ON THE SCENT. 259 



The accidental discovery of the bear I had first shot at 

 was the only incident worth mentioning that occurred during 

 the remainder of our sojourn in Lolab. When I was out one 

 evening for a quiet stroll, my olfactory organ was suddenly 

 assailed by a most abominable stench, which seemed to be 

 wafted from the direction of the locality where I had fired 

 at and lost the black bear. It was too late to trace its origin 

 that evening, but thinking it might very probably have been 

 caused by the putrid carcass of the bear, my companion the 

 medico and I took our walk next morning in that same direc- 

 tion with the intention of prosecuting the search. On reach- 

 ing the place not the slightest taint of the odour could we 

 detect. Either the night air had dispelled it, or the wind 

 had changed. However, on the chance of again picking up 

 the scent, we proceeded to make a cast by crossing over a 

 low wooded spur, towards the other side of which the bear's 

 trail had led after I had shot at him. Still not a vestige of a 

 dead bear or its scent was there to be found, so we turned our 

 steps campwards. 



Scarcely had we gone a furlong when the medico, who was 

 leading, suddenly pulled up. " There it is, and no mistake ! " 

 exclaimed he, as we both freely indulged an inclination to 

 expectorate, which is common to most people on inhaling a 

 foul effluvium ; we therefore at once harked back. Away 

 we went, scrambling through the thick covert as we followed 

 up the hot scent, sometimes catching a stronger or a fainter 

 whiff as we quartered the ground. At length it grew so 

 burning that we could easily hold it by simply crossing and 

 recrossing the wind, until finally we ran straight in on the 

 object of our search. There was our bear, lying on the broad 

 of its back, stark and stiff, and not very far from where we 

 had tracked it to after I had shot at it. But it was in such 

 an advanced stage of decomposition that we were obliged to 

 leave it, with merely the satisfaction of knowing that the 

 shell had proved fatal. 



