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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.
Instantly the sheep were on the move, running directly toward us. They seemed to be as large as elephants, for never before had I been as close to a living argali. Just as the animals mounted the crest of a rocky ledge, not more than fifty yards away, Na-mon-gin whistled sharply, and the sheep stopped as though turned to stone. "Now," he whispered, "shoot."
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.
Both of us were becoming decidedly tired of passing specimens which we wanted badly and decided to go for roebuck regardless of the possibility of frightening wapiti by the shooting. Na-mon-gin and the other hunters were disgusted with our decision, for they were only interested in the larger game.
Na-mon-gin whispered, "Don't shoot until he stops"; but it seemed that the animal would cross the ridge without a pause. He was almost at the summit when he halted for an instant, facing directly away from us. I fired, and the buck leaped backward shot through the neck. Na-mon-gin was in high good humor, for I had killed two deer with two shots.
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 grassy waves of brown.
In a few moments he would announce what was about to happen, and he was seldom wrong. Therefore, when he descended to the bottom of the valley we accepted his dictum without a protest. At the creek bed Harry and his young hunter left us to follow a deep ravine which led upward a little to the left, while Na-mon-gin and I climbed to the crest by way of a precipitous ridge.
The animal again remained in its cave until a beater was opposite the entrance and then shot out like an arrow almost into Harry's face. He was so startled that he missed it twice. I decided to abandon goral hunting for that day. Na-mon-gin took me over the summit of the ridge with two beaters and we found roebuck at once. I returned to camp with two bucks and a doe.
They realized that we were not to be dissuaded and prepared to drive the next patch of cover in a really businesslike manner. Na-mon-gin took me to a position on the edge of a projecting rock to await the natives. As they appeared on the rim of the ravine we saw five roe deer move in the bushes where they had been asleep.
We were anxiously looking for signs of forest, but the only possible cover was in a few ravines where a sparse growth of birch and poplar bushes, not more than six or eight feet high, grew on the north slope. Moreover, we could see that the valley ended in open rolling uplands. Turning to Na-mon-gin, I said, "How much farther are the ma-lu?" "Here," he answered. "We have already arrived.
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