. Mr. Gould's admirable account of a hunting trip for them--"To the Gulf of Cortez," published in a preceding volume of the Club's book--will be remembered, and the curious fact stated by his Indian guide that the sheep break holes in the hard, p.r.i.c.kly rinds of the venaga cactus with their horns, and then eat out the inside.

Recently, however, a series of thirteen specimens collected by Edmund h.e.l.ler were received by Dr. D.G. Elliot, and described, as already stated, and he gives from Mr. h.e.l.ler's note-book the following notes on their habits:

"Common about the cliffs, coming down occasionally to the water holes in the valley. Most of the sheep observed were either solitary or in small bands of three to a dozen. Only one adult ram was seen, all the others, about thirty, being either ewes or lambs. The largest bunch seen consisted of eleven, mostly ewes and a few young rams." The sheep, as a rule, inhabit the middle line of cliffs where they are safe from attack above and can watch the valley below for danger. Here about the middle line of cliffs they were observed, and the greater number of tracks and dust wallows, where they spend much of their time, were seen. A few were seen on the level stretches of the mesas, and a considerable number of tracks, but these were made by those traveling from one line of cliffs to another.

"They are constantly on guard, and very little of their time is given to browsing. Their usual method is to feed about some high cliffs or rocks, taking an occasional mouthful of brush, and then suddenly throwing up the head and gazing and listening for a long time before again taking food. They are not alarmed by scent, like deer or antelope, the direction of the wind apparently making no difference in hunting them. A small bunch of six were observed for a considerable time feeding. Their method seemed to be much the same as individuals, except that when danger was suspected by any member, he would give a few quick leaps, and all the flock would scamper to some high rock and face about in various directions, no two looking the same way. These maneuvers were often performed, perhaps once every fifteen minutes.

"Their chief enemy is the mountain lion, which hunts them on the cliffs, apparently never about watering places. Lion tracks were not rare about the sheep runs. They are extremely wary about coming down for water, and take every precaution. Before leaving the cliffs to cross the valley to water they usually select some high ridge and descend along this, gazing constantly at the spring, usually halting ten or more minutes on every prominent rocky point. When within a hundred yards or less of the water, a long careful search is made, and a great deal of ear-work performed, the head being turned first to one side and then to the other. When they do at last satisfy themselves, they make a bolt and drink quickly, stopping occasionally to listen and look for danger.

"If, however, they should be surprised at the water they do not flee at once, but gaze for some time at the intruder, and then go a short way and take another look, and so on until at last they break into a steady run for the cliffs. At least thirty sheep were observed at the water, and none came before 9:30 A.M. or later than 2:30 P.M., most coming down between 12:00 M. and 1:00 P.M. This habit has probably been established to avoid lions, which are seldom about during the hottest part of the day. A few ewes were seen with two lambs, but the greater number had only one. Most of the young appeared about two months old. Their usual gait was a short gallop, seldom a walk or trot."

The great curving horns of the wild sheep have always exercised more or less influence on people's imagination, and have given rise to various fables. These horns are large in proportion to the animal, and so peculiar that it has seemed necessary to account for them on the theory that they had some marvelous purpose. The familiar tale that the horns of the males were used as cushions on which the animal alighted when leaping down from great heights is old. A more modern hypothesis which promises to be much shorter lived is that advanced a year or two ago by Mr. Geo. Wherry, of Cambridge, England, who suggested that "The form of the horn and position of the ear enables the wild sheep to determine the direction of sound when there is a mist or fog, the horn acting like an admiralty megaphone when used as an ear trumpet, or like the topophone (double ear trumpet, the bells of which turn opposite ways) used for a fog-bound ship on British-American vessels to determine the direction of sound signals."

It is, of course, well understood, and, on the publication of Mr. Wherry's hypothesis, was at once suggested, that there are many species of wild sheep, and that the spiral of the horn of each species is a different one. Moreover, within each species there are of course different ages, and the spiral may differ with age and also at the same age to some extent with the individual. In some cases, the ear perhaps lies at the apex of a cone formed by the horn, but in others it does not lie there. Moreover this hypothesis, like the other and older one, in which the horns were said to act as the jumping cushion, takes no account of the females and young, which in mists, fogs, and at other times, need protection quite as much as the adult males. The old males with large and perfect horns have to a large extent fulfilled the function of their lives--reproduction--and their place is shortly to be taken by younger animals growing up. Moreover they have reached the full measure of strength and agility, and through years of experience have come to a full knowledge of the many dangers to which their race is exposed. It would seem extraordinary that nature should have cared so well for them, and should have left the more defenseless females and young unprotected from the dangers likely to come to them from enemies which may make sounds in a fog.

The old males with large and perfect horns have come to their full fighting powers, and do fight fiercely at certain seasons of the year. And it is believed by many people that the great development of horns among the mountain sheep is merely a secondary s.e.xual character a.n.a.logous to the antlers of the deer or the spurs of the c.o.c.k.

Most people who have hunted sheep much will believe that this species depends for its safety chiefly on its nose and its eyes. And if the observations of hunters in general could be gathered and collated, they would probably agree that the female sheep are rather quicker to notice danger than the males, though both are quick enough.

PROTECTION.

It is gratifying to note that the rapid disappearance of the mountain sheep has made some impression on legislators in certain States where it is native. Some of these have laws absolutely forbidding the killing of mountain sheep; and while in certain places in all of such States and Territories this law is perhaps lightly regarded, and not generally observed, still, on the whole, its effect must be good, and we may hope that gradually it will find general observance. The mountain sheep is so superb an animal that it should be a matter of pride with every State which has a stock of sheep within its borders to preserve that stock most scrupulously. It is said that in Colorado, where sheep have long been protected, they are noticeably increasing, and growing tamer. I have been told of one stock and mining camp, near Silver Plume, where there is a bunch of sheep absolutely protected by public sentiment, in which the miners, and in fact the whole community, take great pride and delight.

It is fitting that on the statute books the mountain sheep should have better protection than most species of our large game, since there is no other species now existing in any numbers which is more exposed to danger of extinction. Destroyed on its old ranges, it is found now only in the roughest mountains, the bad lands, and the desert, and it is sufficiently desirable as a trophy to be ardently pursued wherever found.

Several States have been wise enough absolutely to protect sheep; these are North Dakota, California, Arizona, Montana, Colorado (until 1907), Utah, New Mexico (until March 1, 1905), and Texas (until July, 1908). Three other States, South Dakota, Wyoming and Idaho, permit one mountain sheep to be killed by the hunter during the open season of each year. Oregon, which has a long season, from July 15 to November 1, puts no limit on the number to be killed, while in Nevada there appears to be no protection for the species.

If these protective laws were enforced, sheep would increase, and once more become delightful objects of the landscape, as they have in portions of Colorado and in the National Park, where, as already stated, they are so tame during certain seasons of the year that they will hardly get out of the way. On the other hand, in many localities covered by excellent laws, there are no means of enforcing them. Montana, which perhaps has as many sheep as any State in the Union, does not, and perhaps cannot, enforce her law, the sheep living in sections distant from the localities where game wardens are found, and so difficult to watch. In some cases where forest rangers are appointed game wardens, they are without funds for the transportation of themselves and prisoners over the one hundred or two hundred miles between the place of arrest and the nearest Justice of the Peace, and cannot themselves be expected to pay these expenses. In the summer of 1903 sheep were killed in violation of law in the mountains of Montana, and also in the bad lands of the Missouri River.

On the other hand, in Colorado there are many places where the law protecting the sheep is absolutely observed. Public opinion supports the law, and those disposed to violate it dare not do so for fear of the law. Near Silver Plume, already mentioned, a drive to see the wild sheep come down to water is one of the regular sights offered to visitors, and while there may be localities where sheep are killed in violation of the law in Colorado, it is certain that there are many where the law is respected.

There are still a few places where sheep may be found to-day, living somewhat as they used to live before the white men came into the western country. Such places are the extremely rough bad lands of the Missouri River, between the Little Rocky Mountains and the mouth of Milk River, where, on account of the absence of water on the upper prairie and the small areas of the bottoms of the Missouri River, there are as yet few settlements. The bad lands are high and rough, scarcely to be traversed except by a man on foot, and in their fastnesses the sheep--protected formally by State law, but actually by the rugged country--are still holding their own. They come down to the river at night to water, and returning spend the day feeding on the uplands of the prairie, and resting in beds pawed out of the dry earth of the washed bad lands, just as their ancestors did.

In old times this country abounded in buffalo, elk, deer of two species, sheep, and antelope, and if set aside as a State park by Montana, it would offer an admirable game refuge, and one still stocked with all its old-time animals, except the elk and the buffalo.

RANGE.

The present range of the different forms of mountain sheep extends from Alaska and from the Pacific Ocean east to the Rocky Mountains--with a tongue extending down the Missouri River as far as the Little Missouri--south to Sonora and Lower California. The various forms from north to south appear to be Dall's sheep, the saddleback sheep, Stone's sheep, the common bighorn, with the Missouri River variety, existing to the east, in the bad lands, and with Nelson's, the Mexican and the Lower California sheep running southward into Mexico.

Among the experienced hunters of both forms of Dall's sheep are Messrs. Dali DeWeese, of Colorado, and A.J. Stone, Collector of Arctic Mammals for the American Museum of Natural History. Mr. Stone gives two distinct ranges for this sheep, (1) the Alaska Mountains and Kenai Peninsula, and (2) the entire stretch of the Rocky Mountains north of lat.i.tude 60 degrees to near the Arctic coast just at the McKenzie, reaching thence west to the headwaters of the Noatak and Kowak rivers that flow into Kotzebue Sound.

Stone's sheep, which was described by Dr. Allen in 1897, came from the head of the Stickine River, and two years after its description Dr. J.A.

Allen quotes Mr. A.J. Stone, the collector, as saying: "I traced the _Ovis stonei_, or black sheep, throughout the mountainous country of the headwaters of the Stickine, and south to the headwaters of the Na.s.s, but could find no reliable information of their occurrence further south in this longitude. They are found throughout the Ca.s.siar Mountains, which extend north to 61 degrees north lat.i.tude and west to 134 degrees west longitude. How much further west they may be found I have been unable to determine. Nor could I ascertain whether their range extends from the Ca.s.siar Mountains into the Rocky Mountains to the north of Francis and Liard River. But the best information obtained led me to believe that it does not. They are found in the Rocky Mountains to the south as far as the headwaters of the Nelson and Peace rivers in lat.i.tude 56 degrees, but I proved conclusively that in the main range of the Rocky Mountains very few of them are found north of the Liard River. Where this river sweeps south through the Rocky Mountains to h.e.l.l's Gate, a few of these animals are founds as far north as Beaver River, a tributary of the Liard. None, however, are found north of this, and I am thoroughly convinced that this is the only place where these animals may be found north of the Liard River.

"I find that in the Ca.s.siar Mountains and in the Rocky Mountains they everywhere range above timber line, as they do in the mountains of Stickine, the Cheonees, and the Etsezas.

"Directly to the north of the Beaver River, and north of the Liard River below the confluence of the Beaver, we first meet with _Ovis dalli_."

A Stony Indian once told me that in his country--the main range of the Rocky Mountains--there were two sorts of sheep, one small, dark in color, and with slender horns, which are seldom broken, and another sort larger and pale in color, with heavy, thick horns that are often broken at the point. He went on to say that these small black sheep are all found north of Bow River, Alberta, and that on the south side of Bow River the big sheep only occur. The country referred to all lies on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. The hunting ground of the Stonies runs as far north as Peace River, and it is hardly to be doubted that they know Stone's sheep. The Brewster Bros., of Banff, Alberta, inform me that Stone's sheep is found on the head of Peace River.

A dozen or fifteen years ago one of the greatest sheep ranges that was at all accessible was in the mountains at the head of the Ashnola River, in British Columbia, and on the head of the Methow, which rises in the same mountains and flows south into Washington. This is a country very rough and without roads, only to be traversed with a pack train.

Mr. Lew Wilmot writes me that there are still quite a number of sheep ranging from Mt. Chapacca, up through the Ashnola, and on the headwaters of the Methow. Indeed, it is thought by some that sheep are more numerous there now than they were a few years ago. In Dyche's "Campfires of a Naturalist" a record is given of sheep in the Palmer Lake region, at the east base of the Cascade range in Washington.

The Rev. John McDougall, of Morley, Alberta, wrote me in 1899, in answer to inquiries as to the mountain sheep inhabiting the country ranged over by the Stony Indians, "that it is the opinion of these Indians that the sheep which frequent the mountains from Montana northward as far as our Indians hunt, are all of one kind, but that in localities they differ in size, and somewhat in color.

"They say that from the 49th parallel to the headwaters of the Saskatchewan River, sheep are larger than those in the Selkirks and coast ranges; and also that as they go north of the Saskatchewan the sheep become smaller. As to color, they say that the more southerly and western sheep are the lighter; and that as you pa.s.s north the sheep are darker in color. These Stonies report mountain sheep as still to be found in all of the mountain country they roam in. Their hunting ground is about 400 miles long by 150 broad, and is princ.i.p.ally confined to the Rocky Mountain range."