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Updated: June 5, 2025
Suddenly we heard his deep bay coming up the hill in our direction. Hotenfa and I dropped our burdens and ran to an opening in the forest where we thought the animal must pass. I had one chance for a shot at about one hundred and fifty yards as the pair crossed a little opening in the trees, but it was too dangerous to shoot for, had I missed the deer, the dog certainly would have been killed.
Hotenfa, one of our Mosos, owned a good pack and we all came to love its big red leader. This fine dog could be depended upon to dig out game if there was any in the mountains, but his life with us was short for he was killed by our first serow. Hotenfa was inconsolable and the tears he shed were in sincere sorrow for the loss of a faithful friend. Almost every family owns a dog.
Hotenfa leaped from rock to rock, almost like a goat himself, and dashed through the bushes toward a jutting shelf which overhung the gorge. We reached the rim at the same moment and saw a huge ram standing on a narrow ledge a hundred yards below.
We had not gone a hundred yards when the hunter shouted that a goral was running in our direction. Hotenfa reached the edge of the ridge before me, and I saw him fire with the three-barrel gun at a goral which disappeared into the brush. His bullet struck the dirt only a few feet behind the animal although it must have been well beyond a hundred yards and almost straight below us.
At daylight Hotenfa visited the ferry and reported that the loads were safe but that one of the boatmen had gone to the village and no one knew when he would return. We went to the river with Wu as soon as breakfast was over and spent an aggravating hour trying by alternate threats and cajoling to persuade the remaining ferryman to cross the river to us.
There was nothing to do but hurry down the mountain for the dogs might bring the goral to bay on one of the cliffs below us, and in twenty minutes we stood on a ridge which jutted out from the thick spruce forest. One of the hunters picked his way down the rock wall while Hotenfa and I circled the top of the spur.
It was a delightfully warm day and Hotenfa told me in his vivid sign language that the gorals were likely to be asleep on the sunny side of the ravine; therefore we worked up the opposite slope.
We felt that we could be happy at the "White Water" forever, but it did not prove to be as good a hunting ground as that on the other side of the mountain. The Lolos killed a fine serow on the first day and Hotenfa brought in a young goral a short time later, but big game was by no means abundant.
Moreover, the camp was a very uncomfortable one, due to the wind which roared through the trees night and day. We were rejoined here by Hotenfa, who had left us at the Taku ferry to see if he could get together a pack of dogs. He brought three hounds with him which he praised exuberantly, but we subsequently found that they did not justify our hopes.
Nevertheless, we were glad to have Hotenfa back, for he was one of the most intelligent, faithful, and altogether charming natives whom we met in all Yün-nan. He was an uncouth savage when he first came to us, but in a very short time he had learned our camp ways and was as good a servant as any we had.
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