ONE RAM PROBABL V HIT 



near the snow-line on the distant hill, and perceived that 

 there were only three. Where had the fourth gone ? 



He must, I then thought, have been hit, most prob- 

 ably by the first shot, as the subsequent cartridges 

 which did not go wrong were fired very hurriedly and at 

 long ranges, when the animals were running, and after I 

 had been more or less demoralised by the failure of the 

 two which had burst. Then I remembered that the 

 first bullet used had not been slit, and I concluded that if 

 it had reached its mark it would almost certainly have 

 gone straight through, making a clean hole, and the 

 splash in the slate dust seen over the uryal's back 

 would have occurred just the same whether the bullet 

 had gone through or over. I had never seen one of a 

 herd separate from the rest unless it was hit, and I felt 

 inclined to think, for the reasons given above, that the 

 first bullet had gone true. We crossed over to the ridge 

 where the four had last been seen together, and searched 

 for blood, but could find none, which confirmed me in 

 my opinion that if the uryal had been hit at all, the first 

 shot and not any of the others had probably taken effect. 

 For I was using the slit bullet when feeding from the 

 magazine, and if any of these had reached its mark 

 there would most probably have been blood somewhere 

 on the track. 



Not finding any, we decided to go after the three, but 

 in order to give them time to settle down, if so disposed, 

 we first had breakfast. We then went on, but though 

 we covered a good deal of the awful ground on which 

 these sheep live, we never came up with them, and saw 

 no signs of the wounded one either. 



