328 The Hunting Grounds 



surely flapping their wings as they returned to their 

 haunts, in some hollow tree. Shortly afterwards we 

 surprised a troop of monkeys who were evidently 

 making their way towards the pool for a morning 

 draught, but who fled, skipping from branch to 

 branch, chattering and showing their teeth as soon 

 as they detected our presence. Every now and 

 again the dun sides of deer flashed for an instant 

 before us, as they bounded across the open vistas of 

 the forest and disappeared in the dense cover. The 

 fresh morning air was loaded with the perfume of 

 different flowering jungle-plants, and the forest re- 

 sounded with the melody of feathered songsters. 



We followed the trail that Chineah's party had 

 made in their reconnaissance the day before, and 

 after an hour's painful climbing up the dry bed of a 

 mountain-torrent, filled with loose round stones 

 which rolled from under the feet at every step, and 

 somewhat tried our powers as mountaineers, we 

 arrived at a natural clearing in the midst of the 

 dense forest where the gang had seen the bison 

 browsing the day before. We examined the ground 

 carefully, and found numbers of old marks, but no 

 fresh ones, so we continued our route up the side 

 of the mountain, and after a couple of hours' severe 

 toil found ourselves in a patch of bamboo-jungle, 

 where Chineah detected the fresh trail of a herd of 

 bison. 



