esence in other localities.

The almost complete absence of carnivores at this camp was a great
surprise. Except for weasels we saw no others and the hunters said that
foxes or civets did not occur on this side of the mountain even though food
was abundant.

On the day before we went to the temple I had a magnificent hunt. We left
camp at daylight in a heavy fog and almost at once the dogs took up a serow
trail. We heard them coming toward us as we stood at the upper edge of a
little meadow and expected the animal to break cover any moment, but it
turned down the mountain and the hounds lost the trail in the thick spruce
woods.

We climbed slowly toward the cliffs until we were well above the clouds,
which lay in a thick white blanket over the camp, and headed for the canon
where I had shot my second goral. Hotenfa wished to go lower down into the
forests but I prevailed upon him to stay along the open slopes and, while
we were resting, the big red dog suddenly gave tongue on a ridge above and
to the right of us. It was in the exact spot where my second goral had been
started and we were on the _qui vive_ when the rest of the pack dashed up
the mountain-side to join their leader.

In a few moments they all gave tongue and we heard them swinging about in
our direction. Just then the clouds, which had been lying in a solid bank
below us, began to drift upward in a long, thin finger toward the canon. On
and on it came, and closer sounded the yelps of the dogs. I was trembling
with impatience and swearing softly as the gray vapor streamed into the
gorge. The cloud thickened, sweeping rapidly up the ravine, until we were
enveloped so completely that I could hardly see the length of my gun
barrel. A moment later we heard the goral leaping down the cliff not a
hundred yards away.

With the rifle useless in my hands I listened to each hoof beat and the
stones which his flying feet sent rattling into the gorge. Then the dogs
came past, and we heard them follow down the rocks, their yelps growing
fainter and fainter in the valley far below. The goral was lost, and as
though the Fates were laughing at us, ten minutes later a puff of wind
sucked the cloud out of the canon as swiftly as it had come, and above us
shone a sky as clear and blue as a tropic sea.

Hotenfa's disgust more than equaled my own for I had loaned him my
three-barrel gun (12 gauge and .303 Savage) and he was as excited as a
child with a new toy. He was a r