THE MAHADEO HILLS. 129 



the valley they looked scarcely bigger than a couple of crows. 

 As they had not been alarmed by shooting, and would pro- 

 bably be found in the valley next day, I went home and 

 prepared for a long hunt. We took the road round by the 

 great ravine, instead of going over Dhiipgarh, because it was 

 rather shorter when the bottom of the valley had to be made 

 for, and also because we expected to find another herd on the 

 way. We were disappointed, however, in this, seeing nothing 

 till we got to the valley except a bear with her cub, the former 

 of which I shot. Arriving in the valley, we spread about in 

 all directions to -look for bison-tracks. The young Thakiir of 

 Puchmurree, the best hunter and tracker in the hills, was un- 

 fortunately laid up with a sprain he had got the preceding 

 day ; but we picked up two capital bison-trackers out of a 

 lot of Korkiis from a village across the great ravine, whom 

 we found cutting a dhya on one of the hill-sides as we 

 passed. I had found the footprints of the Dhiipgarh tiger in 

 the bed of the stream, and was following them up with one 

 of the Korkiis, when I was recalled by a whistle to a place 

 where the tracks of the two bulls had been discovered. They 

 were making for a high plateau covered with thick bamboo 

 jungle at the top of the valley, and we at once started on the 

 trail. It was clear everywhere, and the men ran it at a sharp 

 walk nearly to the top of the hill. Here, however, a sheet of 

 rock intervened, and above it was a mass of large boulders 

 intermixed with heavy clumps of bamboo. We were a long 

 time puzzling the track through here, as the bulls had stopped 

 and fed about on the young bamboo shoots. At last, how- 

 ever, one of the men we had picked up took a long cast over 

 the top of the hill, and returned with the news that the bulls 

 had separated, one going off to the south, apparently in the 

 direction of a well-known haunt in the Bori teak forest, while 



