AT LAST! 151 



working steadily away from us. Back we went and 

 round the shoulder of the hill, then down the ridge 

 which they had to cross to leave the basin. 



As I peered through the grasses I fully anticipated 

 seeing them within shot. Not a sign of a sheep 

 anywhere ! Lao- Wei declared that they had already 

 crossed and that we were too late. It seemed 

 scarcely possible that they had had time to do so, 

 but he seemed certain of it, so I sent him back to a 

 spot from which he could spy, to see if they were 

 still below us. He disappeared over the rocks, and 

 presently I saw him, a diminutive figure, far back on 

 the ridge. He moved stealthily from rock to rock, 

 peering into the mass of boulders beneath him, then 

 straightened himself. He was right and I was 

 wrong ! Up the hill I went again, and he joined me. 

 Hope still flickered within me, but it was faint. 

 The evening was drawing in, and as I looked over 

 into the corrie where the sheep had fed in the 

 morning, I felt anything but sanguine. There it 

 lay, and there too within shot of me, as I realised 

 with a gasp of surprise, were the sheep. Placidly 

 feeding after all the fluctuating fortunes of the day, 

 it seemed as if they had never moved from the spot 

 where I had first seen them. These are the 

 moments which come back to one, and that is the 

 moment which dwells in mind as I conjure up again 

 the grassy corries and rocky tops of the Kansu 

 sheep ground. Those last few yards, how exciting 

 they are, when the stalker's skill and experience, 

 pitted against the marvellously acute senses of a 

 really wild animal, seem at last as if they are about 

 to triumph ! The big ram was there, a smaller one, 

 the ten ewes and the two mothers with their lambs. 



