The Journal of a Sporting Nomad 
with my prize in camp, where I occupied myself 
in skinning out the whole sheep. This took me 
quite a long time, as it had to be done very care- 
fully if the specimen was eventually to be mounted 
whole. It was dark when I had finished. 
I put down a leg of the mutton before the 
fire to cook. Hunter was away, and so were the 
boys, but the former turned up shortly after dark, 
bringing with him a very nice ram’s head he had 
shot on the mountain opposite. to mine. He 
told me he had sent Elia and Shanghai back to 
the lake to bring up more supplies and one or 
two things we had forgotten. I thought this 
rather a tall order after the six or seven miles we 
had already done that day, but he laughed and 
said they preferred to go at once—it was all down- 
hill!—and that they could, by taking a short cut, 
make the lake in about twelve miles, sleep in the 
hut, and rejoin us on the morrow. This was all — 
right, but in the morning we were awakened by a 
drizzling rain, which prompted us to put up the 
tent hurriedly, not before it was necessary, for 
we had a sample of a Scotch mist throughout that 
day which kept us willing prisoners in camp. 
Towards night the boys not having turned up, 
I thought something had gone wrong with them, 
that they had lost their way, perhaps, in the 
mist, and might have to spend the night out in 
the open. It was nearly nine o’clock and still 
no signs of them, so I fired a shot into the air. 
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