him, seeming to
fear some enemy from above. He believes that they took the sound of the
rope flying through the air for the sound of the eagle's wings.

While, of course, the mountain lions cannot overtake the sheep in fair
chase, they lie in wait for them among the rocks, killing many, because
the sheep range on ground suitable for the lions to stalk them on; that
is to say, among the rocks on steep mountain sides, or at the edges of
canyons.

A conversation had with Mr. Hofer a year or two since is so interesting
that I offer no apology for giving the gist of it here. It has to do
with the enemies of the sheep, especially the mountain lion, and with
some of the sheep's ways. In substance, Mr. Hofer said:

"One day about the first of January I was in my cabin looking through
the window, and up through the Cinnabar Basin, over the snow-covered
mountains. As I was looking, I saw a dark patch disappear in the snow
and then rise out of it again. The snow was deep and fluffy. The animal
that I was watching would disappear in the snow with a plunge, and then
would come up with a jump. It made several wonderful flights. It was so
far off I could not tell what it was, and when I looked at it through
the glasses I saw that it was a big ram breaking a trail. I was watching
him closely and at first did not notice that others were with him. Soon,
however, I discovered that there were four or five other sheep following
him.

"The big ram came down from the side of the mountain, and, to pass over
to the other mountain, he had to cross the valley. There were a number
of knolls or ridges in this valley, where the snow was not so deep as in
the hollows. The ram broke a trail to a knoll, and stopped and looked
back, and pretty soon I saw the rest of the sheep coming along. They
followed his trail and passed him while he was standing there looking
back, always looking up at the mountain. While he stood on this knoll
where the snow was not deep--for it had blown off--and the other sheep
had passed him, one of them took the lead to the next knoll, breaking
the trail, but here the snow was not so deep as that the ram had come
through. No sooner had the sheep got to this knoll than the old ram
started. He took the trail the others had made, and joined them at the
next knoll, and then plunging in, went on ahead and broke a fresh trail
to the next rise of ground. The ram did most of the trail-breaking, but
sometimes one of the others went