158 THE WHITE-MANED SEROW 



itself, with much pleasant splashing, into the main 

 river. 



George was below the far wall of rock and above 

 the birch-copse. The particular serow we were after 

 was a cunning old beast and had, I suspect, been 

 hunted before. It was a long time before his tracks 

 were discovered in a distant fir wood. Then he 

 came lumbering out, galloped, so they told me, 

 like an overgrown calf, across a wide-open hill-side, 

 made for the precipice above George, was turned 

 by the hunter's yells, passed through the birch- 

 copse, the rock walls, up the bed of the stream, 

 completely hidden from me all the time by the 

 dense undergrowth, and found refuge by keeping 

 to the water all the way, thus drowning his spoor. 

 He had taken the only course by which he was 

 hidden from me, though had I known where to 

 look I might have seen him for a few brief moments 

 as he crossed the open a quarter of a mile away. 

 All I did see was the pink-nosed dog and his sable 

 companion wildly questing round the foot of the 

 rock walls where the spoor was lost. 



The next day we tried for him again ; George 

 occupied my old position, whilst I went along the 

 ridge farther down the valley. I sat and meditated 

 on the futility of human hopes, particularly when 

 connected with serow driving, for some three hours 

 or more, when I suddenly beheld a tall figure 

 struggling up the hill-side above me. It was George. 

 The serow, as his tracks showed, evidently knew 

 the ground and our exact positions like a book. 

 He had sneaked up behind George, who, had his 

 attention not been distracted by the yells of the 

 hunters on the slope opposite, might have seen 



