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CHAPTER XIV. 



GKEAT old markhor are always difficult to find, owing 

 chiefly to their usually affecting such inaccessible places, 

 and generally where the precipitous ground is tolerably 

 well clothed with pines and birches. Gamoo now proposed 

 that we should bivouac high up among the pine-trees on 

 a neighbouring spur, on the farther side of which he was 

 confident we should find some old fellows. Accordingly, in 

 the early morning the little tents were struck, and directions 

 left to have them pitched wherever sufficient space could 

 be found beside the torrent at the bottom of the deep nar- 

 row valley we had to cross; whilst the shikarees and I went 

 on to the new ground, taking with us two or three men 

 to carry our food and blankets. 



After a long and tiresome descent, succeeded by a tedious, 

 hard climb, much of it being up a landslip, where the steep 

 stony ground was so unstable as to make the foothold bad, 

 we reached our destination late in the afternoon. On our 

 way we knocked at the door of the residence of a bear in a 

 hollow pine-trunk, our attention having been attracted to it 

 by the fresh marks of claws on the bark, where the occupant 

 had clambered up to the entrance-hole. Mr Bruin was, 

 however, either " not at home," or too lazy to pay any 

 attention to our summons. 



The evening was spent in making ourselves as snug as 

 possible for the night. It was dreadfully cold up here, the 

 ground being partially covered with patches of snow. A 



