NOT long ago, in far-away Ladakh, a a half-dozen men were sheltering themselves from a severe snowstorm in a valley in the midst of what with no exaggeration may be called a region of stupendous mountains. They were huddled together against the lee side of a big rock, and had arranged blankets so as to keep as much of the snow as possible from drifting in on them. They had been sitting there six hours waiting for the storm to blow over, buoying their spirits up with the knowledge that sunshine comes, sometime or other, to follow the severest storm; and to them the sun, when it did come, meant not only that the storm was over, but that they would once again be able to obtain warmth and food. The fresh - fallen snow lay thick around them, and covered the débris of the camp they had been driven out of. Six inches lay over a couple of tents with broken poles, and the tents were reduced to acting the part of inefficient tarpaulins to cover odd boxes of stores, cooking utensils, and wearing apparel.

The six men formed a party endeavouring to kill ibex, and included a subaltern of the British army enjoying a four months' leave from the heat of the Indian plains, who had completely realised an oft-repeated desire to find a cool spot in which to dodge an

Indian hot weather; two shikaries, one a Cashmiri, the other a Ladakhi; a Musalman cook, who was endeavouring to die for the fourth time during the last week; and two coolies, who alone of the party seemed contented with the state of the weather. A Ladakhi coolie does not often feel cold, and a fine-weather day to him means trudging over mountain tracks with a 60-lb. load on his back, so he could put up with a day under a rock without grumbling.

The party had been marching for three weeks from Islamabad in Cashmir, and had been but two days on its shootingground when it had been caught by a last effort of the expiring winter. The subaltern, whose outfit it was, had never seen a live ibex and knew nothing about mountains, but had a light heart, and unbounded confidence in the feeling that things would come all right somehow. Had he possessed a little more experience he would have delayed his march a week or so, and perhaps his past camping - grounds would not have had so many useless articles, said by friends and Srinagur tradesmen to be indispensable, left behind on them. But young British officers of his standing not only possess boundless confidence in themselves and their luck, but take a lot of stopping. Although only three weeks away from civilisation, he had

learnt more than the study of many books could have taught him. He had acquired a sure foot in a grass sandal on slippery ground; he had got over a squeamishness about looking down from great heights; he had shot marmots with his brand new rifle in a way which gave him great hopes of hitting the ibex when he came across them; if his shikari robbed him a bit over the price of supplies, our subaltern had learnt that there are times when it is wise to put up with a little of that amongst Eastern people. And, above all, being a gentleman, he could get on well with natives, keeping them in good humour, but standing no nonsense from them.

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It is an important matter that one stand well in the estimation of one's shikari. This worthy was an active old man, who regularly every spring for the last forty years had come forth from Cashmir in company with a sahib on sport and adventure bent, with his back to comfort and civilisation and his face turned to the mountains and their snows. He considered himself a judge of sahibs, and he had reason to do so, for he had seen many of them. In his earlier days they had not to go so far afield as they did now, and game was more plentiful. But he found that however far off the game went, there were plenty of sahibs to go after it. He noted that, unlike his race, which had been and had looked the same in manner and dress for a couple of hundred years or

more, the sahibs seemed to change constantly in these matters. Once they let their hair grow grow long, now they clipped it short. Formerly they seemed to take a pride in their whiskers, but now they shaved whenever they had a chance of doing so. They even ate and drank different things now. But however fond of change in some matters they were, he noted with satisfaction that their fondness for sport in the mountains did not lessen.

He was quite content with his present employer, and he had tried him pretty severely before his mind was quite made up about him. He had tested his powers of holding his rifle straight by egging him on to take increasingly long shots at marmots whilst on the march, until he was satisfied that he was good for anything up to 150 yards. He had led him by short cuts through bad places, and had seen that, with a little more practice, anything in mountaineering that required nerve, wind, and muscle could be easily accomplished. And he was a generous sahib too, and one that did not keep account of how the money was spent. Altogether Abdullah of Islamabad considered that he had found a sahib after his own heart, and one that was likely to be a credit to him. With anything like good luck he anticipated acquiring a chit at the end of his service on that trip that would be the envy of his brother shikaries for the whole of the next winter. This chit would give the details of the best bag of the year, and

especially would it bear testimony to his many merits as both a shikari and a man. It would be the sort of chit that, once its fame got known, would cause sahibs to engage him six months before they wanted him, and that other shikaries would pay him large prices for the loan of when he had got his engagement, and could therefore afford to help others. But to return to our party whom we left shivering under their rock. In the afternoon, with that suddenness characteristic of a mountain climate, the snow ceased to fall and the wind to blow. The sun came out, and with it the half- frozen men came out of their sheepskins too. Hard work clearing away the snow from the top of the flattenedout tents soon warmed them up, and before an hour had gone fresh poles had been cut and the canvas stretched over them. There was no chance of getting dry and having any hot food that evening, for the little firewood that could be found was too sodden to burn. So, whilst the natives chewed wet chupatties, as they called their form of bread, the sahib opened a tin of Bath Oliver biscuits, and, spreading bovril paste on them, made a meal of them.

The little camp lay a few paces off the stream that, flowing from a big glacier at the head of the valley, rushed down it until it merged itself in the great river that had laboured hard for ages to carry away the mass of water formed by the melting of the snows

and ice on the mountain and valleys of that region. The mountains rose abruptly on either side of the stream, and seemed absolutely devoid of any vegetation. The wild sheep and goats found plenty to their liking, however, which is another proof of the saying that what is one man's meat is another man's poison. The only trees in the whole land were those that grew here and there on the banks of the stream, so it would always be a problem for the cook as to where he would get firewood. Tracks over the mountains were very few and far between; and when the camp was left with the intention of climbing up the sides of the valley, in that alone a good day's work was ahead. And such climbing it would be too, with the hands helping nearly as much as the feet! When the ridge of the immediate front was topped, it would be only to find that there was a bigger one on behind, till at last in the evening of that day one stood on the snowy ridge with a complete circle of white peaks and glittering glaciers and snow-fields all around.

The snow of those late storms soon melts, but it put a stop to the ibex-hunting of these parts for a week or so. Not that this week was spent in idleness; for although the snow had made the mountains impassable to man, it had also made them an uncomfortable residence for two red bears, who showed themselves one morning on the other side of the river opposite the camp,