CHAPTER VI

IN THE HEART OF THE HUNTING COUNTRY. IBEX, SHEEP, AND BEAR

Our knowledge of the geography of the Tian Shan range was very hazy. We had been unable to get any good maps, and what we could gather from the Kazaks and Kalmuks through the medium of our shikaries, only further confused us. Kargaitash had always been our goal for hunting ovis karelenyi, but whether it was a nullah or a mountain we could never make sure. The small-scale maps which we possessed showed it as a somewhat indefinite range of mountains; but from our questionings we gathered that that was not what the Kazaks meant when referring to Kargaitash.

After leaving our camp in the Kooksu we headed gradually into the hills, through pine forests where we were told the wapiti lived, and over one or two small passes. On the crest of these barren passes, amid the rocks and snow, wild flowers ran riot—yellow and purple pansies, dainty primula, and many whose names we could not approximate. It was hard to say where they were most effective—in the glades of the pine forests or among the lonely rocks. Rahima summed up the situation in laconic fashion when he remarked: “Here jungle all same as garden.”

Ever since crossing the Muzart we had been doing our best to get in touch with one or another of the natives, Kazak or Kalmuk, with whom Rahima had hunted on his previous expeditions in the Tian Shan. He had been here twelve years ago, and as far as we could learn there had been no sahibs in the country since then; first there was the war, and afterward the approach through Russia was closed. Of his two Kalmuk friends, Namgoon had died and Nurla was away, but eventually there turned up one Tula Bai, a Kazak, of whom Rahima thought very highly. He was a short man and walked doubled over, giving a gorilla-like appearance. The first few days he was our guide, his mind, to put it kindly, seemed elsewhere, for we doubled about every which way, much to the disgust of our head pony man, who did not hesitate to explain to Tula Bai with some warmth the error of his ways. Ted and I reserved judgment, which was about all we could do; but when once we got straightened out and really in the hunting country, we found that Rahima had not overrated the old fellow.

We stopped at a number of Kazak khourgas to bargain for horses, for we wished to spell our riding-ponies when we started in hunting. We also had sheep to buy for food for ourselves and the men. In one khourga we found a large hooded eagle. Its owner told us that he used it for coursing roe-deer and also for wapiti; but in the latter case he can only have meant partly grown wapiti. The eagle was not a silent bird; it called out incessantly, but the other occupants of the khourga paid no attention to it; there was a fat baby asleep in a cradle right beside the perch. At another halt we came on a young bull wapiti, perhaps eighteen months old and entirely friendly with his captors.

As we climbed, the weather became colder; the rain, which had been an almost daily occurrence, changed to snow and sleet on the passes, and one could imagine how bitter cold it must be in the winter months if this was what we found in midsummer. The wandering Kazaks had come far up the valleys with their horses and cattle and sheep to take advantage of the summer pasturage. The cattle in particular were fine big animals, but apparently they are rarely slaughtered for food. The chief use made of them seemed to be for riding. In these high pastures there is a poisonous grass to which the herds pay toll, and more than once we came upon dead sheep.

Unexpectedly one afternoon the riddle of Kargaitash was solved for us when Tula Bai pointed out a long, flat-topped butte crowned with tall, irregular pencils of black rock. This was Kargaitash, the stone trees, as the words signify in Turki. Near its base, at an altitude of slightly more than 9,000 feet, we pitched our camp. The cold rain and the mist-clad mountains made it evident that hunting could not be continuous.

Rahima was greatly disappointed when we found that several bands of Kalmuks had preceded us by ten or twelve days and were engaged in shooting marmots. They had old single-shot rifles of the model of 1876, and though they confined their attentions to the marmots, he was afraid that they would have disturbed the country and driven the sheep elsewhere. Kazak and Kalmuk are in continual feud, and it behooves the sahib to watch out that whichever is with him does not make use of the shadow of his wing to oppress the enemy. Our Kazaks did their utmost to persuade us to allow them to confiscate the rifles and ponies of the Kalmuks on the plea that they had disturbed our hunting country.

On August 15 Ted and I set out in opposite directions from camp. Khalil and Tula Bai were with me, while Ted had Rahima and a shenzi named Nurpay, the possessor of a remarkable pair of eyes. Our Kazaks wore hide breeches, and many a ride in the rain had bagged them abnormally at the knees. They reminded us of Father’s story of how on the station platform at Medora, North Dakota, a slightly intoxicated stranger walked round and round his ranch foreman eying his leather trousers, and finally broke out with: “Well, if you’re going to jump, jump, damn you!”

We rode cautiously along, dismounting below the crest of each hill and crawling to the top, field-glasses in hand, to spy out the country. The first wild animal to be sighted was a marmot sitting at the mouth of its burrow. These dark-skinned little fellows are much sought after by the Kalmuks, and we were told that at Kulja a good hide would bring three dollars. At Ayalik, when after ibex, I saw three of them tumbling about in the grass. One adult female I measured was thirty inches over all.

The next game we caught sight of from a subsequent rise was a roe-deer. Tula Bai informed me that it was a tika-illik—an ibex-roe—that its mother had been an ibex and its father a roe; but as a careful examination failed to show us any signs of this unusual mésalliance in the offspring, we decided to leave it alone for fear of disturbing any Karelini that might be within hearing.

[Illustration: LOOSE LEADING A PONY LADEN WITH PRODUCTS OF THE TIAN SHAN]

[Illustration: TULA BAI AND KHALIL SPYING FOR OVIS KARELINI]

Not long after this Khalil made out a small ram climbing up a steep hill. When it had topped the crest, we hurried after it. There were a great many crows on the hillside wheeling and clustering most agitatedly. It was evident that there were some disturbers of the peace in the offing. As we got nearer, we found that a brown hawk, lighter in body than any crow, was endeavoring to make a kill. He invariably attacked the crows upon the ground; six times I saw him swoop unsuccessfully. Half a dozen crows followed in his wake, attempting to mob him, but he paid little attention to them, avoiding them with the greatest of ease whenever they seemed to be uncomfortably close. Our way led through the scene of the combat, so we dispersed the gathering.

At the brow of the hill Khalil and I had our field-glasses ready, and soon picked up three Karelini rams, feeding on a patch of grass a mile or more away. Our first stalk was a failure. Verily in this country “the wind bloweth where it listeth,” and a sudden eddy made our quarry suspicious. They could have got only a very faint whiff, for they trotted off slowly while we watched them from behind a rocky ridge. We saw that in addition to the three marked down there had been as many more hidden. One was Khalil’s small ram, and the others were clearly big fellows; Khalil and Tula Bai estimated them as all having horns more than fifty inches in length. Although they were between five and six hundred yards from us, Khalil was eager for me to open fire, insisting that I would get no second chance. His judgment of the proper time to shoot was very often faulty. Trotting across a narrow valley, they climbed a long, easy, sloping ridge. As they crossed a stretch of snow their horns stood clearly outlined, and we realized that those of the last one were larger than the others; but it was when he clambered upon a rock on the ridge crest and framed himself against the blue sky that we saw him in his full glory and appreciated his true size. Khalil turned to me: “If master get him, I give God twenty rupees at Bandipur!”

Tula Bai, although ready to go anywhere on horseback, was not of much use on foot; in addition, he was inclined to be crotchety and opinionated, so I sent him back to the ponies. When the sheep passed out of sight, Khalil and I made all speed toward where we had last seen them. We found that they had stopped seven or eight hundred yards farther on; some were lying down, others were feeding. The only way to get within range involved a long détour, and included some stiff climbing. An hour’s work, the most disagreeable part of which was the crossing of two wide and steeply inclined snow-fields where we started a couple of small avalanches and felt in a very precarious and uncomfortable position, brought us to a ridge running down near where the sheep lay. Now was the time to make haste slowly, for a misstep and a loosened boulder would give us away. All went well and at a short 150 yards I fired.

We had picked out the old ram; he was lying down facing away from me, and I made precisely the same shot as I had with my ibex at Khanayalik. A bullet entering from behind and ranging forward is almost inevitably fatal. Although he ran, I knew he could not go far, so I turned my attention to his companions. I wanted four sheep. They ran off quartering and then swung around, uncertain whence the trouble came. Part of the time they were hidden in a ravine. I did some rapid shooting, fifteen shots, and when we hurried down to take stock we found that I had bagged five instead of four; one had fallen in the ravine without my knowing it. Only the small one got away. Ted said that whenever we shot at a number of animals it was, according to our shikaries, invariably a case of “The boys with their rakes killed twenty-five snakes, but the biggest one got away!” This time I had made any such theory untenable.

Upon measuring the heads we found that, although the four smaller heads were not as large as we hoped, ranging from forty-four to forty-six inches, the large one was bigger than we had dared to think possible. Around the curve these horns taped sixty-one inches. More than an inch larger than any head yet recorded. There was a great difference in coloration in these sheep. Our shikaries and the natives had told us that the darkest sheep were the largest, but in this case the big one had the lightest coat; three of the others were dark, and one light-colored.

It was four o’clock by the time we began the measuring and the skinning. We made out three Kazak herdsmen in a valley two or three miles away. Tula Bai gathered them in and we were glad of their help. Rain and sleet set in; skinning was bitterly cold work; but eventually I had two entire skins and three head-skins ready, and we packed them all over to the ponies across some very broken ground. On the ride back to camp Tula Bai took the lion’s share of the load. On his pony he piled the two whole skins, leg-bones and all, roping a head on each side of the saddle, and perching himself on top. It was quarter to seven, very dark and cold and wet, but he set out undaunted in the lead. In places the ground was boggy and the ponies sank and struggled; elsewhere there were only rocks and holes, and dimly discerned precipices, along the very edges of which we skirted, but through it all Tula Bai’s white pony, “like the crested plume of the brave Navarre,” glimmered in our van. A white pony is a conspicuous hunting companion, and in the morning I had looked upon it with a very disapproving eye, but at night my feelings were altogether reversed. Khalil sang in Kashmiri and I in English and somehow or other the long, cold hours passed until half past nine, when we caught the glimmer of our camp-fire, after fifteen hours’ hunting.

Ted had had a most interesting time, for although he had seen no heads worth shooting, he had counted a great quantity of game—three herds of Karelini ewes and young, totalling thirty-five animals, and two herds of ibex, totalling eighty. It certainly seemed as if we were in a country teeming with game, but the promise was not fulfilled. We were at a loss to understand the subsequent scarcity; the best explanation we could contrive was that the Kalmuks, coming up from the valleys after marmot-skins, had driven the large game to distant and unknown feeding-grounds. Ted hunted long hours every day for the ensuing week without getting a shot at a sheep. He was usually off twelve to fourteen hours and scoured the country in every direction, while camp was shifted hither and yon as seemed most likely to put us in the sheep country.

Ted never saw another herd of ewes; twice he caught sight of rams, once of ten and once of four, but on neither occasion could he and Rahima get within range, although using every effort and the greatest caution in watching the treacherous air-currents.

Twice he came upon ibex, on each occasion getting three; out of the first lot the best head measured forty-six inches, out of the second the best was fifty-two. Ibex-hunting, unless you have the time and inclination to wait for ideal conditions, involves an immense amount of hard climbing with a distinct spice of danger thrown in. One day Ted took out a pair of rubber-soled shoes to try and they proved most unsatisfactory, almost costing him his life when he slipped and started rolling.

These long hunting-days were not attended by ideal weather. There was generally a potpourri of sunshine, rain, sleet, and snow, the various elements predominating upon different days. Fords, too, were obstacles, swelled by snow-water in the afternoon and evening, and on a certain night Ted and Rahima were nearly washed away. The only insect pest was a large fly, bigger than a horse-fly but with a sting not so severe—indeed, no worse than a mosquito. It was their multitude and their buzzing that caused most annoyance. Fortunately, they were late to rise and early to bed. When the sun was hidden they miraculously disappeared, but when the sun came out they equally miraculously reappeared. If you tried to use your field-glasses, they bustled about your face and neck and entangled themselves in your beard. Then you would call for clouds, but when the sun was darkened it became so cold that you felt ready again to undergo the fly pest.

Our battery consisted of two Springfields and two Hoffman .375’s. Both were admirably suited to our work. The Hoffman is a beautifully turned out firearm, excellently balanced and sighted. One felt that with it there were no alibis available when one missed.

After getting the Karelini rams I turned my attention to collecting females to complete the various groups. I was fortunate enough to find a herd of about twenty ewes late one afternoon. There was a long plateau skirting a river with deep ravines running down to the valley. The sheep were moving along from one draw to another, feeding. A long but comparatively simple stalk brought me within easy range, and to our Karelini group was added its female.

The long day’s hunting always showed something of interest. Twice I came upon foxes—big red fellows with white tips to their tails. The first was hunting field-mice, and was very graceful as he pounced upon his quarry. He was entirely unaware of us, and I could have had an easy shot but that I was afraid of frightening some particularly fine ibex that had been seen near by. Parenthetically, I never did find the ibex, but had I shot the fox I would undoubtedly have laid it to that; it was just one of those cases when you are wrong either way. The second fox I met was stalking a covey of fourteen ramchukor, the big mountain-grouse, larger than a pheasant; a marmot sitting at the entrance to his burrow was an interested spectator, playing the part of innocent bystander. This time I had no chance for a shot.

The hawks as well as the foxes must have lived largely upon mice. Their runways were everywhere; we collected two kinds, one larger than a common house-mouse and with a very short tail, the other only half the size but with a tail almost as long as its body. The former the men caught one night in camp, the latter I saw in the grass and captured by throwing myself off my pony on top of it. It was a good many years since I had prepared any small mammals, and Ted was vastly amused at the pride I took in the skins when I had them stuffed and pinned out, looking, I must own, very plethoric and misshapen.

We constantly felt the lack of a .410 shotgun. On the heights we saw numerous ramchukor, and on the grassy uplands many a covey of partridges. I shot one of the former with my Springfield. A .410 or a .22 Winchester makes so little noise that there is, as a rule, no danger of disturbing the country.

I got a female ibex for the group after a long day among the canyons and ridges of Kargaitash. The columns of rock had been worn into every fantastic shape. Some were like sphinxes, others like strange birds and beasts. Often erosion had left a great rock perched precariously upon the top of a tall, slender column. Sometimes a solitary stem would arise like a great factory chimney. Ted described the whole scene, as he saw it lighted by the sunset, as reminding him of the sky-line of New York. I came upon some ibex lying on isolated rocky pedestals just as the chamois is always shown in the school geographies.

It is most difficult to judge at all correctly the length of the horns of any animal. A ram’s horn with its convolutions is naturally more difficult to estimate than that of an ibex; but even the latter presents enough room for error. One evening when we were riding down a deep gulch, with a female Siberian roe for the group as the day’s contribution, we saw a herd of ibex grazing on the mountains. An hour and a half’s stalk would have been called for to put us in range, and by that time it would have been long after dark, so we contented ourselves with studying them through field-glasses and telescope. Khalil felt certain that there were no heads better than forty-five inches in length, but we nevertheless determined next day to go after them, for time was passing and we had the wapiti group still unstarted. We felt that it would be a very difficult one to get and would require as many days as we could manage to devote to it.

The following morning Ted set off with Rahima across the Kooksu in the hope of coming on ovis karelini, while Khalil and I went to look up these ibex. We had not been gone long when we got a glimpse of six wild pig bustling through the undergrowth on the opposite side of the ravine. Some hasty shots resulted mainly in misses, but the big boar turning back and away from the rest gave us the idea that he might be hit. The underbrush was chiefly made up of a dwarf juniper with wide and low trailing branches. The boar disappeared into a dense, isolated bit of jungle and, upon his failing to reappear, we started toward the clump in which we had last seen him. The mountainside was a maze of pig trails and up it we toiled; the going would have been easier had we been closer to the pig in stature. At length we reached the boar’s retreat, to find ourselves in a warren of big burrows, down one of which our quarry had gone.

We were now well up the mountain, and decided to keep climbing and then make our way as best we could along the ridge, for it was on this side of the nullah that we had seen the ibex. A lammergeyer circled above us; Khalil remarked that that “big bird” always brought him luck; also he had dreamed propitiously during the night. All this was encouraging, but it didn’t make our path any easier. Around rocky peaks, over runways of slide rock, among heaped-up broken boulders we scrambled and slid until we came to a vantage-point from which we could see the mountainside where we believed the ibex would go for their day’s siesta. They were so much the color of the gray rocks that it was a long time before we could pick them out; but gradually we discovered one after another. An ibex sleeps in the most outlandish positions; here one was sprawled along the ledge with his head hanging down between two rocks; there one lay flat on his side on a sand slide so steep that he seemed through the glasses to be standing up; you would not find more postures in a barrack-room of sleeping soldiers. We were about 800 yards away, and examined their heads carefully. Khalil said that there was none with horns fifty inches in length, but I was inclined to disagree with him. The females lay between us and the big males in such a manner as to make stalking impossible until they moved, so there was nothing to do but wait.

We had become very hot in the course of our three and a half hours’ climb, so of the two evils we rather preferred the flies and the sun to shivering in the flyless cold. A marmot came out on a near-by peak and sat up chattering and wagging his tail like an automaton. Some ramchukor sailed whirring by, but the ibex showed no desire to move. It started to rain, then it sleeted, then it snowed. I went a little way down one side of the hill in order to walk up again and get warmed. At length the ibex got up; exasperatingly slowly, with false starts, hesitating and retracing their steps, they picked their way down-hill. Noting their direction, we made all haste to cut them off. We topped a ridge and saw them 250 yards away. If I had used better judgment I could have gotten a hundred yards closer, but it is hard for a shikarry to realize some of the difficulties of the sahib with the rifle; he may be winded, but he needs no steady hand; and seen with his keen eyes game looks close and a very satisfactory target. Khalil always wanted me to shoot at longer ranges than necessary. This time, however, I was committed; the ibex were suspicious and I must shoot. My first bullet took effect; my second misfired and lost me an excellent chance. There followed a fusillade as they dodged about among the rocks. Summed up, I had wounded two, one of which I finished with my last two cartridges. Even when he lay dead we didn’t realize his size; I judged fifty inches, Khalil less, but the tape showed fifty-nine and a half. This made him the largest of recorded heads by an inch and three-quarters.

Darkness was rapidly approaching. Nurpay had heard us and followed up the valley. We got the skin off and down the mountainside. It was packed on Nurpay’s pony, and how, hampered by the great sweep of the horns, he steered his way through the thickets and the boulders in the pitchy blackness, I failed to understand. Of course it was raining. Once more I was glad for a white hunting-pony, as I prodded my old horse along just managing to keep in sight. At half past eight we reached our most welcome camp-fire. Ted was not yet in, but at nine he rode up, drenched but cheerful with a fifty-two-inch ibex. He had been all but washed away in fording the river, and we had a busy time drying his kodak first and then his other belongings that required less urgent attention.

Next day camp was moved in the direction of the Kensu country. It was not to be a long march, so Khalil, Nurpay, and I went off after the wounded ibex. We were convinced that he had not gone far, but by the time we had reached the mountain crest where we had last seen him lying down, snow and hail came pelting down, washing away all tracks, and the mist billowed up the ravines, closing in on every side. A rumbling of avalanches and some dimly seen skipping boulders bound toward where we had left our ponies did not add to our comfort. After a few hopeless casts we felt forced to abandon the search, and very wet and bedraggled we finally reached our new camping-grounds late in the afternoon.

[Illustration: KHALIL WITH THE WORLD’S RECORD IBEX HEAD. THE HORNS ARE 59½ INCHES IN LENGTH]

[Illustration: KHALIL WITH THE WORLD’S RECORD OVIS KARELINI. THE LONGEST HORN MEASURED 61 INCHES]

Another short march planted us on the banks of the Kensu in what was to be a five days’ hunting-camp. A lovely valley closed in by high mountains, pines on the lower slopes, then junipers and low bushes, above them the débris of landslides, broken barren boulders, with an occasional flower in the crevices, and, crowning all, the eternal snows. Edelweiss grew in profusion, and many other flowers were familiar Alpine friends.

From here we had ibex, mountain-sheep, and wapiti shooting all within reach, but it was pre-eminently ibex ground. Nomenclature of game has always interested me. Father was keen on preserving native names wherever possible, but pioneers and settlers are apt to call an animal after the beast it most nearly resembles back in their homeland. Sometimes the similarity is far from close, as with the mighty rapier-horned antelope that the Boers christened the gemsbuck.

An _onomatopoetic_ name always pleased Father, such as quagga for zebra in imitation of the animal’s barking cough, or bwehar for jackal, copying its howl. Father did not at all approve of the American wapiti being called an elk after the Norwegian moose, and there can be no question but that his hunting-books have had a great deal to do with fastening the native Indian name upon that handsomest of the existing deer family.

It would have both interested and amused Father to find our native American name bestowed upon the wapiti’s Asiatic cousin. Our Kashmiri shikaries, getting the name from British sportsmen, referred to the big deer as wapiti. The general native name was boogha, a slight variation, if any, of the name for Yarkand stag. Our Kashmiris called ibex “ibuckus,” and it was as that we usually referred to them. Their native name in the Tian Shan is “tikka.” Siberian roe is known as “illik,” and when Rahima first talked of it we believed that he was Kashmirizing elk and was speaking about the wapiti.

Accompanying us we had a small flock of fat-tailed sheep, whose number was decimated to fill the needs of ourselves and our followers. The mutton was excellent, very different from the stringy stuff with which we had wrestled on the trek across the plains of Turkestan. A most agreeable addition to our larder were the mushrooms that abounded in the valley. Ted measured one that was twelve inches in diameter, but the little button fellows were the better eating. There were two kinds; one pinkish beneath and seemingly identical with our home mushroom we greatly preferred to a larger sort, white underneath, tasting not unlike the fungus beloved of Italians.

With a lucky shot from the Springfield I knocked over a ramchukor, but Rousslia was not much of a hand at preparing game, and the big bird was not the success we had hoped. At all events I prepared his skin, so we did not feel he was lost.

Each day brought its individual interest, a glimpse of some new mammal or bird, a difficult ford to cross or crag to scale. We needed another ibex for the group, and one day when Khalil was feeling crocked up and needed a rest in camp, I took Nurpay with me and started off for the ibex grounds.

As we were climbing up the mountain I twice saw ferrets, little brown-and-white fellows, far too spry for us to catch, although we did our best. They lived in burrows among the rocks. Farther on we came upon several places which wolves had been using as open-air dens. There must have been a good-sized pack, for between the boulders we traced many hollows where they had bedded down. They had been killing ibex and had dragged their quarry some distance down the mountain, for we were still way beneath the ibex country. Of the ibex heads scattered about the rocks, none were of more than thirty inches in length. I only once heard wolves. It was early one frosty morning when the lower hills were covered with a light snowfall. The wolves were in full cry, a musical though sinister sound, with occasional breaks that reminded me of a chorus of hyenas with their insane laughter.

We did a lot of climbing before we sighted ibex, but we were well above them and could study them at our leisure. I made up my mind that there was no head much better than forty-five inches in length, but there were several with fine, massive horns. Selecting the handsomest for my target, I let drive. He went off almost as if unhit, but Nurpay was not to be deceived and said that I had got him. Cautiously we clambered down and found our ibex hanging by one horn from a narrow ledge of rock. Beneath was a sheer drop of 500 feet. The horn was jammed so hard into a crevice that it took our united strength to free it. It had, however, not only saved us a long and most difficult climb down and back, but almost certainly the fall into the canyon would have hopelessly smashed the ibex, rendering both hide and head useless to the museum. We found it no slight task to skin the animal in the little niche into which we dragged it. One slip nearly cost Nurpay his life.

The morning after we reached our Kensu camp Ted took the side of the valley on which our tent was pitched, while I crossed over and started up the mountains opposite, accompanied by Khalil and Nurpay. We had been climbing for about an hour and a half when we came upon a marmot burrow scored with the claws of a bear. He had slipped in his attempt to catch the little rodent, and it was clear that the tracks were of the night before. Hitherto we had seen a great deal of bear sign, but nothing more recent than three or four days old. Here was a chance for the dogs, so I sent Nurpay back to camp for them while Khalil and I climbed on up the mountain, partly to look for game and

## partly with the idea that we would be above the dogs, and able to

watch their line and get to them quicker in case they came to terms with the bear.

While we were watching a herd of ibex—there were no good heads among them—I thought I heard the dogs give tongue. Khalil was sure I hadn’t, so we continued to rake the country with our field-glasses until the time we had allotted for Nurpay’s return was almost up. We hurried back to the vantage-point whence the marmot hole was visible; there were Nurpay’s and Fezildin’s ponies, but neither riders nor hounds to be seen. I had told Nurpay to put the dogs on the trail and loose them. We called out but there was no answer; we felt sure the hunt had gone away without us, but we had commanded one possible direction while watching the ibex, so off we boiled in the opposite, heeding little for falls. My bad knee was thrown out but not seriously. Every little while we stopped to listen for the hounds, and each ridge we topped we hoped to catch sight of the chase; but ridge succeeded ridge and nothing could be seen. Disconsolately we returned to the ponies. We reached them exasperated and breathless at quarter past one, to find men and dogs asleep in the grass. Through a misunderstanding the dogs had not been loosed and the men had not heard our hallooing.

The trail was now far too stale to follow, for there had been a scorching sun all morning, so after a very brief tiffin, I sent Fezildin and the dogs back to camp, and plodded once more up the mountain. We had moved from one ridge to another when, at four o’clock, Khalil announced that he saw a bear. Nurpay brought the telescope to focus on it, and at first insisted that it was a tungus, a pig; but it only took a good look for me to feel sure he was mistaken. It was a bear right enough, walking up a grassy nullah far off on the opposite side of the mountain from that up which we had climbed. There was a long stalk before us, and no time to lose. We slithered and slipped down the bed of a ravine which was floored with slide rock. It was almost as much work as climbing. We had started from Srinagar outfitted with beautiful steel-shod khud sticks, but they had all but one succumbed to the vicissitudes of mountain-trekking, and the one remaining was sadly cracked and weakened. We usually trusted to picking up a makeshift stick, but to-day I had none, and badly did I miss it. There were two steep hillsides up which to pant and struggle before we reached the nullah in which we had seen the bear. Cautiously we pushed ourselves through the dwarf junipers. We could see nothing, and separated to different vantage-points. I kept a sharp eye on the other two, and soon saw Khalil signalling. On reaching him he pointed out the bear, lying curled up in the undergrowth a hundred and fifty yards away, on the other slope of the nullah. As I fired, it jumped up and rolled over and over into the bed of the ravine, shouting and howling. Khalil said it was finished, but wishing to make certain, I fired a couple of shots at the rolling bear but scored no hit. We launched ourselves down into the nullah, though Nurpay kept exclaiming that there was no way down and we would all fall. In safety we landed, but the bear was gone. We caught a fleeting glimpse of something running through the underbrush and once more I opened fire. Nurpay turned cautious; he was manifestly a great respecter of bears, but he was too loyal not to follow in our wake. Two hundred yards down the ravine we stopped to reconnoitre, and then it was that Nurpay caught sight of a bear’s ears well up the side down which we had come. He had some difficulty in making Khalil and me see it, but at last I did. With the second shot, down came the bear, shot through the heart, bounding from rock to rock, to bring up stone-dead within thirty yards of us.

It was an old he-bear, very fat. We had no time for taking stock and congratulating ourselves, for it was after six. I hastily jotted down the measurements, tried a time exposure with my kodak, and we settled down to the skinning with desperate earnest. Daylight was about gone when we started back up the ravine, but of a sudden Nurpay stopped; his keen eyes had picked up a blood-trail. “Yekke aya,” “two bears,” he said. Khalil stoutly maintained that there had been but one; I sided with Nurpay, for a number of details, hitherto unnoticed, came back to me. First there was the color; the original bear had seemed almost white, while the one we were carrying was dark brown. Then thinking back over the hasty skinning, I could but recall one bullet-hole. Last of all, I was sure that the bear could not have been down in the nullah here and have climbed so far when I shot him. Still, for the night it was purely an academic discussion; it was far too late to hope to follow a trail.

[Illustration: THE RECORD KARELINI]

[Illustration: NURPAY AND THE BEAR]

We turned our attention to the serious work of getting ourselves and the bearskin back to camp. First Nurpay and I tried to carry it tandem, but one would slip and drag down the other, and but little headway was made. On a perpendicular hill slope we halted and I skinned out the head, mainly by feel. The head with the flesh on it must have weighed twenty pounds. I hung it like a pendant round my neck. With our mufflers we slung the skin about Nurpay, and once more got under way. A quarter-moon appeared, but in half an hour it was hidden by clouds. We struggled along with frequent halts. Part of the time we walked upright, except for frequent falls among the rocks; up the steeper bits we crawled on hands and knees. There was no chance to pick our path; we got over or round whatever appeared in front of us. It was after eleven before we won our way back to the ponies, but fortunately the threatening rain had held off until we were mounted. Still once more I had cause to see the advantages of a white hunting-pony. Nurpay on his white mare threaded his way down the mountainside as only a Kazak can, over country that might well give pause in daylight. The ponies seemed by instinct to avoid the marmot holes, and when they did step into one, they showed the utmost calmness in extricating themselves. When we came upon small patches of upland meadow, there were always hidden springs and the ground was boggy; by night we could only trust to Nurpay’s instinct and our ponies’ experience. I had a long inward debate as to whether, if I groped around for pipe, tobacco, and matches, the discomfort of lighting my pipe would be compensated for in the subsequent comfort of a smoke. I made the effort and was rewarded, although my pony all but came down when I loosened the reins to strike a match. At half past twelve we rode into camp, and tumbled from our saddles to thaw ourselves round a blazing fire of spruce logs, and recount our adventures to the sleepy men who had rolled out of their blankets when they heard us coming.

In the morning Khalil was feeling too done up to go out, so I took two Kazaks and went off to look into the matter of the possible second bear. Nurpay had been right; there had been two, and we followed the one I had first wounded for three-quarters of a mile down the ravine below where the other had fallen. The trail was most difficult, and at length it was lost, even to Kasin’s sharp eyes. We made futile casts in every direction, but at last we had to abandon the chase. I had debated taking the dogs, and it would have been well had I done so, but in the first place the existence of a second bear was doubtful, and in the second I was afraid that a badly wounded bear might so cut up our dogs as to destroy their further usefulness.

A few days later we both took the dogs out, thinking that if the wounded bear were still alive we might pick up its fresh trail. Either it or another had been working about in the nullah bottom, for Lead immediately showed interest. He and Rollie puzzled a trail out for a short distance, but it was evidently too stale to follow through to a successful conclusion.

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