moment, for great red blotches stained the snow
wherever he stopped to rest. At last the trail led us across an open
ridge, and the snow and blood suddenly ceased. We could not follow
his footprints in the thick grass and abandoned the chase just
before dark.

Two more days of unsuccessful hunting convinced us that the
missionaries had driven the pigs to other cover. There was a region
twelve miles away to which they might have gone, and we shifted camp
to a village named Tziloa a mile or more from the scrub-covered
hills which we wished to investigate.

The natives of this part of the country were in no sense hunters.
They were farmers who, now that the crops were harvested, had plenty
of leisure time and were glad to roam the hills with us. Although
their eyesight was remarkable and they were able to see a pig twice
as far as we could, they had no conception of stalking the game or
of how to hunt it. When we began to shoot, instead of watching the
pigs, they were always so anxious to obtain the empty cartridge
cases that a wild scramble ensued after every shot. They were like
street boys fighting for a penny. It was a serious handicap for
successful hunting, and they kept me in such a state of irritation
that I never shot so badly in all my life.

We found pigs at Tziloa immediately. The carts went by road to the
village, while Smith and I, with two Chinese, crossed the mountains.
On the summit of a ridge not far from the village we met eight
native hunters. Two of them had ancient muzzle-loading guns but the
others only carried staves. Evidently their method of hunting was to
surround the pigs and drive them close up to the men with firearms.

We persuaded one of the Chinese, a boy of eighteen, with cross-eyes
and a funny, dried-up little face, to accompany us, for our two
guides wished to return that night to Kao-chia-chuang. He led us
down a spur which projected northward from the main ridge, and in
ten minutes we discovered five pigs on the opposite side of a deep
ravine. The sun lay warmly on the slope, and the animals were lazily
rooting in the oak scrub. They were a happy family--a boar, a sow,
and three half-grown piglets.

We slipped quietly among the trees until we were directly opposite
to them and not more than two hundred yards away. The boar and the
sow had disappeared behind a rocky corner, and the others were
slowly following so that the opportunity for a shot would soon be
lost. Telling Smith