een sheets between vertical walls of
granite. To the north we looked across at a splendid panorama of
saw-toothed peaks and ragged pinnacles tinted with delicate shades
of pink and lavender. Beneath our feet were slabs of pure white
marble and great blocks of greenish feldspar. Among the peaks were
deep ravines and, farther to the east, rolling uplands carpeted with
grass. There the sheep are found.

We killed only one goral and a roebuck during the first two days,
for a violent gale made hunting well-nigh impossible. On the third
morning the sun rose in a sky as blue as the waters of a tropic sea,
and not a breath of air stirred the silver poplar leaves as we
crossed the rocky stream bed to the base of the mountains north of
camp. Fifteen hundred feet above us towered a ragged granite ridge
which must be crossed ere we could gain entrance to the grassy
valleys beyond the barrier.

We had toiled halfway up the slope, when my hunter sank into the
grass, pointed upward, and whispered, "_pan-yang_" (wild sheep).
There, on the very summit of the highest pinnacle, stood a
magnificent ram silhouetted against the sky. It was a stage
introduction to the greatest game animal in all the world.

Motionless, as though sculptured from the living granite, it gazed
across the valley toward the village whence we had come. Through my
glasses I could see every detail of its splendid body--the wash of
gray with which many winters had tinged its neck and flanks, the
finely drawn legs, and the massive horns curling about a head as
proudly held as that of a Roman warrior. He stood like a statue for
half an hour, while we crouched motionless in the trail below; then
he turned deliberately and disappeared.

When we reached the summit of the ridge the ram was nowhere to be
seen, but we found his tracks on a path leading down a knifelike
outcrop to the bottom of another valley. I felt sure that he would
turn eastward toward the grassy uplands, but Na-mon-gin, my Mongol
hunter, pointed north to a sea of ragged mountains. We groaned as we
looked at those towering peaks; moreover, it seemed hopeless to hunt
for a single animal in that chaos of ravines and canyons.

We had already learned, however, that the Mongol knew almost as much
about what a sheep would do as did the animal itself. It was
positively uncanny. Perhaps we would see a herd of sheep half a mile
away. The old fellow would seat himself, nonchalantly fill his pipe
and puff conte