248 ACROSS MONGOLIAN PLAINS 



less we followed the trail which was still showing blood. 

 I was in front and was just letting myself down a snow- 

 covered bowlder, when far below me I saw a huge sow 

 and a young pig walking slowly through the trees. I 

 turned quickly, lost my balance, and slipped feet first 

 over the rock into a mass of thorns and scrub. A loco- 

 motive could not have made more noise, and I extri- 

 cated myself just in time to see the two pigs disappear 

 into a grove of pines. I was bleeding from a dozen 

 scratches, but I climbed to the summit of the ridge and 

 dashed forward hoping to cut them off if they crossed 

 below me. They did not appear, and we tried to drive 

 them out from the cover into which they had made their 

 way ; but we never saw them again. It was already be- 

 ginning to grow dark and too late to pick up the trail 

 of the wounded boar, so we had to call it a day and re- 

 turn to the village. 



One of our men carried my shotgun and we killed 

 half a dozen pheasants on the way back to camp. The 

 birds had come into the open to feed, and small flocks 

 were scattered along the valley every few hundred 

 yards. We saw about one hundred and fifty in less 

 than an hour, besides a few chuckars. 



I have never visited any part of China where pheas- 

 ants were so plentiful as in this region. Had we been 

 hunting birds we could have killed a hundred or more 

 without the slightest difficulty during the time we were 

 looking for pigs. We could not shoot, however, without 

 the certainty of disturbing big game and, consequently, 

 we only killed pheasants when on the way back to camp. 



