A White Bear. 



wapiti called in the forest far below, but such a long way off that 

 we deemed it better to leave him alone and devote ourselves to 

 the one near at hand. There was little to choose between the 

 two, judging from the tone, the one nearest to us having a deep 

 voice indicating a big stag. He was on the move, and his last 

 call showed him to be some three hundred yards off in the forest 

 to our front, so, the ground being littered with twigs and broken 

 sticks, I took off my boots, as they made too much noise, and 

 started off to track him. The stag responded splendidly to our 

 calls, but when we had got within two hundred yards it became 

 necessary to proceed with great caution for fear of alarming him. 

 The forest was very thick, and it was impossible to see more 

 than thirty yards ahead, so we worked on stealthily, until finally 

 in a more open part of the wood we saw him above us about 

 ninety yards off. 



I could only make out the lower part of his body and was not 

 sure if he was a good stag, since his antlers were quite hidden by 

 the branches of a tree behind which he was scratching moss. 

 Nurah, however, appeared to have no doubt on the subject, so I 

 crept up under cover of a pine trunk and covering him behind the 

 point of the shoulder pulled the trigger He staggered heavily 

 and a second shot brought him down. He proved to be only 

 a ten pointer, not at all a bad head but, of course, not to be 

 compared with those I had already bagged. One cannot dis- 

 tinguish objects well in this dense forest, where the trees and 

 brushwood preclude a favourable field of view being obtained of 

 the quarry. 



The next day I sent all the trophies down to the mouth of the 

 Agiass Valley in charge of Giyani and Numgoon, there to be stored 

 until my return. After starting them off I left with Rasul and 

 Nurah for some more ibex shooting in the Agiass, crossing the 

 first intervening range down into the ravine beyond, at the upper 

 end of which we came unexpectedly on a white bear peacefully 

 grazing on the hillside. As soon as we hove in sight he dashed 

 off across the ravine directly in our front, and, wading the river, 



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