h's crust, the surface of one
of these beds being, in many cases, not over three feet in width, while
the precipitous sides of the cone varied from one foot to a thousand
feet. To these dizzy spots, which formed the Big Horn's aerial stairway,
did this wonderful animal bound, whether pursued or in search of a
resting place, alighting with sure foot, and immediately curling down
for a nap or another bound in event danger was scented. That leap from
danger was in itself marvelous--with all four feet curled beneath that
ponderous body, the iron muscles warmed by the heavy hair coat, it was
not the laborious effort of a steer elevating its hindquarters,
unfolding one foreleg and then the other with a groan; it was a
propulsion of a seemingly inert mass into space, a touch of toes to the
earth and another bound into the air and probably out of sight, for that
stairway is a mass of intricate, steep sided fissures, deep rifts
opening one into another, each presenting a ledge sufficiently large to
enable one of these sure-footed travelers to find "bouncing room" and so
down, down, down for a thousand or more feet this denizen of the clouds
would make his escape. This method of retreat being so sudden and the
disappearance so sure, tales have been ofttimes told of the wonderful
leaps into mid air, dropping to the bottom of one of those canons and of
his sheepship alighting on his horns, none the worse for jumping half a
mile or more.

All one afternoon Chiquita told wonderful stories of the wild game life,
the parties of hunters who came even from Europe to wait for days until
the sheep came to the "lick," and how these hunters crept up to the
"beds" in the darkest and stormiest nights, waiting within rifle shot
until the dawn should break, when the slaughter would commence. She told
of the bands of elk, two and three thousand herding together, migrating
from their summer feeding grounds among the high willow grown, spongy
bogs, to the cedar grown mountains along Eagle River, crossing Middle
Park in October and November after the first great snow storms began to
drive them out.

"The mountains around here used to be the greatest paradise for game
that Indian ever found. Is it any wonder my people resent the intrusion
of the paleface?" said she, after giving an enthusiastic account of one
of the Ute hunting expeditions which took place when she was but a few
years old.

The fascination and charm which held the listener spellbo