136 A Sportswoman in India 



Thoroughly pleased with such luck, we partook of 

 some tiffin ; after which we climbed to the place 

 where we had first seen the tahr lying down, and 

 from claw-marks and little tufts of hair lying about 

 gathered that probably a leopard had jumped down 

 among them. Also S. thought he saw something ; 

 but it all happened in such a flash. 



The sky by this time was darkening over, and it 

 became very evident we were in for a bad storm. 

 Down came snow-clouds, mist and sleet, like a solid 

 white wall. One of the shikaris knew of a filthy little 

 lean-to used in the summer by goat-herds, to which 

 he led the way. We huddled into a corner of it 

 which leaked less than the rest of the roof, glad to 

 get into shelter at all. It snowed and sleeted hard 

 for a bit, and then, to our relief, cleared off as 

 quickly as it came on ; the great masses of cloud 

 driving away before the wind on our left, and the 

 sun beginning to stream over everything on the right. 



We left the two tahrs' heads to be fetched 

 later, and ourselves walked off and upwards to new 

 ground. From point to point we swept the country 

 with our glasses, but the desolate crags stretched away 

 from us untenanted by life of any sort no living 

 creature moved upon the slopes. The storm had 

 driven everything, like ourselves, into shelter. So be 

 it. We descended. 



If the mountain had been bad to get up, it was 

 a thousand times worse to get down. We were just 

 resting, after a bad bit, when we caught sight of some 



