266 ACROSS MONGOLIAN PLAINS 



Since the roebuck at the Tung Ling were in the same 

 condition as the sika, they were useless for our purposes. 

 The goral, however, which live high up on the rocky 

 peaks, had not begun to shed their hair, and they gave 

 us good shooting. One beautiful morning Smith killed 

 a splendid ram just above our camp. We had often 

 looked at a ragged, granite outcrop, sparsely covered 

 with spruce and pine trees, which towered a thousand 

 feet above us. We were sure there must be goral some- 

 where on the ridge, and the hunters told us that they 

 had sometimes killed them there. It was a stiff climb, 

 and we were glad to rest when we reached the summit. 

 The old hunter placed Smith opposite an almost per- 

 pendicular face of rock and stationed me beyond him on 

 the other side. Three beaters had climbed the mountain 

 a mile below us and were driving up the ridge. 



For half an hour I lay stretched out in the sun lux- 

 uriating in the warmth and breathing in the fragrant 

 odor, of the pines. While I was lazily watching a Chi- 

 nese green woodpecker searching for grubs in a tree 

 near by, there came the faintest sound of a loosened 

 pebble on the cliff above my head. Instantly I was alert 

 and tense. A second later Smith's rifle banged once. 

 Then all was still. 



In a few moments he shouted to me that he had fired 

 at a big goral, but that it had disappeared behind the 

 ridge and he was afraid it had not been hit. The old 

 hunter, however, had seen the animal scramble into a 

 tiny grove of pine trees. As it had not emerged, I was 

 sure the goral was wounded, and when the men climbed 



