A WASTED SHOT. 239 



clamber after the first. We find him still alive, but he has 

 fallen so far into the cleft that we have considerable trouble 

 in getting at him to give him the coup de grdce. 



On examining the carcass, I found that my first shot must 

 have inflicted a mortal wound. Had I known this I might 

 in all probability have killed the third big fellow with the 

 bullet I had wasted in firing a second shot at the first ; for 

 unless some large bone is broken, markhor, like ibex, when 

 shot at, and even if mortally wounded, very often move off 

 without increasing their pace from a walk. However, I had 

 little cause to grumble at my luck. 



It was too late to get the dead markhor out of the snow- 

 cleft that evening ; we therefore followed the other men down 

 the gully to where they had found the other buck in time to 

 bleed him. We had only to give his carcass a shove to start 

 it rolling down several hundred feet, until it reached a long 

 narrow incline of hard snow that covered the bed of a torrent 

 which could be heard murmuring beneath. We were able to 

 drag the beast easily down the slippery snow-bed for a long 

 distance, fortunately in the direction we wished to go. 



Leaving the men to skin and break up the markhor, I made 

 the best of my way along a steep pine-clad hillside to the spot 

 where we intended to bivouac for the night, the position of 

 which I discovered by continually shouting and whistling on 

 my fingers a most useful accomplishment under such cir- 

 cumstances until I was at length answered by the men who 

 were there. It was dark when I reached it, so I at once sent 

 off a couple of men with pine torches to assist the shikarees, 

 who arrived some hours later with as much as they could 

 carry of the spoils. 



Koklass pheasants were crowing and the horned argus 

 uttering its peculiar mewing cry when I awoke in the morn- 

 ing. Sending off a man with strict injunctions to mark the 

 whereabouts of one of the latter beautiful birds, a good spe- 

 cimen of which I particularly wished to obtain, I hastily 



