203 ACROSS MONGOLIAN PLAINS 



brown rock came to life in a whirl of dust and vanished 

 into the ravine below. 



We waited breathlessly for perhaps a minute — ^it 

 seemed hours — then the head and shoulders of a sheep 

 appeared from behind a bowlder. I aimed low and fired, 

 and the animal crumpled in its tracks. A second later 

 two rams and a ewe dashed from the same spot and 

 stopped upon the hillside less than a hundred yards 

 away. Instinctively I sighted on the largest but 

 dropped my rifle without touching the trigger. The 

 sheep was small, and even if we did need him for the 

 group we could not carry his head and skin to camp that 

 night. The wolves would surely have found his carcass 

 before dawn, and it would have been a useless waste of 

 life. 



The one I had killed was a fine young ram. With 

 the skin, head, and parts of the meat packed upon my 

 shoulders we started homeward at six o'clock. Our 

 only exit lay down the river bed in the bottom of a 

 great canon, for in the darkness it would have been dan- 

 gerous to follow the trail along the cliffs. In half an 

 hour it was black night in the gorge. The vertical walls 

 of rock shut out even the starli^ght, and we could not see 

 more than a dozen feet ahead. 



I shall never forget that walk. After wading the 

 stream twenty-eight times I lost count. I was too cold 

 and tired and had fallen over too many rocks to have it 

 make the slightest difference how many more than 

 twenty-eight times we went into the icy water. The 

 hundred-pound pack upon my back weighed more every 



