unt Bremer is the most noted
stronghold of the sheep in the whole Shasta region. Large flocks dwell
here from year to year, winter and summer, descending occasionally into
the adjacent sage plains and lava beds to feed, but ever ready to take
refuge in the jagged crags of their mountain at every alarm. While
traveling with a company of hunters I saw about fifty in one flock.

The Van Bremer brothers, after whom the mountain is named, told me that
they once climbed the mountain with their rifles and hounds on a grand
hunt; but, after keeping up the pursuit for a week, their boots and
clothing gave way, and the hounds were lamed and worn out without having
run down a single sheep, notwithstanding they ran night and day. On
smooth spots, level or ascending, the hounds gained on the sheep, but
on descending ground, and over rough masses of angular rocks they fell
hopelessly behind. Only half a dozen sheep were shot as they passed the
hunters stationed near their paths circling round the rugged summit. The
full-grown bucks weigh nearly three hundred and fifty pounds.

The mule deer are nearly as heavy. Their long, massive ears give them
a very striking appearance. One large buck that I measured stood three
feet and seven inches high at the shoulders, and when the ears were
extended horizontally the distance across from tip to tip was two feet
and one inch.

From the Van Bremer ranch the way to the Lava Beds leads down the Bremer
Meadows past many a smooth grassy knoll and jutting cliff, along the
shore of Lower Klamath Lake, and thence across a few miles of sage plain
to the brow of the wall-like bluff of lava four hundred and fifty feet
above Tule Lake. Here you are looking southeastward, and the Modoc
landscape, which at once takes possession of you, lies revealed in
front. It is composed of three principal parts; on your left lies the
bright expanse of Tule Lake, on your right an evergreen forest, and
between the two are the black Lava Beds.

When I first stood there, one bright day before sundown, the lake was
fairly blooming in purple light, and was so responsive to the sky in
both calmness and color it seemed itself a sky. No mountain shore hides
its loveliness. It lies wide open for many a mile, veiled in no mystery
but the mystery of light. The forest also was flooded with sun-purple,
not a spire moving, and Mount Shasta was seen towering above it
rejoicing in the ineffable beauty of the alpenglow. But neither the