About Yak 269 



to be crossed in the open, so we left our ponies 

 and proceeded. What need to describe the 

 anxieties of that flank movement ? The three 

 of us made a line to present but one profile. 

 Then running, walking, stooping, crawling, as 

 the ground exacted, we crossed. Every hunter 

 of big game knows the mingled feelings of hope 

 and fear with which this crisis in the stalk was 

 accomplished. Breathless, but extraordinary to 

 relate undetected, we found ourselves behind 

 the corner of a ridge of rock which ran close 

 by the place where the yak were grazing. A 

 minute's pause, to let the heart -thumps caused 

 by a rapid scramble at somewhere about 18,000 

 feet quiet down, and the final stage of the stalk 

 began. In twenty more minutes I was sitting, 

 elbows on knees, with the 450 cordite rifle 

 held with hands none too steady on one of 

 the three beasts eighty yards below me. All 

 were big bulls. At the shot, one of them furi- 

 ously whirled his tail, and all began to trot up- 

 hill ; but before they turned the corner and were 

 hidden I had had a shot at each of the three 

 of them. When we had got down to the bottom 

 they were in view again. The one I had shot 

 at first had collapsed ; another was walking away 

 evidently sore stricken ; the third doubtful. We 

 followed hard. Legs soon turned to lead, and 



