“Looking up carelessly from my work, as a whiff stronger than before reached my nose, what was my astonishment at seeing five mountain-sheep within ten paces, and regarding me with a curious and astonished gaze! Without drawing a breath, I put out my hand and grasped the rifle, which was lying within reach; but the motion, slight as it was, sufficed to alarm them, and with a loud bleat the old ram bounded up the mountain, followed by the band, and at so rapid a pace that all my attempts to ‘draw a bead’ upon them were ineffectual. When, however, they reached a little plateau about one hundred and fifty yards from where I stood, they suddenly stopped, and, approaching the edge, looked down at me, shaking their heads, and bleating their displeasure at the intrusion. No sooner did I see them stop than my rifle was at my shoulder, and covering the broadside of the one nearest to me. An instant after and I pulled the trigger, and at the report the sheep jumped convulsively from the rock, and made one attempt to follow its flying companions; but its strength failed, and, circling round once or twice at the edge of the plateau, it fell over on its side, and, rolling down the steep rock, tumbled dead very near me. My prize proved a very fine young male, but had not a large pair of horns. It was, however, ‘seal’ fat, and afforded me a choice supply of meat, which was certainly the best I had eaten in the mountains, being fat and juicy, and in flavour somewhat partaking both of the domestic sheep and buffalo.”
Among other notes about this species Ruxton speaks of several attempts that had been made to secure the young of mountain sheep and transport them to the States. None of these, however, had been successful. Old Bill Williams even took with him into the mountains a troop of milch goats, by which to bring up the young sheep, but, though capturing a number of lambs, he did not succeed in reaching the frontier with a single one.
He reports also the superstition of the Canadian trappers concerning the carcajou, which we know as the wolverene, and tells of a reported battle which an old Canadian trapper said that he had had with one of these animals, and which lasted upward of two hours, during which he fired a pouchful of balls into the animal’s body, which spat them out as fast as they were shot in. Two days later, in company with the same man, the author, in looking over a ridge, saw a wolverene, and shot at it, as it was running off, without effect. For this he was derided by the Canadian, who declared that if he had shot fifty balls at the carcajou it would not have cared at all.