After a stiff climb we came out upon a mossy tableland, intersected by several deep gulches, down which tumbled rapid glacial streams from many perpetual snow banks.  Above this high plateau rose sharp and barren mountains which seemed but glacial heaps of jagged boulders and slide rock all covered with coarse black moss or lichen, which is the only food of sheep during the winter months.

It is generally supposed that when the heavy snows of winter set in the sheep seek a lower level, but my guide insisted that they work higher and higher up the mountain sides, where the winds have swept the snow away, and they are able to get this coarse but nourishing food.

The sky-line of these hills made a series of unbroken curves telling of the mighty power of the glaciers which once held this entire country in their crushing grasp.

We passed over the great plateau, which even at this latitude was sprinkled generously with beautiful small wild flowers.  Crossing gulch after gulch we continually worked higher and higher by a gradual and easy ascent.

We had been gone from camp but little over an hour, when, on approaching a small knoll, I caught sight of the white coat of a sheep just beyond.  At once dropping upon my hands and knees I crawled up and carefully peered over to the other side.  We had unknowingly worked into the midst of a big band of ewes, lambs, and small rams.  I counted twenty-seven on my left and twenty-five on my right, but among them all there was not a head worth shooting.

This was the first great band of white sheep I had seen, and I watched them at this close range with much interest.  Soon a tell-tale eddy in the breeze gave them our scent, and they slowly moved away, not hurriedly nor in great alarm, but reminding me much of tame sheep, or deer in a park.  Man was rather an unfamiliar animal to them, and his scent brought but little dread.  From this time until darkness hid them, sheep were in plain view the entire day.  In a short while I counted over one hundred ewes and lambs.

We worked over one range and around another with the great valley of the river lying at our feet, while beyond were chain upon chain of bleak and rugged mountains.  Finally we came to a vast gulch supposed to be the home of the large rams.  My men had hunted in this section two years before, and had never failed to find good heads here, but we now saw nothing worth stalking.  By degrees we worked to the top of the gulch, and coming to the summit of the ridge paused, for at our feet was what at first appeared but a perpendicular precipice of jagged rock falling hundreds of feet.  The clouds now lifted a bit and we could see below a vast circular valley with green grass and rapid glacial streams.  On all sides it was hemmed in and guarded by mighty mountains with giant cliffs and vast slides of broken rocks reaching from the bottom to the very summits.  Opposite was a great dull blue glacier from which the north fork of the Killy River belched forth, while other smaller glaciers and snow banks seemed kept in place only by granite barriers.