BAD LUCK. 53 



;ovcral impatient stamps of his hoof. These signs were 

 inpn)])itious, and, I feared, indicative of his liaving either 

 \iiided or heard us. However, I lay there motionless, 

 t raining my eyes in tlie direction of the kar, in momentary 

 xpcctation of his emerging from behind one of the patches 

 )t' tall brushwood which grew close around. The loud short 

 K'llow was repeated at intervals, accompanied by stamping, 

 A hich grew more and more distant, and at length ceased 

 iitirely. There was no longer any doubt about it, — the 

 uast had detected us, and there was now little hope of 

 M'eing him that night, or in all probability for several to 

 jome. 



At the first streak of dawn we clambered down from our 

 liry lodging, benumbed and stiff from cold, and exceedingly 

 mortified. But there was no help for it, so we took our 

 w ay regretfully down the hill, hoping for better luck next 

 Lime. I must say the sunrise over the snowy range, 

 L^lorious as it was, had not the same charms for me that 

 morning as it would have had under more cheerful circum- 

 stances. This, however, was not the last of the stag. 



Thinking it unlikely that he would return to the kar for 

 at least two or three nights, I shifted my quarters with the 

 intention of, in the meantime, hunting gooral on some 

 ground where I had often been successful. The locality 

 was exceedingly wild, and the hillsides very precipitous and 

 difficult to work over. And from the fact of there being 

 no human habitation within miles, and village shikarees 

 considering it too far to visit often, gooral usually abounded. 

 W^e hunted there, however, for several days with little 

 [success. It seemed as if bad luck were to attend this trip 

 'throughout, notwithstanding the small offerings of copper 

 'coins, &c., old Jeetoo had thought it necessary to make, for 

 propitiating the spirit of the mountain, at one of the rudely 

 built little Hindoo temples that are so common on the higher 

 peaks of the middle ranges. My thoughts were constantly 

 reverting to the big stag, so we packed up and started to 



