The Wilderness of the Upper Yukon by Charles Sheldon

Author:Charles Sheldon [Sheldon, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Lost To Time Literature
Published: 2011-10-07T22:00:00+00:00

As I was descending, I saw across the valley two white specks on the north-west slope of Mount Gray, and my glasses revealed two sheep feeding high among the rocks. They soon lay down, and, it being too late to reach them before dark, I crossed the valley to determine their sex, but when I reached the lake there was not enough light to distinguish them.

The shallow water at the head of the lake was covered with a thin sheet of ice. Beavers had damned the mouth of the inlet and the water had backed up to form another small lake, which also was covered with ice. In the middle of the latter they had constructed a large house. As I approached, the ice was cracking and I plainly heard splashing. Creeping silently to the shore, I saw three beavers at work on the house. At intervals each would swim under the ice to the shore and get a stick, which was held at one end in the teeth and taken under the ice. Every few feet the beaver would force its head against the ice, break it, and breathe for a moment. One proceeded in this way to the house, breaking the ice four times, another six times, and another seven. Reaching the house they would drag the stick upon it, and spend ten minutes in working it into the structure. They would then return for another stick. When it was too dark to watch them longer, I silently withdrew and returned to camp. Johnson had tramped all day without seeing a sheep.

October 19.—Early in the morning I looked across the lake, to a spur projecting from Mount Gray, and saw two sheep feeding among scattered clumps of willow not far above timber-line, and opposite our camp. They were rams—the same two that I had seen the day before. One was six or seven years old, with fair horns, the other about three. I reached the lake, intending to cross on a raft that Schnabel had constructed some time earlier in the summer. The day was clear and cold, but a strong wind was blowing, and not being able to manage the raft with a pole, I had to proceed two miles to the upper end, where I took off shoes and socks, cut a pole, and breaking the ice as I waded, finally reached the other side and immediately began to climb.

The west slopes of Mount Gray are exceedingly steep and broken, and besides, an inch of dry snow had made them slippery and very difficult to climb. Finally, I reached the cliffs and snow cornices bordering the crest, and proceeded south in the direction where the sheep had been seen. Crossing two deep, rocky canons, where conies were bleating, I reached the edge of a deep, wide canon and looking beyond saw the two rams lying down on the top of a turretted pinnacle, about five hundred yards away. They were facing in my direction and there

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