low for shooting downhill. A fellow
nearly always shoots too high when he shoots at anything away down
below him."

"Quite right," nodded Alex, "and a very common fault in mountain
hunting."

"Well, I got him the next time," said John. "If you can see where your
bullet goes you can tell how to shoot the next shot."

"They're two magnificent sheep," said Alex, admiringly, "and we've got
to take out both these heads, for they're too good to leave in the
mountains. I suppose now we will have to do a little butchering."

He drew his great knife from his belt, and now in very skilful way
began to skin, clean, and dismember the sheep, doubling back the
half-disjointed legs and the hams and shoulders and throwing the
separated pieces of meat on the skins, which were spread out, flesh
side up, on the ground. He took out the shoulders and hams of each
sheep and split the remainder of the carcass, detaching the ribs along
the spine with blows of his heavy bladed knife. After a little he
rolled up the meat of each sheep in its own hide, lashed it firmly
with thong, and made it into two packs. The heads he next skinned out,
showing the boys how to open the skin along the back of the neck, and
across the head between the horns. He asked for their smaller and
keener knives when it came to skinning out the ears, eyes and
nostrils, but removed the scalp from each sheep without making a cut
which showed through the skin.

"Now," said he at last, "when we get the meat trimmed off these
skull-bones you'll have a couple of sheep heads that many a hunter
would give hundreds of dollars to kill for himself. They are going to
be awkward to carry, though, I'll tell you that."

"How much would one of these rams weigh, Alex?" asked Rob.

"The biggest one a couple of hundred pounds, maybe," said Alex. "The
green head, this way, might make fifty of that, I don't know. We'll
have to make two trips down to the bivouac, that's one thing sure.
Maybe we can lighten the heads by trimming out to-night."

"I'll tell you, Alex," said Rob; "if you can take one of the meat
packs we'll take one of the heads between us. It's downhill from here
to where we left the blankets."

"All right," answered Alex. "I could carry a couple of hundred pounds
down here, I suppose, but there's plenty of time, as we aren't more
than a mile from camp. So come ahead."

Proceeding in this way they finally did get all their meat down to the
little bivouac they had made