Campfires on Desert and Lava

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1908. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIV EXTINCT VOLCANOES AND MOUNTAIN SHEEP A Blank Sheep Hunt to the Author's Mountains--Mr. Milton Scores with Two Sheep--Mr. Phillips Kills Two Rams--The Clover-leaf Crater--The Sykes Crater--Awful Lava Cones--The Dead Ram and Its Surroundings--Mr. Phillips tells the Story of the Rainbow Rams. The fifteenth of November was one of the great days of the trip; but for once my luck abandoned me, and in the thrilling events I was not among those present. Three hunting parties went out for mountain sheep. Mr. Milton went north-east, Mr. Phillips, Mr. Sykes and Charlie Foster went north, while Dr. MacDougal and I went back to try out the granite mountains west of the southern end of the Pass--beside which we had camped and found fresh sheep signs. Like the luckless whaler of New Bedford, the Botanist and I got no sheep, but we had a mighty fine sail. We circled around the big crater, close under its rim, but found no sheep within. We combed all those mountain sides, as with a fine-toothed comb. We climbed high up into the heart of the southern group of mountains, where by good rights there should have been a dozen big rams, but found no sheep. At noon we unsaddled at the extreme western foot of the range in the edge of the sand-hills, and while our horses restfully cropped the galleta grass we studied the botany of the sands. Lying low on a dune, we saw precisely how the light, dry sand steadily and persistently travels eastward, close along the surface of the fixed deposit, a thin sheet of it rolling forward up and down the undulations until somewhere it reaches an insurmountable barrier and stops. We circumnavigated that entire group of mountains, and with our glasses searched every side and summit, confident that we would strike several bands of big-horn; but none were struck....