“Yes,” said Hugh, “there’s no doubt about either of those things. A sheep can run pretty fast and can climb well, but on the level a good fast dog can overtake it after a fairly short chase. When I first came into the country, the Indians used to say that of all the animals, except the buffalo, the sheep were the gentlest and easiest to kill.”
“Well, they’ve changed since then, haven’t they, Hugh?” said Jack.
“Yes,” replied Hugh, “they’re pretty sharp now. We saw to-day one of the worst enemies that a sheep has, and one that along the mountains here probably kills more than all the men that are hunting them do.”
“What was that, White Bull?” asked Joe, “the lion?”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “that’s just what it is. You see, the lion is at work all the time. He’s got to eat every two or three days, and to eat he’s got to kill something. Now and then he may pick up a bird or a rabbit or a woodchuck, but his main dependence is these animals here in the mountains. High up like this there are not so many lions, and I was surprised to see that one to-day, but lower down there are a good many, and, of course, in summer they work up higher. On the other side of the range, where deer are plenty, they kill lots of deer and a few elk, but they also kill a great many sheep and goats, most of them, perhaps, young ones.
“You know about their killing goats, son, for you’ve seen them do it, and you remember that story that I was telling you the other day about a lion jumping on what he took to be a sheep. Now, there’s a place down south of here on Boulder Creek up near its head, where two men, both of whom I know well, Colonel Pickett and Billy Hofer, found eighteen or twenty skulls of sheep all by one rock. They had been killed at different times. Some of them were mighty old and all falling to pieces, and some of them were pretty fresh. They had all been killed under a high rock, not in a place where they could have been hit by a snowslide, but in a place where a lion could lie by the trail without being seen, but could himself see both ways. The rock was right over the trail, so close that a lion could jump right down on it.
“The two men who found these skulls were both good mountain men and they both believe that this was a place where a lion lay and killed his food as the sheep passed along the trail under the rock.
“There’s another interesting thing about sheep that most people don’t know. A sheep is awful easy tamed, especially if you get him young. I knew of one owned by a man in Salt Lake, caught when a little lamb and as tame as any dog. He was good-natured and liked to be petted. He spent most of his time lying on the roof of the house, but sometimes he’d jump down and feed in the yard and sometimes go quite a way along the street. Sometimes the dogs would chase him and he’d come back as hard as he could pelt, and then jump up on the roof, where he was safe.
“I once knew an Indian that had a lamb that was perfectly tame and was not afraid of the Indian dogs around the house. This Indian lived in a cabin and was always complaining about the sheep because it would jump up on the windowsill, sometimes breaking a light of glass out of the window.
“You take a young sheep, though, and tame him and let him grow up into a big ram and he isn’t afraid of anything and is likely to get real cross; and I expect that a big ram can hit a terrible blow with those horns of his.