“They’ll go down on the other side, and be over on Mount Merritt in an hour,” said Mills. “Oh, you get a lot of exercise hunting ’em!”
“We could have got a shot at ’em at the very start, before you scared them,” said the doctor, “and after that there wasn’t a spot they took where a man could follow till they were out of range, or a spot where he could have shot one without its falling so far it would smash the head to bits. If I hunted, that’s the sport I’d like! The game has a better chance than you do. But I don’t hunt, thank the Lord.”
“You’d better not, in the Park,” Mills laughed. “I wish I could show you a bighorn, now. They beat the goats at diving, though they don’t climb up so well, or no better.”
The men went back to the place where they had left the rope, and decided it was time to begin the descent. But before starting, the Ranger made another little trip along the top, in the opposite direction, in the hopes of seeing a sheep, for he said he knew sheep were around there.
“If I signal, bring the rope along,” he said, “and come softly. We might be able to make one take a good jump.”
He must have been nearly a quarter of a mile away when he waved his hand, and Tom and the doctor hurried toward him. Again he was peering over the cliff, this time on the north side, at a point where it was very steep. It dropped straight down about forty feet to a ledge, and on this ledge was a fine old ram, with magnificent curling horns, two ewes, and one lamb. They were all feeding, quite unaware of danger, evidently secure in the knowledge that no prowling mountain lion would drop down those forty feet of precipice from above. The ledge on one side led out to an easy slope. On the other side it narrowed to about four feet, and then ended abruptly.
“Quick!” Mills whispered, taking the rope. Softly, without a sound, he hitched it around a rock pile, and held the free end. “Now, the instant I throw this over,” he whispered again, “you and Tom go down it. The sheep will be cut off, and have to jump from the other end of the ledge. They’ll go quick, and you’ll have to, also, to see ’em.”
The doctor and Tom stood by, Mills dropped the rope over the edge, and first Dr. Kent and then Tom slid down it, so fast their hands burned. But the sheep were quicker. Before they reached the ledge, the last one was overboard. Tom and his companion dashed to the end where they had jumped, lay on their stomachs, and peered down over.
It was a drop of twenty feet or so to the first shelf below. On this shelf were the two ewes and the lamb. The old ram had already jumped to the next one, another twenty feet lower. This second shelf was tiny, and would hold only one sheep at a time. More than that, it was not directly under the first, but six or eight feet to the left. As the man and boy reached the edge, they saw the ram leave this shelf head foremost, and go down the cliffside, kicking the wall as he went with his hoofs, and land on a third ledge, seventy-five feet below them. No sooner was he off, than one of the ewes jumped for the shelf he had just deserted. She, too, kicked the wall with her hoofs, striking hard, incredibly rapid blows, and these kicks, very carefully directed, propelled her just far enough to one side as she fell to enable her to reach the shelf. When she landed on it, with all four feet bunched, it looked from above as if her shoulders were coming up through the brown wool on her back. She seemed to bounce as she hit, and with the bounce went right off again, to the ledge below, which the old ram had already left, and was now on a safe, wide shelf far beneath, and trotting off toward the slopes that led around to the wall of the Great Divide. The second ewe followed her, with exactly the same tactics, and then the lamb went bouncing down, as if it was all a game, landed almost like a rubber ball, bounced off to the next ledge, kicking the cliff wall with his little hoofs faster than a cat can strike with its paw.
In much less time than it has taken to tell it, all the sheep were on the slope a hundred feet below, and before the doctor and Tom could get up on their feet again, the little flock was out of sight around a shoulder of the cliff!