SINO-MONGOLIAN FRONTIER 
Presently he joined me, and together we 
spent an hour or more working out the some- 
what difficult trail. It led us up a steep and 
rugged mountain side, across the divide and down 
the face of a precipice. Sometimes we actually 
could not climb down the places taken by the 
wounded sheep at a bound, and were forced to 
find easier paths, At last the blood in the trail 
increased. There were several big splotches, 
showing where the animal had stood to rest, or 
look back along the trail. Presently, as we 
rounded a bend, a large ewe sprang up from a 
sheltered nook, and with only three sound legs 
began to climb upwards with wonderful agility, 
Our rifles rang out, and the sheep came rolling 
down the precipitous slope, fetching up at the 
bottom of a ravine a hundred feet below us. 
Naturally, I was greatly disappointed at its being 
a ewe. Owing to the distance, and the fact that 
I had the afternoon sun full in my eyes when I 
fired, I could not make out clearly of what 
the herd had consisted. However, for my collec- 
tion this ewe was more valuable than a ram, 
owing to the females of the genus Ovis showing 
more plainly the cranial characteristics of the 
species, so I could not complain. It was more 
than either Schréder or I could do to carry the 
sheep, but after gutting it we tied the carcase 
upon the native hunter’s back, who being more 
accustomed to the heavy gradients, managed to 
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