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332 ADVENTURES IN TIBET.
feathery tail in the air, while the clods flew for yards. In
the thick of this performance up came Turdu Bai and in-
formed us that we were in need of meat. That was the
yak’s death sentence. The next moment two bullets
whistled through the air ; but the yak took not the slightest
notice either of them or of the reports. For a few seconds
he stood motionless ; but when the dogs again approached
him, he turned " ugly," and made a dash after them down
the slope. I was waiting about twenty or thirty yards
away with my photographic apparatus ready, and was just
beginning to think it was high time to be moving, when
down went the yak, and after rolling over once or twice
down the incline he lay stone dead.
At times during the last few days we had seen, far away
in the south, the snow-capped peaks of a gigantic mountain-
range, peeping over the tops of masking hills of a lower ele-
vation. That was now our goal, for we could scarcely hope
to find satisfactory grass until we got over it, and it was only
on the other side of it that we were likely to find human
beings. We already began to look out for a suitable notch
in the crest of the range, for we were now quite unable to
attempt any very lofty pass. On the 15th July we forded
a big river divided into a number of arms. The hills on its
left bank were black with yaks—we counted at least 75 of
them. Then, in another direction, we perceived what we
took to be a solitary traveller. I at once commanded halt,
and scrutinised the mysterious figure through my glass.
The Lama declared it was a Tibetan collecting yak-dung.
Perhaps, then, the yaks we had seen were tame ones after
all ; if they were, their owners had already caught sight of
the caravan, for the yaks were now gone. Soon afterwards
the lonely traveller turned out to be nothing more formid-
able than a kulan.
A little bit further on the following incident happened.
Yolbars put up a leveret, and would certainly have caught
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