beautiful picture, I could no longer control my desire
to photograph them. Setting my camera at forty feet, I again slowly
advanced. At thirty feet, the sheep still being quiet, I shortened the
range. My greediness threatened to be the end of me!

Below my subjects was a smooth rock slope. Having set my camera for
twenty-five feet, I ventured across it. If I could only reach the edge
of that sloping rock before they took fright what a wonderful picture
I'd get! Slowly, inch by inch I crept toward them. My eyes were glued
to the finder, my finger trembled at the button, all at once, I stepped
out, on nothing! Boy and camera turned over in midair and alighted,
amid a shower of cones, in the top of a young spruce tree.

After the first instant of astonishment, my exasperation grew. I had
lost my first chance at getting a photograph of the sheep--most likely
the best chance I'd ever have, too. Maybe ruined my camera, my
clothes, and my hide! My disposition was past mending. My second
surprise belittled my first. For when I looked about, expecting the
sheep to have vanished, there they all were, crowding forward, and
peering over the edge of the rock, in friendly solicitude! How often
the unpremeditated exceeds our fondest plans! The picture I finally
made far excelled the one I had first counted on!

After my fall, the game was taken up again. The sheep moved higher
whenever I came too near them. Sometimes I dropped to all fours and
gave an imitation of a playful pup; stopping to sniff loudly at a
chipmunk's hole or to dig furiously with both hands. The sheep crowded
forward appreciatively. Evidently they had a weakness for vaudeville.
No acrobat, no contortionist, ever had a more flatteringly attentive
audience. I laughed at my foolishness, but the sheep were courteously
grave.

Toward noon the band set off for a steep cliff, where each day they
took their siesta. The two old rams led the way. After making
pictures of them silhouetted against the sky, I circled the cliff and
hid at the end of a ledge. I counted on getting a good photograph when
the old leaders surmounted the crag and marched forward at the head of
their single-file column. To deceive them, I built a dummy at the spot
where they turned aside upon the ledge. Coat and cap and camera case
went into the sketchy figure, and after it had been propped in place to
block the downward retreat, I hurried around the point and hid in some
b