178 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



dare not walk, but the tur did. Higher still rose snow- 

 crowned peaks, shrouded in a diaphanous robe which 

 was eternal. 



Every little thing had some touch of poesy about it. 

 Only the camp trials preached mundanity. 



Our first hunting day of glorious memory yielded 

 wonderful results. Cecily and I tracked a silver-grey 

 bear and got him eventually in a rock pile. We were 

 spying out the land from the crest of a ridge, and our 

 glass showed us several groups of tur feeding on the 

 opposite slopes. As there was no way of going round, 

 we had perforce to cut straight across the dividing 

 valley, and chose out the least-difficult -looking descent, 

 whose broken lines took more negotiating than we 

 thought. Ali had no alpenstock, and his moccasins, 

 being stuffed with grass under the sole, were so very 

 slippy. His rifie — wonderful weapon ! — to the rescue. 

 Detaching it from its slings he dug the muzzle ruth- 

 lessly into the stones. I almost felt my aristocratic 

 Mannlicher shiver with horror. 



We arranged the stalk very badly, and brought up to 

 windward and far out of range. At the moment we 

 put the mistake down to the capricious Boreas, but 

 after a lapse of days we owned up to each other that it 

 was the miscalculation of two cousins which spoiled 

 the show. 



After the first shock of disappointment we took 

 heart and followed the tracks of the flying tur. Through 

 the telescope we located them once again, settling 

 down to feed perhaps a thousand yards away. 



Now, as we schemed to get well above them, a piece 



