o bucks and a doe. In the lower
valley I met Harry carrying a shotgun and accompanied by a boy
strung about with pheasants and chuckars. After losing the goral he
had toiled up the mountain again but had found only two roebuck, one
of which he shot.

Our second wapiti was killed on November seventh. It was a raw day
with an icy wind blowing across the ridges where we lay for half an
hour while the beaters bungled a drive for twelve roebuck which had
gone into a scrub-filled ravine. The animals eluded us by running
across a hilltop which should have been blocked by a native, and I
got only one shot at a fox. The report of my rifle disturbed eight
wapiti which the beaters discovered as they crossed the uplands in
the direction of another patch of cover a mile away.

It was a long, cold walk over the hills against the biting wind, and
after driving one ravine unsuccessfully Harry descended to the
bottom of a wide valley, while I continued parallel with him on the
summit of the ridge. Three roebuck suddenly jumped from a shallow
ravine in front of me, and one of them, a splendid buck, stopped
behind a bush. It was too great a temptation, so I fired; but the
bullet went to pieces in the twigs and never reached its mark. Harry
saw the deer go over the hill and ran around the base of a rocky
shoulder just in time to intercept three wapiti which my shot had
started down the ravine. He dropped behind a bowlder and let a cow
and a calf pass within a few yards of him, for he saw the antlers of
a bull rocking along just behind a tiny ridge. As the animal came
into view he sent a bullet into his shoulder, and a second ball a
few inches behind the first. The elk went down but got to his feet
again, and Harry put him under for good with a third shot in the
hip.

Looking up he saw another bull, alone, emerging from a patch of
cover on the summit of the opposite slope four hundred yards away.
He fired point-blank, but the range was a bit too long and his
bullet kicked up a cloud of snow under the animal's belly.

I was entirely out of the race on the summit of the hill, for the
nearest wapiti was fully eight hundred yards away. Harry's bull was
somewhat smaller than the first one we had killed, but had an even
more beautiful coat.

We were pretty well exhausted from the week's strenuous climbing and
spent Sunday resting and looking after the small mammal work which
our Chinese taxidermists had been carrying on under my direction.