A CURIOUS INCIDENT. 271 



and dropped him on the spot. The other trotted on some 

 twenty yards, and then turned to look back for his com- 

 panion. I had only his chest to aim at, but fortune again 

 favoured me, for he too went down, never to rise again. 

 Great was the astonishment of my Tartar companions when, 

 on coming up, instead of finding, as they expected, that I 

 had shot the doe, or perhaps missed her, I showed them a 

 dead buck, and still greater was it on my pointing out a 

 second lying within twenty yards of him ; for their surprise 

 was so great at seeing even one dead buck, that they had 

 never thought of looking for another. But where was the 

 doe ? She had vanished, and her having thus been fortui- 

 tously the means of my finding two such beautiful bucks, 

 after my forbearance towards her in the morning, was really 

 a curious coincidence; for had I shot at her then, I should 

 never have got them. The Tartars soon shouldered the 

 game, and we bent our steps towards camp rejoicing. Both 

 pairs of horns were just over a foot long. 



The Major got back soon after me. He had found no goa, 

 but had seen two black wolves, which unfortunately he was 

 unable to get a shot at. During our absence it appeared 

 that the camp had been invaded by some of our mounted 

 friends from the pass, at whose unexpected advent, our 

 Indian domestics informed us, the Hanle yak-drivers seemed 

 much exercised in their minds. 



We now returned to Hanle* by a different route to the one 

 we had travelled from it. A few cjoa were seen, but nothing 



o ' o 



was bagged except some hares. It had been our intention 

 to hunt up the big sheep on the ground north of Hanle ; but 

 man proposes, and the Ovis Ammon very often disposes, at 

 any rate of itself. We now learnt that this ground had 

 just been hunted over by the two Changchenmo sportsmen 

 unsuccessfully, owing to the Oves having this season left it. 

 When too late we had discovered the mistake we had made 

 in not persevering longer in our pursuit of the splendid rams 

 we had seen north of the Indus. 



