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<h2> CHAPTER XXXVIII Two Wonderful Mountain Climbers </h2>
<p>"Peter, you have been up in the Old Pasture many times, so you must have
seen the Sheep there," said Old Mother Nature, turning to Peter Rabbit.</p>
<p>"Certainly. Of course," replied Peter. "They seem to me rather stupid
creatures. Anyway they look stupid."</p>
<p>"Then you know the leader of the flock, the big ram with curling horns,"
continued Old Mother Nature.</p>
<p>Peter nodded, and Old Mother Nature went on. "Just imagine him with a
smooth coat of grayish-brown instead of a white woolly one, and immense
curling horns many times larger than those he now has. Give him a large
whitish or very light-yellowish patch around a very short tail. Then you
will have a very good idea of one of those mountain climbers I promised to
tell you about, one of the greatest mountain climbers in all the Great
World—Bighorn the Mountain Sheep, also called Rocky Mountain Bighorn
and Rocky Mountain Sheep.</p>
<p>"Bighorn is a true Sheep and lives high up among the rocks of the highest
mountains of the Far West. Like all members of the order to which he
belongs his feet are hoofed, but they are hoofs which never slip, and he
delights to bound along the edges of great cliffs and in making his way up
or down them where it looks as if it would be impossible for even
Chatterer the Red Squirrel to find footing, to say nothing of such a big
fellow as Bighorn.</p>
<p>"The mountains where he makes his home are so high that the tops of many
of them are in the clouds and covered with snow even in summer. Above the
line where trees can no longer grow Bighorn spends his summers, coming
down to the lower hills only when the snow becomes so deep that he cannot
paw down through it to get food. His eyesight is wonderful and from his
high lookout he watches for enemies below, and small chance have they of
approaching him from that direction.</p>
<p>"When alarmed he bounds away gracefully as if there were great springs in
his legs, and his great curled horns are carried as easily as if they were
nothing at all. Down rock slopes, so steep that a single misstep would
mean a fall hundreds of feet, he bounds as swiftly and easily as Lightfoot
the Deer bounds through the woods, leaping from one little jutting point
of rock to another and landing securely as if he were on level ground. He
climbs with equal ease where man would have to crawl and cling with
fingers and toes, or give up altogether.</p>
<p>"Mrs. Bighorn does not have the great curling horns. Instead she is armed
with short, sharp-pointed horns, like spikes. Her young are born in the
highest, most inaccessible place she can find, and there they have little
to fear save one enemy, King Eagle. Only such an enemy, one with wings,
can reach them there. Bighorn and Mrs. Bighorn, because of their size,
nothing to dread from these great birds, but helpless little lambs are
continually in danger of furnishing King Eagle with the dinner he prizes.</p>
<p>"Only when driven to the lower slopes and hills by storms and snow does
Bighorn have cause to fear four-footed enemies. Then Puma the Panther must
be watched for, and lower down Howler the Wolf. But Bighorn's greatest
enemy, and one he fears most, is the same one so many others have sad
cause to fear—the hunter with his terrible gun. The terrible gun can
kill where man himself cannot climb, and Bighorn has been persistently
hunted for his head and wonderful horns.</p>
<p>"Some people believe that Bighorn leaps from cliffs and alights on those
great horns, but this not true. Whenever he leaps he alights on those sure
feet of his, not on his head.</p>
<p>"Way up in the extreme northwest corner of this country, in a place called
Alaska, is a close cousin whose coat is all white and whose horns are
yellow and more slender and wider spreading. He called the Dall Mountain
Sheep. Farther south, but not as far south as the home of Bighorn, is
another cousin whose coat is so dark that he is sometimes called the Black
Mountain Sheep. His proper name is Stone's Mountain Sheep. In the
mountains between these two is another cousin with a white head and dark
body called Fannin's sheep. All these cousins are closely related and in
their habits are much alike. Of them all, Bighorn the Rocky Mountain Sheep
is the best known."</p>
<p>"I should think," said Peter Rabbit, "that way up there on those high
mountains Bighorn would be very lonesome."</p>
<p>Old Mother Nature laughed. "Bighorn doesn't care for neighbors as you do,
Peter," said she. "But even up in those high rocky retreats among the
clouds he has a neighbor as sure-footed as himself, one who stays winter
as well as summer on the mountain tops. It is Billy the Rocky Mountain
Goat.</p>
<p>"Billy is as awkward-looking as he moves about as Bighorn is graceful, but
he will go where even Bighorn will hesitate to follow. His hoofs are small
and especially planned for walking in safety on smooth rock and
ice-covered ledges. In weight he is about equal to Lightfoot the Deer, but
he doesn't look in the least like him.</p>
<p>"In the first place he has a hump on his shoulders much like the humps of
Thunderfoot the Bison and Longcoat the Musk Ox. Of course this means that
he carries his head low. His face is very long and from beneath his chin
hangs a white beard. From his forehead two rather short, slim, black horns
stand up with a little curve backward. His coat is white and the hair is
long and straight. Under this long white coat he wears a thick coat of
short, woolly, yellowish-white fur which keeps him warm in the coldest
weather. He seldom leaves his beloved mountain-tops, even in the worst
weather of winter, as Bighorn sometimes does, but finds shelter among the
rocks. The result is that he has practically no enemies save man to fear.</p>
<p>"Often he spends the summer where the snow remains all the year through
and his white coat is a protection from the keenest eyes. You see, when
not moving, he looks in the distance for all the world like a patch of
snow on the rocks.</p>
<p>"Not having a handsome head or wonderful horns he has not been hunted by
man quite so much as has Bighorn, and therefore is not so alert and wary.
Both he and Bighorn are more easily approached from above than from below,
because they do not expect danger from above and so do not keep so sharp a
watch in that direction. The young are sometimes taken by King Eagle, but
otherwise Billy Goat's family has little to fear from enemies, always
excepting the hunter with his terrible gun.</p>
<p>"I have now told you of the members of the cattle and Sheep family, what
they look like and where they live and how. There is still one more member
of the order Ungulata and this one is in a way related to another member
of Farmer Brown's barnyard. I will leave you to guess which one. What is
it, Peter?"</p>
<p>"If you please, in just what part of the Far West are the mountains where
Billy Goat lives?" replied Peter.</p>
<p>"Chiefly in the northern part," replied Old Mother Nature. "In the
Northwest these mountains are very close to the ocean and Billy does not
appear to mind in the least the fogs that roll in, and seems to enjoy the
salt air. Sometimes there he comes down almost to the shore. Are there any
more questions?"</p>
<p>There were none, so school was dismissed for the day. Peter didn't go
straight home. Instead he went up to the Old Pasture for another look at
the old ram there and tried to picture to himself just what Bighorn must
look like. Especially he looked at the hoofs of the old ram.</p>
<p>"It is queer," muttered Peter, "how feet like those can be so safe up on
those slippery rocks Old Mother Nature told us about. Anyway, it seems
queer to me. But it must be so if she says it is. My, my, my, what a lot
of strange people there are in this world! And what a lot there is to
learn!"</p>
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