Ibex Shooting in the Thian Shan Mountains 



behind a rock, passing within twenty yards of 

 him. Time after time his double 450 roared out, 

 the reports coming faintly to us. After seeing this, 

 I moved down the valley a couple of miles, to camp 

 on the first piece of ground that was fairly level. 

 Long after dark Chew got in with three good 

 heads, and with every chance of picking up three 

 more, which he did, in the course of three days, 

 his best heads being 54, 52^ and 50 inches, the 

 last with a spread of 46 inches. 



At daybreak next morning I left him with my 

 kit on two horses and with four men to cross an- 

 other mountain to a place where our guide said 

 there were wapiti. The next evening, after a long 

 day over the roughest country I have ever seen, 

 saw us camped in a long, narrow valley, with many 

 nullahs running into it, whose sides were covered 

 with grass, having here and there wide strips of 

 pine or poplar. By the time I had pitched my 

 little shelter tent and cooked supper, it was 9 

 o'clock. Four the next morning came very quickly, 

 and soon after we were off in the dark through the 

 dripping underbrush to a place part way up the 

 grass slope, where we could see the opposite side 

 of the valley when day broke. For a quarter of an 

 hour we sat shivering in the cold wind which blew 

 over many miles of ice, waiting for the day, and 



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