Part 15 (1/2)
Never in all my years of hunting have I had a feeling of such intense surprise and self-disgust. I had been certain of the shot and it was impossible to believe that I had missed. A lump rose in my throat and I sat with my head resting on my hands in the uttermost depths of dejection.
And then the impossible happened! Why it happened, I shall never know. A kind Providence must have directed the actions of the sheep, for, as I raised my eyes, I saw again that enormous head and neck appear from behind a rock a hundred yards away; just that head with its circlet of ma.s.sive horns and the neck--nothing more. Almost in a daze I lifted my rifle, saw the little ivory bead of the front sight center on that gray neck, and touched the trigger. A thousand echoes crashed back upon us. There was a clatter of stones, a confused vision of a ponderous bulk heaving up and back--and all was still.
But it was enough for me; there could be no mistake this time. The ram was mine.
The sudden transition from utter dejection to the greatest triumph of a sportsman's life set me wild with joy. I yelled and pounded the old Mongol on the back until he begged for mercy; then I whirled him about in a war dance on the summit of the ridge. I wanted to leap down the rocks where the sheep had disappeared but the hunter held my ann. For ten minutes we sat there waiting to make sure that the ram would not dash away while we were out of sight in the ravine below. But I knew in my heart that it was all unnecessary. My bullet had gone where I wanted it to go and that was quite enough. No sheep that ever walked could live with a Mannlicher ball squarely in its neck.
When we finally descended, the animal lay halfway down the slope, feebly kicking. What a huge brute he was, and what a glorious head!
I had never dreamed that an _argali_ could be so splendid. His horns were perfect, and my hands could not meet around them at the base.
Then, of course, I wanted to know what had happened at my first shot. The evidence was there upon his face. My bullet had gone an inch high, struck him in the corner of the mouth, and emerged from his right cheek. It must have been a painful wound, and I shall never cease to wonder what strange impulse brought him back after he had been so badly stung. The second ball had been centered in the neck as though in the bull's-eye of a target.
The skin and head of the sheep made a pack weighing nearly one hundred pounds, and the old Mongol groaned as he looked up at the mountain barriers which separated us from camp. On the summit of the first ridge we found the trail over which we had pa.s.sed in the morning. Half an hour later the hunter jerked me violently behind a ledge of rock. ”_Pan-yang_,” he whispered, ”there, on the mountain side. Can't you see him?” I could not, and he tried to point to it with my rifle. Just at that instant what I had supposed to be a 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 carca.s.s 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 dangerous 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 starlight, 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 hour, but the thought of those two splendid rams was as good as bread and wine.
Harry was considerably worried when we reached camp at eleven o'clock, for in the village there had been much talk of bandits.
Even before dinner we measured the rams and found that the horns of the one he had killed exceeded the published records for the species by half an inch in circ.u.mference. The horns were forty-seven inches in length, but were broken at the tips; the original length was fifty-one inches; the circ.u.mference at the base was twenty inches.
Moreover, mine was not far behind in size.
As I snuggled into my fur sleeping bag that night, I realized that it had been the most satisfactory hunting day of my life. The success of the group was a.s.sured, with a record ram for the central figure. We had three specimens already, and the others would not be hard to get.
The next morning four soldiers were waiting in the courtyard when we awoke. With many apologies they informed us that they had been sent by the commander of the garrison at Kwei-hua-cheng to ask us to go back with them. The mountains were very dangerous; brigands were swarming in the surrounding country; the commandant was greatly worried for our safety. Therefore, would we be so kind as to break camp at once.
We told them politely, but firmly, that it was impossible for us to comply with their request. We needed the sheep for a great museum in New York, and we could not return without them. As they could see for themselves our pa.s.sports had been properly viseed by the Foreign Office in Peking, and we were prepared to stay.
The soldiers returned to Kwei-hua-cheng, and the following day we were honored by a visit from the commandant himself. To him we repeated our determination to remain. He evidently realized that we could not be dislodged and suggested a compromise arrangement. He would send soldiers to guard our house and to accompany us while we were hunting. We a.s.sented readily, because we knew Chinese soldiers.
Of course, the sentinel at the door troubled us not at all, and the ones who were to accompany us were easily disposed of. For the first day's hunt with our guard we selected the roughest part of the mountain, and set such a terrific pace up the almost perpendicular slope that before long they were left far behind. They never bothered us again.
CHAPTER XV
MONGOLIAN _ARGALI_
Although we had seen nearly a dozen sheep where we killed our first three rams, the mountains were deserted when Harry returned the following morning. He hunted faithfully, but did not see even a roebuck; the sheep all had left for other feeding grounds. I remained in camp to superintend the preparation of our specimens.
The next day we had a glorious hunt. By six o'clock we were climbing the winding, white trail west of camp, and for half an hour we stood gazing into the gloomy depths of the stupendous gorge, as yet unlighted by the morning sun. Then we separated, each making toward the gra.s.sy uplands by different routes.
Na-mon-gin led me along the summit of a broken ridge, but, evidently, he did not expect to find sheep in the ravines, for he kept straight on, mile after mile, with never a halt for rest. At last we reached a point where the plateau rolled away in gra.s.sy waves of brown. We were circling a rounded hill, just below the crest, when, not thirty yards away, three splendid roe deer jumped to their feet and stood as though frozen, gazing at us; then, with a snort, they dashed down the slope and up the other side. They had not yet disappeared, when two other bucks crossed a ridge into the bottom of the draw. It was a sore trial to let them go, but the old hunter had his hand upon my arm and shook his head.
Pa.s.sing the summit of the hill, we sat down for a look around.
Before us, nearly a mile away, three shallow, gra.s.s-filled valleys dropped steeply from the rolling meadowland. Almost instantly through my binoculars caught the moving forms of three sheep in the bottom of the central draw. ”_Pan-yang_,” I said to the Mongol.
”Yes, yes, I see them,” he answered. ”One has very big horns.” He was quite right; for the largest ram carried a splendid head, and the other was by no means small. The third was a tiny ewe. The animals wandered about nibbling at the gra.s.s, but did not move out of the valley bottom. After studying them awhile the hunter remarked, ”Soon they will go to sleep. We'll wait till then. They would hear or smell us if we went over now.”
I ate one of the three pears I had brought for tiffin and smoked a cigarette. The hunter stretched himself out comfortably upon the gra.s.s and pulled away at his pipe. It was very pleasant there, for we were protected from the wind, and the sun was delightfully warm.
I watched the sheep through the gla.s.ses and wondered if I should carry home the splendid ram that night. Finally the little ewe lay down and the others followed her example.