Across Mongolian Plains Part 15

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.

We were just preparing to go when the hunter touched my arm.

"_Pan-yang_," he whispered. "There, coming over the hill. Don't move."

Sure enough, a sheep was trotting slowly down the hillside in our direction. Why he did not see or smell us, I cannot imagine, for the wind was in his direction. But he came on, pa.s.sed within one hundred feet, and stopped on the summit of the opposite swell. What a shot!

He was so close that I could have counted the rings on his horns--and they were good horns, too, just the size we wanted for the group. But the hunter would not let me shoot. His heart was set upon the big ram peacefully sleeping a mile away.

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" is a motto which I have followed with good success in hunting, and I was loath to let that _argali_ go even for the prospect of the big one across the valley. But I had a profound respect for the opinion of my hunter.

He usually guessed right, and I had found it safe to follow his advice.

So we watched the sheep walk slowly over the crest of the hill. The Mongol did not tell me then, but he knew that the animal was on his way to join the others, and his silence cost us the big ram. You may wonder how he knew it. I can only answer that what that Mongol did not know about the ways of sheep was not worth learning. He seemed to think as the sheep thought, but, withal, was a most intelligent and delightful companion. His ready sympathy, his keen humor, and his interest in helping me get the finest specimens of the animals I wanted, endeared him to me in a way which only a sportsman can understand. His Shansi dialect and my limited Mandarin made a curious combination of the Chinese language, but we could always piece it out with signs, and we never misunderstood each other on any important matter.

We had many friendly differences of opinion about the way in which to conduct a stalk, and his childlike glee when he was proved correct was most refreshing. One morning I got the better of him, and for days he could not forget it. We were sitting on a hillside, and with my gla.s.ses I picked up a herd of sheep far away on the uplands. "Yes," he said, "one is a very big ram." How he could tell at that distance was a mystery to me, but I did not question his statement for he had proved too often that his range of sight was almost beyond belief.

We started toward the sheep, and after half a mile I looked again.

Then I thought I saw a gra.s.scutter, and the animals seemed like donkeys. I said as much but the hunter laughed. "Why, I saw the horns," he said. "One is a big one, a _very_ big one." I stopped a second time and made out a native bending over, cutting gra.s.s. But I could not convince the Mongol. He disdained my gla.s.ses and would not even put them to his eyes. "I don't have to--I _know_ they are sheep," he laughed. But I, too, was sure. "Well, we'll see," he said. When we looked again, there could be no mistake; the sheep were donkeys. It was a treat to watch the Mongol's face, and I made much capital of his mistake, for he had so often teased me when I was wrong.

But to return to the sheep across the valley which we were stalking on that sunlit Thursday noon. After the ram had disappeared we made our way slowly around the hilltop, whence he had come, to gain a connecting meadow which would bring us to the ravine where the _argali_ were sleeping. On the way I was in a fever of indecision.

Ought I to have let that ram go? He was just what we wanted for the group, and something might happen to prevent a shot at the others.

It was "a bird in the hand" again, and I had been false to the motto which had so often proved true.

Then the "something" I had feared did happen. We saw a gra.s.scutter with two donkeys emerge from a ravine on the left and strike along the gra.s.sy bridge five hundred yards beyond us. If he turned to the right across the upper edge of the meadows, we could whistle for our sheep. Even if he kept straight ahead, possibly they might scent him. The Mongol's face was like a thundercloud. I believe he would have strangled that gra.s.scutter could he have had him in his hands.

But the Fates were kind, and the man with his donkeys kept to the left across the uplands. Even then my Mongol would not hurry. His motto was "Slowly, slowly," and we seemed barely to crawl up the slope of the shallow valley which I hoped still held the sheep.

On the summit of the draw the old hunter motioned me behind him and cautiously raised his head. Then a little farther. Another step and a long look. He stood on tiptoe, and, settling back, quietly motioned me to move up beside him.

Just then a gust of wind swept across the hilltop and into the ravine. There was a rush of feet, a clatter of sliding rock, and three _argali_ dashed into view on the opposite slope. They stopped two hundred yards away. My hunter was frantically whispering, "One more. Don't shoot. Don't shoot." I was at a loss to understand, for I knew there were only three sheep in the draw. The two rams both seemed enormous, and I let drive at the leader. He went down like lead--shot through the shoulders. The two others ran a few yards and stopped again. When I fired, the sheep whirled about but did not fall. I threw in another sh.e.l.l and held the sight well down. The "putt" of a bullet on flesh came distinctly to us, but the ram stood without a motion.

The third shot was too much, and he slumped forward, rolled over, and crashed to the bottom of the ravine. All the time Na-mon-gin was frantically whispering, "Not right. Not right. The big one. The big one." As the second sheep went down I learned the reason. Out from the valley directly below us rushed a huge ram, washed with white on the neck and shoulders and carrying a pair of enormous, curling horns. I was too surprised to move. How could four sheep be there, when I knew there were only three!

Usually I am perfectly cool when shooting and have all my excitement when the work is done, but the unexpected advent of that ram turned on the thrills a bit too soon. I forgot what I had whispered to myself at every shot, "Aim low, aim low. You are shooting down hill." I held squarely on his gray-white shoulder and pulled the trigger. The bullet just grazed his back. He ran a few steps and stopped. Again I fired hurriedly, and the ball missed him by the fraction of an inch. I saw it strike and came to my senses with a jerk; but it was too late, for the rifle was empty. Before I could cram in another sh.e.l.l the sheep was gone.

Na-mon-gin was absolutely disgusted. Even though I had killed two fine rams, he wanted the big one. "But," I said, "where did the fourth sheep come from? I saw only three." He looked at me in amazement. "Didn't you know that the ram which walked by us went over to the others?" he answered. "Any one ought to have known that much."

Well, I hadn't known. Otherwise, I should have held my fire. Right there the Mongol read me a lecture on too much haste. He said I was like every other foreigner--always in a rush. He said a lot of other things which I accepted meekly, for I knew that he was right. I always _am_ in a hurry. Missing that ram had taken most of the joy out of the others; and to make matters worse, the magnificent animal stationed himself on the very hillside where we had been sitting when we saw them first and, with the little ewe close beside him, watched us for half an hour.

Na-mon-gin glared at him and shook his fist. "We'll get you to-morrow, you old rabbit," he said; and then to me, "Don't you care.

I won't eat till we kill him."

For the next ten minutes the kindly old Mongol devoted himself to bringing a smile to my lips. He told me he knew just where that ram would go; we couldn't have carried in his head anyway; that it would be much better to save him for to-morrow; and that I had killed the other two so beautifully that he was proud of me.

I continued to feel better when I saw the two dead _argali_. They were both fine rams, in perfect condition, with beautiful horns. One of them was the sheep which had walked so close to us; there was no doubt of that, for I had been able to see the details of his "face and figure." Every _argali_ has its own special characters which are unmistakable. In the carriage of his head, the curve of his horns, and in coloration, he is as individual as a human being.

While we were examining the sheep, Harry and his hunter appeared upon the rim of the ravine. They brought with them, on a donkey, the skin and head of a fine two-year-old ram which he had killed an hour earlier far beyond us on the uplands. It fitted exactly into our series, and when we had another big ram and two ewes, the group would be complete.

Poor Harry was hobbling along just able to walk. He had strained a tendon in his right leg the previous morning, and had been enduring the most excruciating pain all day. He wanted to stay and help us skin the sheep, but I would not let him We were a long way from camp, and it would require all his strength to get back at all.

At half-past four we finished with the sheep, and tied the skins and much of the meat on the two donkeys which Harry had commandeered.