st at that instant what I had supposed to be a
brown rock came to life in a whirl of dust and vanished into the
ravine below.

We waited breathlessly for perhaps a minute--it seemed hours--then
the head and shoulders of a sheep appeared from behind a bowlder. I
aimed low and fired, and the animal crumpled in its tracks. A second
later two rams and a ewe dashed from the same spot and stopped upon
the hillside less than a hundred yards away. Instinctively I sighted
on the largest but dropped my rifle without touching the trigger.
The sheep was small, and even if we did need him for the group we
could not carry his head and skin to camp that night. The wolves
would surely have found his carcass before dawn, and it would have
been a useless waste of life.

The one I had killed was a fine young ram. With the skin, head, and
parts of the meat packed upon my shoulders we started homeward at
six o'clock. Our only exit lay down the river bed in the bottom of a
great canyon, for in the darkness it would have been dangerous to
follow the trail along the cliffs. In half an hour it was black
night in the gorge. The vertical walls of rock shut out even the
starlight, and we could not see more than a dozen feet ahead.

I shall never forget that walk. After wading the stream twenty-eight
times I lost count. I was too cold and tired and had fallen over too
many rocks to have it make the slightest difference how many more
than twenty-eight times we went into the icy water. The
hundred-pound pack upon my back weighed more every hour, but the
thought of those two splendid rams was as good as bread and wine.

Harry was considerably worried when we reached camp at eleven
o'clock, for in the village there had been much talk of bandits.
Even before dinner we measured the rams and found that the horns of
the one he had killed exceeded the published records for the species
by half an inch in circumference. The horns were forty-seven inches
in length, but were broken at the tips; the original length was
fifty-one inches; the circumference at the base was twenty inches.
Moreover, mine was not far behind in size.

As I snuggled into my fur sleeping bag that night, I realized that
it had been the most satisfactory hunting day of my life. The
success of the group was assured, with a record ram for the central
figure. We had three specimens already, and the others would not be
hard to get.

The next morning four soldiers were waiting in the co