, and pulled the trigger, why, the already badly wounded
animal fell over, gave a couple of last kicks, and then lay still.

But strange to say, Smithy was less given to excitement over his
exploit than either of the other boys. As they all bent over the
big-horn to admire his sturdy frame, and the head ornaments that
distinguish him among all his kind, Smithy was seen to stroke the
hairy back of the dead sheep, and clinch his teeth hard together, as
though after all he felt half sorry that a sudden whim had caused him
to actually take a life that nothing could restore. Evidently it would
be some time before Smithy could so far overcome his former gentle
traits of character to feel the hunter's fierce lust for his quarry.

"But this ain't getting _my_ big-horn, you know," remarked Step Hen,
as though the feel of those massive curved head-pieces had thrown him
into a new fever of impatience to secure his own trophies; for it
would be a shame if the greenhorn of the party should be the only one
to exhibit positive evidences of their having shot game.

"Come along then, and we'll soon git around to whar p'raps ye might
climb down, if so be ye're keerful not to slip," and the guide once
more started off.

"Oh! do we abandon my big-horn, then?" cried Smithy, as though half
tempted to refuse to leave the spot on what might prove to be a
wild-goose chase; to him it seemed like leaving the substance to try
and catch the shadow.

"We kin come back this way, and take keer of it then," said Toby; and
with this assurance Smithy had to rest content.

After some further scrambling along the face of the steep slope,
digging their toes into the shale that often crumbled under them, when
they might risk a serious ride down the side of the mountain only for
the fact that they managed to cling fast with their hands, they
reached a point where it was extra rocky, and a pretty sheer descent.

"Down thar your sheep lies," the guide said, pointing as he spoke.

Step Hen immediately laid his gun aside, and crawling to the edge he
looked over.

"I don't see hide or hair of it, though, Toby?" he complained.

"No more you kin," returned the other, with decision marked in both
voice and manner; "but all the same it's down thar, not more'n a
hundred feet at most. I got my bearin's fine. Look off yonder, and
yell see whar we lay when ye did the shootin' at the big horns."

"He's right, Step Hen," said Davy Jones, after looking to where t