hete spoke the Li-chiang dialect but with such variation that even our
_mafus_ could understand them only with the greatest difficulty.

When we returned to camp we found that the coolie who had been engaged to
carry the motion-picture camera and tripod had left without the formality
of saying "good-by" or asking for the money which was due him. We had had
considerable trouble with the camera coolies since leaving Li-chiang. The
first one carried the camera to the Taku ferry with many groans, and there
engaged a huge Chinaman to take his place, for he thought the load too
heavy. It only weighed fifty pounds, and in the Fukien Province where men
seldom carry less than eighty pounds and sometimes as much as one hundred
and fifty, it would have been considered as only half a burden. In Yuen-nan,
however, animals do most of the pack carrying, and coolies protest at even
an ordinary load.

We left Phete in the early morning and camped about five hundred feet above
the hunter's cabin in a beautiful little meadow. It was surrounded with
splendid pine trees, and a clear spring bubbled up from a knoll in the
center and spread fan-shaped in a dozen little streams over the edge of a
deep ravine where a mountain torrent rushed through a tangled bamboo
jungle. The gigantic fallen trees were covered inches deep with green moss,
and altogether it was an ideal spot for small mammals. Our traps, however,
yielded no new species, although we secured dozens of specimens every
night.

There were a few families of Lolos about two miles away and these were
engaged as hunters. They told us that serow and muntjac were abundant and
that wapiti were sometimes found on the mountains several miles to the
northward. Although the men had a large pack of good dogs they were such
unsatisfactory hunters that we gave up in disgust after three days. They
never would appear until ten or eleven o'clock in the morning when the sun
had so dried the leaves that the scent was lost and the dogs could not
follow a trail even if one were found. Moreover, the camp was a very
uncomfortable one, due to the wind which roared through the trees night and
day.

We were rejoined here by Hotenfa, who had left us at the Taku ferry to see
if he could get together a pack of dogs. He brought three hounds with him
which he praised exuberantly, but we subsequently found that they did not
justify our hopes. Nevertheless, we were glad to have Hotenfa back, for he
was one of the