CHAPTER VII

THE ASIATIC WAPITI OF THE TIAN SHAN

“And they travelled far, and further than far.” —OLD FAIRY STORY.

There are many ibex in the Tian Shan mountains, but any one who believes that a good head is therefore easy to get makes a very real mistake. It is one thing to see them through the field-glasses, and another to get them and bring them back in triumph to camp. Stalking the big ibex is hard and tricky work.

The day after we reached the Ken River, Rahima Loon and I started out for our tenth day of fruitless search for the Karelini. “Here and there like a dog at a fair” we wandered over rolling, turf-covered hills. Whenever we drew near a place from which we could get a wide view of the country beyond, we dismounted and crawled to the crest like little boys playing Indian. It was almost dark and we had worked up into the rocky mountains before we saw anything. Then it was not Karelini but a large flock of ibex. At first there seemed to be nothing but females, kids, and young males. I counted sixty-four, and there may have been more, for some, like the little pigs in the story, skipped around so fast I could not count them accurately. We watched them as they wandered down through the rocks to browse in the grassy nullahs. At times the young males would spar and butt one another, for all the world like their domestic cousins the goats. They were thoroughly alert, nevertheless, and the advance-guard of the troop as they stepped daintily along would pause every few minutes, look carefully in all directions, and snuff the air. Suddenly Rahima Loon nudged me and whispered: “Burra wallah!” (big fellow). They were lying around a large rock. Some could be seen entirely. Others were half hidden by the rock. At times they would get up, stretch, and look around. At times they would lie on their sides with their horns resting on the ground. There was no doubt that they were big, for the horns showed the sweeping curve that comes only with age and size.

There was no chance to stalk them. Long before we could have reached their rocky stronghold, it would have been too dark to shoot. We watched until the light failed, and planned our campaign for the next day.

Early next morning we left camp. For seven long hours we toiled over ridges and, like the wizards, “peeped and muttered,” for the ibex had shifted their ground during the night and we could not find them. It was afternoon when we finally sighted them again. The big males were lying high on the hillside with the rest of the flock spread fan-wise around them. Two stalks lay open to us: one over the top of the mountain, the other up a nullah to a point where the small fry that surrounded the big animals were fewest. We chose the latter, as it was shorter, and for nearly three hours we worked our way toward them. The last half-mile was over slide rock. Trying to walk over slide rock without noise is like trying to cross a room in the dark without upsetting a chair. Careful as we were, an occasional rock would clatter down the slope. Before we got within range the noise alarmed the females, and the whole herd began moving away over a ridge. We made a desperate eleventh-hour attempt to cut them off but failed, and rode disconsolately into camp in the dark.

By this time, however, I was reasonably sure that I knew the general habits of these particular ibex. Next day Kermit and I decided to hunt them together. We started with our shikaries and “jungli wallahs” about five next morning. A thick hoarfrost covered the grass. It was nipping cold. The ponies shivered as they stood hunched up under the saddles. As we rode up the nullah that led to the hunting-grounds the sun had reached the mountain crests, painting their snow-caps a delicate rose pink. By contrast the dark cold valley where we were seemed even darker and colder.

We rode up the side of a ridge that would in many circles be considered very fair mountaineering on foot, for a Kazak pony climbs as if it had a monkey in its ancestry. Just below the crest we dismounted and tied our horses. Then we got out our field-glasses and searched the mountainside. In a short time we found the flock, tiny light-brown specks on the slate-gray rock. A few minutes later we spotted our big fellows. They were in the same relative position they had held on the two previous days, in the rocks two or three hundred yards below the snow-line, with the rest of the herd in a crescent around them. After a hurried discussion, we decided that the best approach was to work up the reverse slope of the shoulder on which we were to the crest of the mountain, then to push our way through the snow until we were directly above them. Accordingly, we set out for a preliminary four miles of what Kermit calls “side-hill grouging,” that is, walking diagonally across the face of a slope with an angle of forty-five degrees. There are different kinds of grouging. There is, for example, walking along the side of a partially turf-covered hill. This is not bad. Then there is walking along a slide-rock slope where it is possible to diagonal in two directions. This is harder, for there is always the danger of starting a rock-slide. Last and worst is grouging a slide-rock slope for a long distance in the same direction. Here there is not only the danger of a landslip but, in addition, the up-hill side of the feet become very sore. On this stalk the first four miles were on the right sides of our feet and mainly over slide rock.

As we walked along the west slope of the ridge, three great ramchukor zoomed over us from the opposite side. Kermit and I both started, for they sounded exactly like seventy-seven shells. I believe if there had been a shell-hole handy, we would have instinctively run to it.

After two hours’ climbing we reached the snow, and through it we ploughed for another mile to a point we had marked as nearest the animals. We worked cautiously over a jutting rock and saw the big ibex below us. They were nearly 300 yards away, and were half concealed by the overhang of the rock around which they were lying. A hasty whispered conference ensued. We decided to go on through the snow until we were on the other side of them, and then work down a rocky buttress to a point from which they would be about one hundred yards distant. Going through the snow it was reasonably easy to be quiet, but when we got to the rocks it was very different. We were so close that any noise might alarm the game. We watched every step and tested the footholds before putting weight on it. The wind was treacherous and gusty, as it generally is in the mountains, and this was an additional source of worry. Fortune was with us, however, and we got to the spot we had picked without frightening the ibex. After cautiously looking them over, we prepared to shoot. At this critical moment one of our shikaries lost his head and ran like a wild man along the sky-line. The game saw him and were alarmed. There was no time to be lost. It was my first shot and I fired just as they were moving off. Kermit followed suit immediately. We wounded but did not stop our animals. In a moment we caught sight of them again as they ran swiftly in single file through the rocks somewhat farther away. Again we fired in the same order. Luck perched on our shoulders, for both ibex fell and rolled head over heels down the steep slope. My animal was dead but Kermit’s, though very groggy, was up and away again. Kermit finally stopped him with a phenomenally long shot near the mountain crest. We started for our kills at once. Rahima and a Kazak went with me, Khalil and another Kazak with Kermit. My buck had rolled some three or four hundred yards down-hill. It is surprising how far animals will roll down these steep mountainsides, sometimes with disastrous results to their horns. Several times I have nearly rolled down a mountain with an ibex while trying to skin him where he had fallen.

When we got to my ibex we found he was a fine animal with horns measuring fifty-one and a half inches. While we were skinning him we heard a rumbling roar above us. We knew instantly what it was. Without even stopping to look up, Rahima and the Kazak started running as fast as they could to a buttress of rock that jutted up a short distance away. I paused just long enough to glance in the direction of the noise and saw, silhouetted against the sky, rocks leaping like ibex. For the first time I understood the Psalm “Why hop ye so, ye high hills?” I joined the other two as quickly as I could, and from the safe shelter of the great rock we watched the avalanche churn by taking our ibex with it. A short distance below, on less steep ground, it slowed up and stopped. We gingerly made our way down to it and were delighted to find the head of the animal uninjured. The body skin, however, was so badly torn that it was useless to try to save it.

I had been carrying around some strychnine to poison the carcasses of such game as we might shoot in order to get specimens of the scavenger birds and animals. This seemed to me an excellent opportunity to use it. While I was putting in the poison I heard a long-drawn whistle. There was Kermit on a neighboring ridge making his way down with his ibex, an animal about the size of mine. He waved to me and evidently wanted to know what I was doing, so I got up and shouted to him. Then I went on with my work. After a few minutes Rahima remarked: “Kermit Sahib and Khalil, they come down.” I looked up and, sure enough, Kermit and Khalil were scrambling down the side of the ridge toward us as if they were running a race. I could not imagine why they were doing this, but put it down to exuberance of spirits on the part of Kermit. I remarked to Rahima that it showed what a tough man Kermit was when, at the end of a long hard stalk such as we had just made, he would run down a mountainside for fun. Then we turned again to our work. In a few minutes there was a clatter of rock and Kermit called: “How do you feel, Ted?” I replied in some surprise that I felt perfectly well. It turned out that when I called he had understood me to say I had been poisoned. He had been hurrying down as fast as he could scramble, expecting to find me in a very bad way. Rahima thought it was all a great joke. Kermit naturally did not look at it from that point of view.

Kermit waited until we finished, and we walked down together to the ponies, mounted, and rode to camp through the gathering dusk. We had both shot other and larger ibex, but we were as much pleased with these two as with any. We felt that they had taken hard work and real skill to get, and that is what gives the flavor to shikar.

Next morning the boy we sent out to look at the poisoned carcass came back with an enormous vulture, a lammergeyer. Its body and wings were white shading to buff, except the tips of the wing and tail feathers which were brown shading to black. It measured ten and a half feet from wing-tip to wing-tip. Unfortunately, the Kazak who brought it to camp had used it in part as a saddle, so that it was too much torn to be worth skinning.

Here in the Kargaitash our caravan was a more complete, self-sustaining unit than it had been at any other time. We had a flock of sheep. They were fat-tailed sheep, with a ridiculous bustle of wool on their hindquarters which flounced around as they trotted along. It gave them an even sillier appearance than sheep usually have. On cold nights they coughed exactly like fussy old men. Two or three times I was on the point of asking which one of the men had a bad cold when I realized what it was. We had also a cow and a calf. The former was brought along to give us milk, the latter presumably to share the milk with us. We never found out who came first, but we got little milk and the calf prospered.

In recognition of our letters to the Chinese officials we had an indeterminate guard of Chinese soldiers. We used them for carrying messages. Like all troops of their type, they were always practising petty oppressions on the natives. We would hear sounds of shrill altercation in some village we were passing, and know that something was going on that should not. Then soldiers and villagers would troop out, all talking at once, to lay the case before us. It was difficult to administer justice, for with our very limited means of communication it was impossible to find out just what had happened. Among the soldiers, however, were two good men. The first was a captain, the second in command at Shutta, who joined us as we reached the Kargaitash. He was a good-looking man, tall and slight, with aquiline features. He took a personal interest in our success and was always willing to help. The second was a square-built mustached Kazak named Suffa, who officiated at times as our shepherd. True to his blood, he was a natural hunter, and often pointed out game while we were on the march. As guides we had three Kazak jungli wallahs headed by old Tula Bai, reputed to be eighty-six years old, but as spry as a cricket. We became genuinely fond of all three, and were really sorry to part with them when the time came for them to leave us.

[Illustration: A KIRGHIZ GRANDMOTHER MOVING HOUSE]

[Illustration: A KALMUCK MARMOT-HUNTER]

Our pony men came from Aksu. They were a cheerful lot, who almost invariably seemed in a good temper, rain or shine, snow-covered glacier or sun-scorched plain. They were very hardy, and I often saw one or more of them stripped to the waist striding along through a snow-storm. Last but not least came our own men whom we had brought with us from Kashmir. The best of these was Rahima Loon, our head shikarry. He had the dignity that is peculiar to the best type of Oriental. He was tall and slight, with a black beard and hawk nose. He knew game and its habits thoroughly. He also had courage. Rarer than all these in the East, he was economical with our money. He unquestionably saved us many hundreds of rupees during the trip. He had been taken to England by one of the “sahibs” with whom he had hunted, and had a general knowledge of the world that far exceeded that of any of the others. He was cautious in his statements and refused to prophesy as to game. When we asked him what we should find in any particular place, he almost invariably would reply: “We go lookum see!”

Fezildin, the dog boy, had changed greatly on the trip. When he came with us he was a timid, unassertive little fellow with the usual Indian pipe-stem legs. He never showed any initiative or mind of his own, but slunk around in the background like a small black shadow. On the way up from Yarkand he began to expand and develop until he had metamorphized into a regular jungli wallah. He discarded his pugri, and blossomed forth in a Turki cap with a fringe of waving black goat hair that framed his face and made him look like the “Wild Man of Borneo” of the circuses. He turned in and helped with the horses and did well. He forded the worst streams without a sign of fear. Indeed, he was generally one of those sent out with a lantern to help Kermit or me when we came back after dark from hunting and had to cross bad water near camp. He was taught skinning, and under the tutelage of Kermit became quite good. His specialty was skinning out the legs, which, next to the head, are the most difficult parts of an animal to prepare. More than all this, when there was work to do he did not have to be hunted out of some corner. Barring the time when poor Foxie died, there was no possible fault to find with his care of the dogs. He was very fond of them and very kind. To hear him when they had done something wrong, however, you would have thought he was an ogre. He bellowed at them like a bull of Bashan, but often while shouting with the utmost ferocity would beat them with a wisp of straw.

Our gamble with the dogs did not turn up trumps. To begin with, the death of Foxie was a severe blow, for we considered him our mainstay. Then there were very much fewer varmints in the Tian Shan than we had anticipated. The bears that Kermit and Cutting shot, and one snow-leopard that we picked up with the glasses some two miles away, were the only ones we saw. In all the hunting that we did, we only came on fresh signs once. As far as the tiger were concerned, we were told that they existed no longer in the Tekkes. Natives are only too willing, as a rule, to say that there is lots of game when there is none, but in this case they all said there were no tiger now. They said that during the last ten or fifteen years the native hunters had killed them off with poisoned meat. Though we tried, we were never able to get the dogs on any varmint trail that was fresh enough to follow. Naturally, this disappointed us, not only because we missed the hunting, but also because we became very fond of the dogs and felt they deserved a chance to make good.

To get good hunting with dogs there should be better conditions than we had, and also a man in the party who gives them constant attention. This man should be an expert on dogs, and should spend his time handling them and searching for country where they will get a chance. Kermit and I were not experts with dogs, and we were far too busy to give them the unceasing attention they needed.

I was not very fluent in Urdu. Kermit was a good deal better than I was, which is merely damning his Urdu with faint praise. Rahima Loon and Khalil spoke English which in quality much resembled our Urdu. The result was that at times we had difficulty in understanding each other. This was particularly so when one of the shikaries would try to point out game to us. At best it is hard to see the game they have found. Their eyes are so good that a tiny dot which looks like a rock to the white hunter is recognized at once by them as an ibex. Their favorite method of placing animals was to say in English: “There, just by white e-stone” (stone). As the entire mountain to which they would point was covered with rocks that might have passed as white stones, this was like trying to point out a lark in a meadow by saying it was by a blade of grass. Eventually we would get them to rest the rifle on some rocks and sight it. We would look over the rifle, find the exact spot at which it was pointed, and then search with field-glasses until we found what they had seen.

Sometimes other amusing mistakes occurred. About four-thirty one cold morning we were getting up to hunt. I was already dressed and had washed in water warmed over the fire. Kermit was still snugly cuddled in his bedding-roll. I had the virtuous feeling common to all on such an occasion, combined as it always is with a rancorous jealousy of his more comfortable condition. In an attempt to be humorous I told the native servant, in my best Urdu, that I wished some cold water to throw over Kermit Sahib to make him get up. A basin of warm water was waiting for Kermit by the tent flap. The native promptly took it away, brought it back filled with ice-cold water from the stream, and solemnly placed it by the washing things. He thought that I had told him that Kermit wished cold water for washing. It seemed an odd taste at four-thirty of a bitter cold morning, but then sahibs are proverbially odd.

All through this region the hawks, vultures, and eagles were numerous. There were generally one or more in sight, floating over the country with far-seeing eyes. Often I lay on my back between stalks, and through my field-glasses studied “the way of an eagle in the air.” I agree thoroughly with Solomon thereon, for I have rarely seen anything that approaches these birds in power and effortless grace. At times there would be a gale blowing and they would swoop hither and yon simply by planning, or hold their position over a certain spot by a flickering motion of the wings.

Among the small birds there were pigeons, sparrows, larks, and swallows, but by far the most striking were the black-and-white magpies. There were always two or three flashing about the landscape with that swaggering dandyism peculiar to their breed. I saw them on the grassy hills, in bush-covered slopes, and down among the pine-trees. I watched very carefully and never saw a hawk molest a magpie. Kermit saw a hawk make one unsuccessful attack. The magpies did not seem to be really afraid of the birds of prey. This seemed all the more remarkable, as they are certainly the most conspicuous of birds. They seem to have swaggered themselves into immunity.

The insect life, like the bird life, was not diversified, but in some cases was only too numerous. The chief offenders were the horse-flies. I noticed three species of them. One was like a bee covered with yellow down and corpulent; one like our horse-fly with green eyes; and one the same except for brown eyes. They were most plentiful on the grassy hills. On the slatey peaks of the mountains and in the forest-clad valleys there were comparatively few. They were only active during the sunshiny hours, disappearing like magic when the day clouded over or the sun set. Their bark was considerably worse than their bite. I did not feel them as much as those found in the salt marshes of Long Island, but their numbers and ceaseless buzzing made them at times unbearable. As Rahima Loon sadly remarked to me after he, like David, had been killing his ten thousands: “Kill one, come three.”

In contrast to the horse-flies the butterflies, though numerous, were welcome. They were very lovely and we found them everywhere. There was a deep-red variety with spotted wings that was particularly common. It seemed as if every patch of flowers had one resting on it, its wings moving gently, as if it were breathing. We found other varieties high on the mountains among the slide rock. Those I noticed were more slate gray in color like the rocks, possibly an instance of protective coloration. They had small colored eyes on the wings. A couple of times when I was riding into camp after dark I noticed small white moths in quantities, fluttering about like the fairies of bygone days.

We saw only one species of snake, a small one, twelve to eighteen inches long. It was brown in color, the back banded with darker and lighter stripes. All the men were afraid of them and said they were poisonous. One of our horses that died was killed, we were told, by a bite on the lip from one of them. This we did not believe, but their fangs when dissected did show small poison sacs at the base. As we had left Cherrie our reptile tank with the alcohol, we put two into a bottle of arak given us as a present by an Amban. Taking into account the quality of the liquor, this seemed to us very appropriate.

By this time we had collected the males of all the principal animals that we expected to get in the Tian Shan with the exception of the wapiti, the Asiatic cousin of our elk. It is the largest deer of the Eastern hemisphere. Among living deer it is exceeded in size only by our wapiti. It became known to Western scientists later than the American variety and is named after it, for it is called cervus canadensis songaricus. The mature males weigh between eight and nine hundred pounds. The horns when in velvet are considered a valuable medicine by the Chinese. Large prices are paid for them. In consequence, all the native hunters, Kalmuks, Kazaks and Kirghiz, hunt them continually during the late spring and early summer. All along we had been worried for fear we would not be able to get specimens of this animal, for it is scarce. Indeed, Church in his book written in 1899 considered them to be on the verge of extinction. They are easiest to get when they begin to call. They do not call, however, until the middle of September, and we felt we should start for the Pamirs by that date.

The wapiti live lower down the valley than the ibex and Karelini, so we had to shift camp. We split our caravan, taking with us only the barest necessities, and marched down the Kooksu. Here this river is

## particularly lovely. Its turbulent and milky waters flow through a

rocky gorge. On the south bank the forests run from the edge of the canyon up the hills. Occasionally there is a little grassy meadow. On the north bank the hills are bare and unforested, except where tributary streams run in through similar though smaller gorges.

We camped for the night in one of these small gorges. Through it ran as clear and pretty a brook as any trout-stream of our own North woods. The spruce forest around was virgin. Great fir-trees towered gracefully above us. Beneath them the ground was brown and fragrant with their needles and cones. Here and there the gray dead trunk of some giant tree stretched full length through the undergrowth. On all sides the hills framed us. Magpies flitted saucily around the outskirts of the camp, watching for scraps. The gurgling of the brook sounded ceaseless through all, like the underlying motif in a melody of Mozart’s.

The morning after we arrived, Kermit and I shouldered our rifles and went out by ourselves, while Rahima went to look for wapiti sign in a nullah north of camp. We walked down the main river and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, but saw no game. When we got back to camp it was noon and quite warm. The opportunity seemed heaven-sent. We took our soap and towels and went to the brook for a much-needed bath. The water was icy cold, and in order to get it to cover us we had to lie down on very sharp stones, but we felt like fighting-cocks when we were out drying on “a bar of sun-warmed shingle.”

[Illustration: WAPITI COUNTRY]

[Illustration: KHALIL, NURPAY, AND A TIAN SHAN WAPITI]

When we returned to camp we found Rahima was ready to start. He was far from cheerful. He said he had seen no wapiti signs, and feared that there were very few in the country. We flipped a coin to decide which way each should go. I won, and chose the left branch of the canyon, which seemed the better.

Rahima, a Kazak and I rode up a steep little path to a grassy plateau. From the top we could see the country for miles. The short fragrant summer of the Tian Shan was drawing to a close. The leaves were already turning, and patches of red and brown dappled the green of hillside and valley. To the south, the ridges and snow-crowned mountains stretched like the foam-crested waves of some giant ocean.

We rode up to a point from which we could get a view of the valley, dismounted, and through field-glasses studied woodland and scrub-covered slope. We saw nothing and soon moved on to where we could get another view. Again the result was the same. A cold, drizzling rain was falling when about four-thirty we reached a hill eight or ten miles from camp, from which we could look into a new canyon farther to the west. We were thoroughly discouraged, for so far we had seen the tracks of only one wapiti, and even they were some days old. After we had been searching the country for about a quarter of an hour, Rahima touched me on the arm and said “boogha,” Turki for stag. He pointed up the valley. I looked as carefully as I could but was unable to see anything. He said there were two and that they were lying in the bushes. In a moment one of them got up, and I was able to make him out through the telescope. He was a fine big animal of a slate-gray color. He was standing toward the end of a rather broad nullah just beyond a grove of stunted willows.

There was no time to lose, for they were a long way off and darkness was coming. We had a hurried consultation about the stalk. With the wind as it was there seemed to be only one course open, and that was to skirt the small valleys to the right until we came to a slight fold of ground near where they were feeding. It was a long distance—some three miles. We started off at a jog trot along the hillside—Rahima, Tula Bai’s son Kassein and I.

Generally I make my shikaries go slowly. All shikaries have far too great a tendency to run their sahib up to the game. This makes the man with the gun shoot when he is out of breath, and multiplies the chance of a miss, for it is possible to be panting only mildly and yet be entirely unable to keep the sight on the target. The shikarry himself, of course, does not notice for he does not shoot. Those who shoot only at a target often wonder why sportsmen miss the shots they sometimes do. The answer is that the sportsman rarely shoots under even approximately good conditions. He is tired or winded, or his position is bad, or he is hurried, or the target is blurred and indistinct. To say “the shooting was done under ideal conditions,” is as accurate as the military phrase “at this point the general threw fresh troops into action.” No “fresh troops” are ever thrown into a big battle. They are always worn by long marches or lack of sleep, or both. In the same way a sportsman never gets ideal conditions.

This time, however, there was no time to go slowly. It was a question of “Root hog or die!” The three of us hurried over slippery wet hillsides, tripping and falling every few minutes. We climbed over loose rock. We threaded our way between patches of a tall, spiny, cactus-like plant that is common in these mountains. It began to rain in earnest and our clothes became sodden and heavy.

At last, after an hour’s hard work, we crept over a rise and saw our game. They had moved up the ravine, and were feeding toward a crest from which the ground sloped into another canyon. There was not a minute to spare, as they were moving. We crawled on all fours to the point we had marked for our shot. They were much farther away than we had expected, and every moment took them still farther. I could not see their horns with my naked eye. They must have been more than 250 yards away, for I paced it afterward and made it 452 of my rather short paces. I was blown, and the rain was beaded on the sights. I raised my rifle, and, taking the most careful aim possible, fired. Fortune tipped my bullet. I saw the stag falter and I knew he was hit. Then I did what I never would have done had I not feared this might be our only chance for wapiti. I switched and fired at the other. Again I was in luck, for the bullet took effect and he staggered. Immediately I switched back to the first, who was slowly making his way up the valley, and with three more shots brought him down. By this time, however, the second animal had gone quite a distance and was moving through the scrub fully 400 yards away. I fired at him a number of times as he showed himself between the bushes. I could get no rest for my rifle as I was on the steep slope of a hill. The range was far beyond any at which I am reasonably sure, and I missed. At last I got Kassein, made him kneel down, and using him as a rest managed to register another hit before the wapiti disappeared over a wooded shoulder. Calling to the men to follow, I started plunging down the hill to trail the wounded animal. The men were far too excited to heed, and ran like lamplighters to where the first animal had fallen in order to hallal him and make him legal Mohammedan food, so I plodded on alone. The jungle was of willow and thorn bushes from four to eight feet high and thickly matted. Beneath them were boulders and cactus-plants. I tangled my rifle in the branches. I slipped and fell. I tore pieces out of both my clothes and myself. To make matters worse, it was now quite dark and I had only two cartridges left. When I reached the crest over which the wapiti had gone, I was blowing like a steam siren. About this time Rahima and Kassein joined me. In a few minutes they pointed out the wapiti some seventy-five yards away. I fired and missed. That left me with one cartridge. I scrambled down the hillside through the deadfall. At times I got a glimpse of a pair of antlers or a broad gray back in the brush ahead, but I did not dare chance a shot, as all my hopes were pinned to that last cartridge. All three of us crashed down through the scrub-willow jungle. Kassein ran ahead. With the usual hardiness of his kind, he seemed as fresh as if he were just starting. By the time we got to the foot of the slope he was well in advance, ranging to left and right like a bird-dog. Well behind, I ploughed along like a very old broken-winded horse with the string-halt. Behind me in turn was Rahima. A shrill whoop from Kassein told me he had our game in sight. Breathless as I was, I could no more have replied than I could have made the proverbial leap over the moon. I headed for him as rapidly as possible, and saw him pointing to a clump of bushes just ahead. Suddenly I found myself within twenty yards of the wapiti, who was looking in the direction of Kassein. My shot took effect, and the fine animal rolled over dead.

One antler of the dead wapiti showed above the grass. For a moment I thought he was a “stag royal,” for there were seven tines on this horn, but when I looked at the other I found there were only five tines on it, which made the head a twelve-pointer. The first stag that I had hit was a splendid big animal but had only ten points. Thoroughly happy, I sat down and lighted my pipe.

It was now pitch-dark and raining. Under the circumstances, with the wapiti a mile apart, we could not skin them that night. Kassein took off one of his multitudinous ragged shirts and I took off my leather jacket. We hung these over the carcasses like scarecrows to keep any wolves or scavenger-birds away, and started back to the ponies. When we got to the place we had left them, we found they had strayed, and as far as I was concerned were hopelessly lost. Kassein added to his other admirable qualities owl-like eyes that could see in the dark. He wandered off over the hills, and soon called from the inky black that he saw the ponies. We rounded them up and, shivering but happy, got into the wet saddles.

After two hours’ riding we came to the head of the valley where our camp was. Just at this moment the rain stopped, and the moon shone out through the hurrying clouds. The black shapes of the spruce-trees clothing the hillsides contrasted sharply with the bare slopes where the wet grass shimmered in the moonlight. Below us in the valley our camp-fire glowed through the clustered shadows. Rarely have I seen so welcome a sight.

Kermit had seen nothing during the day, so we started early next morning, he to make another attempt to get a stag, I to skin the two I had left in the nullah. Rahima, Kassein, and two of the pony men came with me, with extra horses to carry the heads and hides.

When we got to the valley we found the wapiti undisturbed. In the morning light they looked very big. The larger measured nearly nine feet in total length. This was the ten-pointer, not the twelve-pointer. As so often happens, the size of the horns did not indicate the size of the body. The wapitis’ summer coat is red. Their winter coat is gray. The two that I shot had practically completed the change to their winter pelage. They looked to me grayer than our wapiti in the United States, and their antlers seemed less massive.

The men all turned to and helped skin, chattering like monkeys. While they were working I noticed Rahima cut the secretion out of the tear-duct, wrap it carefully in paper, and put it in his pocket. I asked him why he did it, and was told that if a woman mixed it with water and drank it she was sure to be fertile.

We got back to camp about two o’clock. Shortly after, Kermit came in with a good bull wapiti he had shot early in the morning. That gave us all the stags we needed for the museum. The wapiti, which we feared would be very difficult to get, had taken only two days’ hunting. The men were delighted, for they were much afraid of the Pamirs in early winter, and knew that this piece of fortune would make it possible to start sooner after the ovis poli.

That evening they built a rousing spruce-wood fire. Its flames danced and flickered in the shadows of the towering evergreens that walled the camp. They squatted around it; the hookah was passed from hand to hand, its gurgle at times audible above the crackling of the logs. Old Tula Bai, his bent form, wagging beard and peaked hat giving him a gnome-like appearance, presided as dean of the Kazaks. Rahima Loon, his eyes gleaming from his dark, clean-cut face, was the central figure among the Kashmiris. The ruddy firelight shining on the bronzed faces threw the whole scene into a bold relief of lights and shadows. Kermit and I drew our chairs up to one side of the fire, smoked our pipes, and listened to stories of stags with great antlers, shot by sahibs whose last trek was made twenty-five years ago.

Having shot our male wapiti, we still had before us the necessary but uninteresting task of getting a female, or maral, as they are called locally, to complete the group for the museum. Rahima Loon, who was a true sportsman, could not quite understand this. He always regarded the fact that we shot females for the museum as a rather serious blot on our otherwise amiable characters. He now suggested that, instead of waiting in the Tian Shan for the maral, we should start back at once for the Pamirs. He explained that there were plenty of female deer in India which we could send the museum for the group. We told him that three male wapiti with a female deer from India would not do. He accepted this rather gloomily as simply an illustration of the weak spot in our intelligence.

After much discussion, we decided that the best way to get maral was to camp at the junction of the Kensu and the Kooksu, and hunt from there. Next morning we moved our baggage-train to this point. In the afternoon we forded the Kooksu and hunted the wooded slopes beyond till dark, without success. When we got back to camp, we found a soldier had arrived from Shutta with a message for us. He also told us that Cherrie and Cutting had been at Shutta for ten days. This put them in the Tian Shan nearly three weeks earlier than had been planned. We had had no letters from them, and we feared something had gone wrong. After talking it over, we decided that we had better go back and join them at once. As for the maral, we would have to try to get it somewhere near them.

Next morning we collected our entire caravan and took to the road again. No one must be deceived by this use of the word “road.” A road in the Tian Shan does not bear the slightest resemblance to a road in the United States. It covers anything passable by a clever mountain-pony. The roads here range from the trails across the plains, which are the best, to mountain tracks over glacier and cliff, which take either an ibex or a Tian Shan pony to negotiate successfully.

We pushed on as fast as we could. We crossed a couple of snowy divides, dropped through the spruce-clad foot-hills into the plain, and at the end of the fifth day came to the Moon Tai River. Here we got news that “two sahibs” were in the neighborhood. We camped and sent out men to bring them to us. As we were sitting in front of our tent in the late afternoon, we heard a shout and saw Cherrie and Cutting riding toward us. They both were thin, Cutting particularly so. He was still wearing his enormous regulation British army sun-helmet. In it he looked like a very small candle under a very large extinguisher. We all thoroughly enjoyed our reunion after nearly two months’ separation.

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