296 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



Now and again the short, sharp bark of a prowHng 

 fox cut the silence sharply, and often, as the night 

 closed in, we heard the long-drawn hunting call which 

 anyone can pick out, even the tenderfoot who has 

 never known the wild before. Strange, what an eerie 

 effect a wolf's howl has on most of us. I never heard 

 it in the desolation and the silence without feeling a 

 little pricking up and down my spine. 



The men grouped round the camp fire said that these 

 animal concerts presaged bad weather. To their un- 

 tutored minds all happenings carried messages from 

 a Helios of their own invention. 



The very first night of our sojourn in the woods we 

 were wakened by a most creepy, eldritch moaning. 

 It held on for several minutes, low and sobbingly ; 

 a leopard, without doubt. 'Twas unmistakable. 



All the air seemed tense with mysterious chances as 

 we hurried into some clothes and seized our rifles. It 

 is not every day in the week one gets a chance at a 

 leopard in the Caucasus. 



The Prince slept on through the excitement, and 

 Ali — the renegade — affected complete inertia as we 

 prodded him up in his blankets. He lay by the fire, 

 as all the men did, like black cocoons enveloped in 

 their bourkas and miscellaneous wrappings. 



The forest giants tossed out their arms to us, 

 beckoning, calling, and down the dim aisles the weird 

 lowing drifted on the night air as through the shadows 

 we crept forward, silently as we knew how. 



Presently the noise ceased, and left us hunting. We 

 searched the thickets as thoroughly as we could in the 



