A ROAR! 213 



day with the enrly dawn past our camp came strings 

 of patient yaks, to return a few hours later dragging 

 behind them a trail of logs. The woodcutters 

 themselves are miserably underpaid and ' squeezed/ 

 while the big timber merchants make fortunes. 

 Logs which are cut in the forests near Choni are 

 barked, marked and floated down the river for 40 

 cash apiece (rather less than one penny). The same 

 log at Lancliow is worth 1,000 cash to any of the 

 log merchants ' in the ring.' Only about the 

 villages stand sacred groves of noble trees. These 

 are exempt from the destructive havoc which goes 

 on around tliem and w^hich, in time, must make 

 an end. 



However, the deforestation of Kansu troubled 

 Lao- Wei not at all. He collected a handful or two 

 of grass, took off his shoes — narrow strips of raw 

 hide with a running thong round the top — repaired 

 their linings, replaced his putties and settled himself 

 to sleep. 



It seemed a long time that w^e lay there. 

 Shadows began to gather in the valley and the 

 wind blew softly in our faces up the hill. Then 

 from the corrie, over the ridge at our backs, I 

 heard a roar. It was faint and muffled, more of a 

 grunt than anything else, but only one animal 

 could make it, and I ruthlessly roused my hunter 

 from his slumbers. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, 

 listened and shook his head. Ten minutes later 

 there came another roar. This time the sound was 

 clearer, and we both turned, locating pretty ac- 

 curately, as was proved later, its position. For half 

 an hour we waited to ascertain if the stag was 

 moving, when he roared again from the same place. 



