WAPITI AND IBEX 119 



We did manage to bring off a stalk on the nth, 

 but it was not a very successful one, as the ibex saw 

 us just too soon, and, of course, began to move. 

 I lay down to shoot, but the hillside being steep, I 

 kept slipping down it in the fresh snow, until at last 

 Durji, seeing my predicament, held my feet, when 

 I hit one buck but did not get him. The herd went 

 off up the hill and scattered out in every direction, 

 not, however, all going right away; for, as Durji said, 

 they seldom heard a shot or saw a man up here, 

 and hardly knew what to make of it. With the 

 glasses I saw a big buck and three females lie down 

 again further up, so we went on, and after another 

 two hours' climb got there, when I shot the buck 

 all right horns, 47 inches. The snow had made 

 the going very dangerous in places, and we nearly 

 came to grief once or twice, one scree with a cliff 

 below being particularly nasty to cross. Even 

 Durji reluctantly confessed that the season for ibex- 

 shooting was now about over. On our way down 

 we saw ten or twelve hinds and a small stag, the 

 only deer seen since the 5th. There were a few 

 tracks in places, but nothing like what there should 

 have been, and Durji was much disgusted and 

 puzzled at their absence ; but we had found an old 

 camp-fire and a horse's track in one place, so 

 thought that some other shikari must have been 

 there. This turned out to be the case, and on our 

 way back we met him, a Kazak, going up for the 



