Wild Mountain Sheep
One day in Glacier Gorge, Colorado, I was astonished to see a number of sheep start to descend the precipitous eastern face of Thatch-Top Mountain. This glaciated wall, only a few degrees off the perpendicular, rises comparatively smooth for several hundred feet. Down they came, slowly, with absolute composure, over places I dared not even try to descend. The nearness of the sheep and the use of field-glasses gave me excellent views of the many ways in which they actually seemed to court danger.
It is intensely thrilling to watch a leaping exhibition of one of these heavy, agile, alert, and athletic animals. Down precipitous places he plunges head foremost, turning and checking himself as he descends by striking his feet against walls and projections—perhaps a dozen times—before alighting on a ledge for a full stop. From this he walks overboard and repeats the wild performance!
Wild mountain sheep are perhaps the most accomplished and dare-devil acrobats in the animal world. They are indifferent to the depths beneath as they go merrily along cañon-walls. The chamois and the wild mountain goat may equal them in climbing among the crags and peaks, but in descending dizzy precipices and sheer walls the bighorn sheep are unrivaled. When sheep hurriedly descend a precipice, the laws of falling bodies are given a most spectacular display, and the possibilities of friction and adhesion are tested to the utmost.
A heavily horned ram led the way down Thatch-Top. He was followed by two young rams and a number of ewes, with two small lambs in the rear. They were in single file, each well separated from the others. Down this frightful wall the lambs appeared to be going to certain death. At times they all followed the contour round small spurs or in niches. In places, from my point of view they appeared to be flattened against the wall and descending head foremost.
There was one long pitch that offered nothing on which to stand and no place on which to stop. Down this the old ram plunged with a series of bouncing drops and jumps,—falling under control, with his fall broken, checked, and directed, without stopping, by striking with the feet as frequently as was necessary. First came three or four straightforward bouncing dives, followed by a number of swift zigzag jumps, striking alternately right and left, then three or four darts to the right before again flying off to the left. At last he struck on a wide ledge, where he pulled up and stopped with masterly resistance and stiff-legged jumps! Mind controlled matter! This specialty of the sheep requires keen eyesight, instant decision, excellent judgment, a marvelous nicety in measuring distances, and a complete forgetfulness of peril. Each ewe in turn gave a similar and equally striking exhibition; while the lambs, instead of breaking their necks in the play of drop and bounce, did not appear to be even cautious. They showed off by dropping farther and going faster than the old ones! This was sheer frolic for these children of the crags.
Down a vertical gulley—a giant chimney with one side out—they went hippety-hop from side to side, and at the bottom, without a stop, dropped fifteen feet to a wide bench below. The ram simply dived off, with front feet thrust forward and with hind feet drawn up and forward, and apparently struck with all four feet at once. A number of others followed in such rapid succession that they appeared to be falling out of the air. Each, however, made it a point to land to the right or the left of the one it was following. Two ewes turned broadside to the wall as they went over and dropped vertically,—stiff-legged, back horizontal, and with head held well up. The lambs leaped overboard simultaneously only a second behind the rear ewe, each lamb coming to a stop with the elastic bounce of youth.