A FINE HERD 125 



the beast had already become slightly suspicious and 

 was moving slowly away. I had to take a hurried 

 shot, resulting in a clean miss. " Never mind," said 

 confident little Taba, " we will find others further 

 up." In fact, I had hardly reloaded my rifle when 

 more sheep walked into view by the bed of the 

 stream. To my amazement, they had not been 

 frightened by the report of my shot, and were busily 

 engaged in their early breakfast. Unfortunately 

 they proved to be ewes and young ones. They 

 were feeding towards us, on our very way to the 

 happy hunting grounds, and cutting us off from the 

 coveted direction. We had no end of trouble in 

 avoiding discovery, and had to go round a couple 

 of miles, crawling now and then in full sight of 

 them. We managed, however, to get round with- 

 out disturbing them, and resumed our journey up 

 the valley under cover of my favourite boulders. 

 We had not gone far when Taba suddenly stopped 

 me, pointing towards the river-bed below us. There 

 lay a fine herd of fifteen sheep, all rams this time. 

 There was no possible approach to within less than 

 500 yards from the spot they had chosen for their 

 siesta, so we crouched down and waited. I had now 

 entirely abandoned my good intentions of making 

 myself useful by finding a favourable pass over the 



