ng dawned dark and cloudy with spurts of
hail--just the sort of weather in which animals prefer to stay
comfortably snuggled under a bush in the thickest cover. Consequently
we saw nothing all day except one roebuck, which I killed. It was
running at full speed when I fired, and it disappeared over the crest
of a hill without a sign of injury. Smith was waiting on the other
side, and I wondered why he did not shoot, until we reached the summit
and discovered the deer lying dead in the grass. Smith had seen the
buck plunge over the ridge, and just as he was about to fire, it
collapsed.

We found that my bullet had completely smashed the heart, yet the
animal had run more than one hundred yards. As it fell, one of its
antlers had been knocked off and the other was so loose that it
dropped in my hand when I lifted the head. This was on December 11.
The other bucks which I had killed still wore their antlers, but
probably they would all have been shed before Christmas. The growth
takes place during the winter, and the velvet is all off the new
antlers by the following May.

On the way back to camp we saw a huge boar standing on an open
hillside. Smith and I fired hurriedly and both missed a perfectly
easy shot. With one of the Chinese I circled the ridge, while Smith
took up the animal's trail. We arrived on the edge of a deep ravine
just as the boar appeared in the very bottom. I fired as it rushed
through the bushes, and the pig squealed but never hesitated. The
second shot struck behind it, but at the third it squealed again and
dived into a patch of cover. When we reached the spot we found a
great pool of blood and bits of entrails--but no pig. A broad red
patch led through the snow, and we followed, expecting at every step
to find the animal dead. Instead, the track carried us down the
hill, up the bottom of a ravine, and onto a hill bare of snow but
thickly covered with oak scrub.

While Smith and I circled ahead to intercept the pig, the Chinese
followed the trail. It was almost dark when we went back to the men,
who announced that the blood had ceased and that they had lost the
track. It seemed incredible; but they had so trampled the trail
where it left the snow that we could not find it again in the gloom.

Then Smith and I suspected what we eventually found to be true,
viz., that the men had discovered the dead pig and had purposely led
us astray. We had no proof, however, and they denied the charge so
viol