KRAG
THE KOOTENAY RAM
A great broad web of satin, shining white, and strewn across, long clumps and trailing wreaths of lilac—almost white—wistaria bloom—pendant, shining, and so delicately wrought in palest silk that still the web was white; and in and out and trailed across, now lost, now plain, two slender twining intertwining chains of golden thread.
I see a broken upland in the far Northwest. Its gray and purple rocks are interpatched with colors rich and warm, the new-born colors of the upland spring, the greatest springtime in the world; for where there is no winter there can be no spring. The gloom is measure of the light. So, in this land of long, long winter night, where nature stints her joys for six hard months, then owns her debt and pays it all at once, the spring is glorious compensation for the past. Six months’ arrears of joy are paid in one great lavish outpour. And latest May is made the date of payment. Then spring, great, gorgeous, six-fold spring holds carnival on every ridge.
Even the sullen Gunder Peak, that pierces the north end of the ridge, unsombres just a whit. The upland beams with all the flowers it might have grown in six lost months; yet we see only one. Here, by our feet and farther on, and right and left and onward far away, in great, broad acre beds, the purple lupin blooming. Irregular, broken, straggling patches near, but broader, denser farther on; till on the distant slopes they lie, long, devious belts, like purple clouds at rest.
But late May though it be, the wind is cold; the pools tell yet of frost at night. The White Wind blows. Broad clouds come up, and down comes driving snow. Over the peaks, over the upland and over the upland flowers. Hoary, gray, and white the landscape grows in turn; and one by one the flowers are painted out. But the lupins on their taller, stiffer stems, can fight the snow for long, they bow their whitened heads beneath its load, then, thanks no little to the wind itself, shake free and stand up defiantly straight, and as fits their royal purple. And when the snowfall ends as suddenly as it began, the clouds roll by and the blue sky sees an upland shining white, but streaked and patched with blots and belts of lovely purple bloom.
And wound across, and in and out, are two long trails of track.
Late snow is good trailing, and Scotty Macdougall took down his rifle, and climbed the open hill behind his shanty on Tobacco Creek toward the well-known Mountain Sheep range. The broad white upland, with its lupin bands and patches, had no claim on Scotty’s notice, nor was his interest aroused until he came on the double trail in the new snow. At a glance he read it—two full-grown female Mountain Sheep, wandering here and there across the country, with their noses to the wind. Scotty followed the prints for a short time and learned that the Sheep were uneasy, but not alarmed, and less than an hour ahead. They had wandered from one sheltered place to another. Once or twice had laid down for a minute, only to rise and move on, apparently not hungry, as the abundant food was untouched.
Scotty pushed forward cautiously, scanning the distance and keeping watch on the trail without following it, when, all at once, he swung round a rocky point into view of a little lupin-crowded hollow and from the middle of it leaped the two Sheep.
Up went his rifle, and in a moment one or both would have fallen, had not Scotty’s eye, before he pulled, rested on two tiny new-born Lambs that got up on their long wobbly legs, in doubt, for a moment, whether to go to the new-comer, or to follow their mothers.
The old Sheep bleated a shrill alarm to their young and circled back. The Lambs’ moment of indecision was over, they felt that their duties lay with the creatures that looked and smelt like themselves, and coolly turned their uncertain steps to follow their mothers.
Of course Scotty could have shot any or all of the Sheep, as he was within twenty yards of the farthest, but there is in man an unreasoning impulse, a wild hankering to catch alive; and without thinking of what he could do with them afterward, Scotty, seeing them so easily in his power, leaned his gun in a safe place and ran after the Lambs. But the distressed mothers had by now communicated a good deal of their alarm to their young, the little things were no longer in doubt that they should avoid the stranger, and when he rushed forward, his onset added the necessary final touch and for the first time in their brief lives they knew danger and instinctively sought to escape it. They were not yet an hour old, but nature had equipped them with a set of valuable instincts. And though the Lambs were slow of foot compared with the man, they showed at once a singular aptitude at dodging, and Scotty failed to secure them at once as he had expected.
Meanwhile the mothers circled about, bleating piteously and urging the little ones to escape. Scotty, plunging around in his attempt, alarmed them more and more, and they put forth all the strength of their feeble limbs in the effort to go to their mothers. The man slipping and scrambling after them was unable to catch either, although more than once he touched one with his hand. But very soon this serious game of tag was adroitly steered by the timid mothers away from the lupin bed, and once on the smooth, firmer ground, the Lambs got an advantage that quite offset the weariness they began to feel, and Scotty, dashing and chasing first this way and then that, did not realize that the whole thing was being managed by the old ones, till they reached the lowest spur of the Gunder Peak, a ragged, broken, rocky cliff, up which the mothers bounded. Then the little ones felt a new sense, just as a young duck must when first he drops in the water. Their little black rubber hoofs gripped the slippery rocks as no man’s foot can do it, and they soared on their new-found mountain wings, up and away, till led by their mothers out of sight.
It was well for them that Scotty had lain aside his rifle, for a Sheep at 100 yards was as good as dead when he pulled on it. He now rushed back for his weapon, but before he could harm them, a bank of fog from the Peak came rolling between. The same White Wind that brought the treacherous trailing snow that had betrayed them to their deadliest foe, now brought the fog that screened them from his view.
So Scotty could only stare up the cliff and, half in admiration, mutter “the little divils, the little divils, too smart for me, and them less’n an hour old.”
For now he fully knew the meaning of the restless wandering of the old ones, and the sudden appearance of two new tiny trails.
He spent the rest of the day in bootless hunting and at night went home hungry, to dine off a lump of fat bacon.
The rugged peaks are not the chosen home, but rather the safe and final refuge of the Sheep. Once there the mothers felt no fear, and thenceforth, in the weeks that followed, they took care that in feeding, they should never wander far on the open away from their haven on the crags.
The Lambs were of a sturdy stock and grew so fast that within a week they were strong enough to keep up with their mothers when the sudden appearance of a Mountain Lion forced them all to run for their lives.
The snow of the Lambs’ birthday had gone again within a few hours and all the hills were now carpeted with grass and flowers, the abundant food for the mothers meant plenty of the best for the little ones and they waggled their tails in satisfaction as they helped themselves.
One of the little fellows, whose distinguishing mark was a very white nose, was stockily built, while his playmate, slightly taller and more graceful, was peculiar in having little nubbins of horns within a few days of his birth.
They were fairly matched and frisked and raced alongside their mothers or fought together the live-long day. One would dash away and the other behind him try to butt him; or if they came on an inviting hillock they began at once the world-old, world-wide game of King of the Castle. One would mount and hold his friend at bay. Stamping and shaking his little round head, he would give the other to understand that he was “King of the Castle”—and then back would go their pretty pink ears, the round woolly heads would press together and the innocent brown eyes roll as they tried to look terribly fierce and push and strive till one, forced to his knees, would wheel and kick up his heels as though to say: “I didn’t want your old castle, anyway,” but would straightway give himself the lie by seeking out a hillock for himself and, posing on its top with his fiercest look, would stamp and shake his head, after the way that in their language stands for the rhyming challenge in ours, and the combat scene would be repeated.
In these encounters Whitenose generally had the best of it because of his greater weight, but in the races, Nubbins was easily first. His activity was tireless. From morning till evening he seemed able to caper and jump.
At night they usually slept close against their mothers in some sheltered nook, where they could see the sunrise, or rather where they could feel it, for that was more important, and Nubbins, always active, was sure to be up first of the lambs. Whitenose was inclined to be lazy, and would stay curled up, the last of the family to begin the day of activity. His snowy nose was matched by a white patch behind, as in all Bighorn Sheep, only larger and whiter than usual, and this patch afforded so tempting a mark that Nubbins never could resist a good chance to charge at it. He was delighted if, in the morning, he could waken his little friend by what he considered a tremendous butt on his beautiful patch of white.
Mountain Sheep usually go in bands; the more in the band the more eyes for danger. But the hunter had been very active in the Kootenay country, Scotty in particular had been relentless in the hunting. His shanty roof was littered over with horns of choice Rams, and inside it was half filled with a great pile of Sheepskins awaiting a market. So the droves of Bighorn were reduced to a few scattering bands, the largest of which was less than thirty, and many, like that of which I speak, had but three or four in it.
Once or twice during the first fortnight of June old Scotty had crossed the sheep-range with his rifle ready, for game was always in season for him, but each time one or the other of the alert mothers saw him afar, and either led quickly away, or by giving a short, peculiar “sniff,” had warned the others not to move; then all stood still as stones, and so escaped, when a single move might easily have brought sure death. When the enemy was out of sight they quickly changed to some distant part of the range.
One day they had wandered downward toward the piney valley, tempted by the rich grasses. As they reached the edge of the woods, Nubbins’s mother held back; she had a deep-laid distrust of the lower levels, especially where wooded. But Whitenose’s mother, cropping eagerly at the mountain clover that was here in profusion, was led farther on till she passed under some rocks among the pines. A peculiar smell caused her to start, she looked around, then wheeled to quit the woods, but a moment later a great Wolverine sprang from the bank on to her back and laid her low in an instant.
Nubbins and his mother got a glimpse of the great brown enemy and fled up the rocks, but little Whitenose was stupefied with terror. He stood by staring and feebly bleating till the Wolverine, with merciful mercilessness, struck him down as he had done the mother.
Nubbins’s mother was a medium-sized, well-knit creature. She had horns longer and sharper than usual for a Ewe, and they were of the kind called Spikehorns or Spikers; she also had plenty of good Sheep sense. The region above Tobacco Creek had been growing more dangerous each month, thanks chiefly to Scotty, but the mother Sheep’s intention to move out was decided for her by the morning’s tragedy.
She careered along the slope of the Gunder Peak at full speed, but before going over each rising ground she stopped and looked over it, ahead and back, remaining still as a lichen-patched rock for a minute or more in each place while she scanned the range around.
Once as she did this she saw a dark, moving figure on a range behind her. It was old Scotty. She was in plain view, but she held as still as could be and so escaped notice, and when the man was lost behind the rocks she bounded away faster than before, with little Nubbins scampering after. At each ridge she looked out carefully, but seeing no more either of her enemy or her friends, she pushed on quietly all that day, travelling more slowly as the dangerfield was left behind.
Toward evening, as she mounted the Yak-in-i-kak watershed, she caught a glimpse of moving forms on a ridge ahead; after a long watch she made out that they were in the uniform of Sheep—gray, with white striped stockings and white patches on face and stern. They were going up wind. Keeping out of view she made so as to cross their back trail, which she soon found, and thus learned that her guess was right. There were the tracks of two large Bighorn, but the trail also said that they were Rams. According to Mountain Sheep etiquette the Rams form one community and the Ewes and Lambs another. They must not mix or seek each other’s society, excepting during the early winter, the festal months, the time of love and mating.
Nubbins’s mother, or the Spikerdoe, as we may call her, left the trail and went over the watershed, glad to know that this was a Sheep region. She rested for the night in a hollow, and next morning she journeyed on, feeding as she went. Presently the mother caught a scent that made her pause. She followed it a little. Others joined on or criss-crossed, and she knew now that she had found the trail of a band of Ewes and Lambs. She followed steadily, and Nubbins skipped alongside, missing his playmate, but making up as far as possible by doing double work.
Within a very few minutes she sighted the band, over a dozen in all—her own people. The top of her head was just over a rock, so that she saw them first, but when Nubbins poked up his round head to see, the slight movement caught the eye of a watchful mother in the flock. She gave the signal that turned all the band to statues, with heads their way. It was now the Spiker’s turn. She walked forth in plain view. The band dashed over the hill, but circled behind it to the left, while Nubbins and his mother went to the right.