A DESPERATE STALK. 257 



It was a long weary way before the rams could be 

 approached, for the wind drove me to the top of a range 

 of shaley hills, along the summit for about a mile, and 

 then down again, above the spot where I had last seen 

 them lying. To make a long story short, I found my- 

 self, at the end of about two hours, in a fairly favourable 

 position ; and, after taking a thorough survey through 

 the glasses, began crawling carefully on with a view to 

 the final approach. But the end of my stalk was by 

 no means at hand, for five minutes later what should 

 happen but that the sheep should get suddenly up, 

 stretch themselves after their siesta, and then rush 

 helter-skelter down the mountain-side across the valley 

 bottom to some low foothills on the far side, where they 

 proceeded to graze on such scanty herbage as succeeded 

 in maintaining a precarious existence among the stones. 



I heard a hoarse demoniacal chuckle behind me, 

 and turned round to see the Kalmuk's ugly saturnine 

 countenance at full e^rin. That decided me. I be- 

 came desperate, and determined at all costs to be 

 even with him. Putting a ridge between myself and 

 the rams on the far side of the valley, I ran down 

 to the bottom, where I was confronted with a flat 

 open space, half a mile across. The case certainly 

 appeared hopeless ; but a little lower down I noticed 

 a shallow gorge in the valley bottom, where a 

 stream flowed down the mountain - side into the 

 main stream in the middle. That, at any rate, 

 would take me half-way across if it afforded suffi- 

 cient shelter. Shall I ever forget the crawl along 

 that stony water-channel ? It was shallow, so shallow 

 that I had to follow the tactics of the serpent, wrig- 

 gling but a yard or so at a time, and keeping my 

 glasses fixed on five busy heads, lying like a log 

 whenever one of them was raised suspiciously from 



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