emarkably intelligent man and mastered the
safety catches in a short time even though he had never before seen a
breach-loading gun.

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.

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.

Hardly had we drawn back when a yell from the other hunter brought us again
to the edge of the cliff just in time to see a second goral dash into the
forest a good three hundred yards away in the very bottom of the gorge.

Rather disappointed we continued along the ridge and Hotenfa made signs
which said as plainly as words, "I told you so. The gorals are not on the
peaks but down in the forest. We ought to have come here first."

There were not many moments for regret, however, for this was "our busy
day." Suddenly a burst of frantic yelps from the red dog turned us off to
the left and we heard him nearing the summit of the spur which we had just
left. One of the other hunters was standing there and his crossbow twanged
as the goral passed only a few yards from him, but the wicked little
poisoned dart stuck quivering into a tree a few inches above the animal's
back.

The goral dashed over the ridge almost on top of the second hunter who was
too surprised to shoot and only yelled that it was coming toward us on the
cliff below. 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. I fired instantly and the noble animal,
with feet wide spread, and head thrown back, launched himself into space
falling six hundred feet to the rocks beneath us.

As the goral leaped Hotenfa seemed suddenly to go insane. Yelling with joy,
he threw his arms about my neck, rubbing my face with his and pounding me
on the back