ork of the Killy River belched forth, while other smaller glaciers and
snow banks seemed kept in place only by granite barriers.

We seated ourselves on the brink of this great cliff and the glasses
were at once in use. Soon Hunter saw rams, but they were so far below
that even with my powerful binoculars it was impossible to tell more
than that they carried larger heads than other sheep near them.

It was impossible to descend the cliff at the point where we then were,
so we moved around, looking for a place where we might work down, and
finally found one where it was possible to descend some fifty yards to a
sort of shute. From where we were we could not see whether we should be
able to make a still further descent, and if we did go down that far it
would be an extremely difficult climb to get back, but we thought it
probable that there would be slide rock at the other end of this shute,
in which case the rest would be fairly easy.

Moving with the greatest caution, we finally reached the shute, and
after a bit of bad climbing found the slide rock at the lower end as we
had expected; but it took us a good two hours to get low enough to tell
with the glasses how big were the horns the sheep carried.

There were eight rams in all. A bunch of three small ones about half a
mile away, and just beyond them four with better heads, but still not
good enough to shoot, and apart from these, a short distance up the
mountain side, was a solitary ram which carried a really good head. The
bunch of three was unfortunately between us and the big sheep, and it
required careful stalking to get within distance of the one we
sought. We knew very well that if we suddenly alarmed the three, and
they rushed off, they, in turn, would alarm the four and also the big
ram. When we were still at some distance we showed ourselves to the
three, and they took the hint and wandered slowly up the mountain
side. The others, although they had not seen us, became suspicious, so
we remained crouched behind some rocks until they once more began to
feed. The big ram now came down from his solitary position and passed
from view behind a mass of boulders near the remaining sheep.

The head of the ram which I had shot the day before was much smaller
than I had supposed at the time. In order to avoid this in future I had
asked Hunter to advise me in selecting only really good heads. My man,
who now had the glasses, declared that the big sheep had not joined