1 90 By Mountain, Lake, and Plain 



with a lack of the assurance necessary to carry 

 conviction. I thought of Rahmat, and mentioned 

 that on arrival in camp I should bore a hole in 

 a wheaten cake and pass the spell-bound weapon 

 through it; but I imagined them saying like 

 Punch's gamekeeper "Your rifle good? Your 

 cartridges good ? Then it's yourself that's no 

 good ! " 



Later on we blundered on a big herd of 

 sheep in a ravine. The hunter of course made 

 out that I was the one who had made an ex- 

 hibition of himself on the sky -line and sent 

 them away. 



Going home, I put up a stone at which again 

 to test the rifle, and fired ten cartridges with 

 an accuracy that made even the shikaris admit 

 that I was at least a tafangchi (rifle-shot), but 

 even so they clearly regarded me in the light 

 a golf professional might a beginner who 

 with unfailing accuracy and a gorgeous swing 

 decapitates daisies, but is stricken with paralysis 

 at the sight of the little white ball on the tee. 



We saw yet another beast that day, a ram of 

 no great size, which I refused to stalk, and a little 

 time after my cup of bitterness was filled by 

 discovering that one of my companions had taken 

 French leave and gone after it himself! He 

 rejoined me some time after, when we were 



