THE MAHAdEO hills. 137 



ravine, instead of going over Dhupgarh, because it was 

 rather shorter when the bottom of the valley had to be 

 made for, and also because we expected to find another 

 herd on the way. AVe were disappointed, however, in 

 this, seeing nothing till we got to the valley except a 

 bear with her cub, the former of which I shot. 

 Arriving in the valley, we spread about in all directions 

 to look for bison-tracks. The young Thakiir of Puch- 

 murree, the best hunter and tracker in the hills, was 

 unfortunately laid up with a sprain he had got the pre- 

 ceding day ; but we picked up two capital bison- 

 trackers out of a lot of Korkiis from a village across the 

 great ravine, whom we found cutting a dhya on one of 

 the hill-sides as we passed. I had found the footprints 

 of the Dhupgarh. tiger in the bed of the stream, and 

 was following them up with one of the Korkijs, when 

 I was recalled by a whistle to a place where the tracks 

 of the two bulls had been discovered. They were 

 making for a high plateau covered with thick bamboo 

 jungle at the top of the valley, and we at once started 

 on the trail. It was clear everywhere, and the men ran 

 it at a sharp walk nearly to the top of the hill. Here, 

 however, a sheet of rock intervened, and above it was 

 a mass of large boulders intermixed with heavy clumps 

 of bamboo. We were a long time puzzling the track 

 through here, as the bulls had stopped and fed about 

 on the young bamboo shoots. At last, however, one of 

 the men we had picked up took a long cast over the top 

 of the hill, and returned with the news that the bulls 

 had separated, one going off to the south, apparently in 

 the direction of a well-known haunt in the Bori teak 

 forest, while his companion had gone off up the hill in 

 the opposite direction. We decided to follow the latter, 



