About 7.30 a.m., having seen no sheep, we held a consultation, when Minerou decided that he would climb right over the summit of Tuckazanza, while his follower and myself were directed to go further round the base and climb over a lower spur, and we were eventually to meet again on the other side. This arranged, we started off on our separate ways. In due time I, along with Minerou’s follower, had climbed to the summit of the ridge, always scanning every fresh hollow or rise as they appeared in view in hope of sighting game; but thus far without any luck.
We had begun the descent down the other side, when the native beside me suddenly gripped my arm and pointed excitedly to the right, where, after a few moments of perplexity in endeavouring to locate that which the Tuareg had seen, my eyes were arrested by the slight movement of a pair of heavy curved horns. Not a hair of the animal was in sight, but the head undoubtedly belonged to a sheep standing not more than five hundred yards away in a slight dip in the mountain side. No time was to be lost: the horns were facing our way, and perhaps, for all we could tell, the wary animal had heard us and was looking upward, listening. I signed to the native to lead on, judging he would choose the easiest way through the huge boulders that we were among (I found in later experience that mountain sheep always frequent the very roughest places, where they the more readily find the coolest and darkest shelter from the heat and sunlight in the caves and chasms which gigantic boulders and rocks so readily form), and, crouching and scrambling and leaping, we set off on the stalk at a perilous speed—perilous at least to me, who could not boast the barefooted nimbleness of my mountaineer companion.
It was surely the “daftest” and the least cunning stalk I have ever made, excepting perhaps the “buck-fever” pranks of my earliest experiences of hunting. The native had simply grasped the idea that the animals looked like shifting when we sighted them, for he had seen two, and his one purpose was to get there before they could possibly be gone—and I had but to follow; for moments were precious, and what use to hesitate and stop to explain that I should advance slowly so that my footwear would make no scraping noise on the rocks, and slowly, also, so that I should have some breath and life in my body when the moment came to shoot. How I managed to cover the distance in our mad haste without mishap I do not to this day know, except that for the moment I had no time to think of fear, which certainly helped me on over ugly chasms that yawned across my path, entailing leaps that seemed beyond my ability, yet, somehow, were miraculously crossed and left behind.
We reached the place where the animal had stood, and, on peering over the slight rise which had screened us, at once saw two sheep clambering away over the rocks. I fired at once at the largest one and brought him down, but twice missed the second one as he headed away upwards, sometimes in view, more often hidden among the rocks.
However, as luck had it, we learned a little later, when Minerou joined us, that this second animal had run into him on the summit, and he had shot it, so that both animals were bagged.
Consultation decided that the follower and I should go back to camp for a camel to fetch in the game, while Minerou would return to his kill on the summit and safeguard it against jackals and crows (the latter were already croaking and cawing on the rocks about us, having detected the kills from afar with their extraordinary eyesight), as we had already secured ours, after disembowelling it, by moving it into a hollow between two rocks, and heaping upon it big stones so that nothing could reach the carcass.
On the way back to camp there occurred a strange incident that proved highly exciting for a moment, until the voices of friends banished the possibility of human bloodshed; an incident which demonstrated to me at an early stage how real is bandit warfare in those hills. This is what happened. We were about to cross a deep ravine, when we suddenly espied two men travelling toward us on foot, not on the open ground of the level land above, but perched up on the cliff face of the sunken ravine and advancing amongst the rocks, as if they had some purpose in remaining concealed. Instantly the native with me crouched behind cover and looked to the full charging of his rifle, quite apparently apprehending danger. In a few moments the men advanced around a spur and disappeared into a recess in the twisting ravine. Whenever they were out of sight my follower bounded forward, agile as a goat, among the huge rocks, to a prominence where he might carefully look over and down upon the approaching men and observe them more closely from a point of advantage, while I lay with my rifle ready and waited. But the native did not beckon me forward, or return himself, and soon I heard voices ring out, and knew we were with friends and not enemies, and a few moments proved them to be one of our own party, who had been sent away the night before by the Chief to scout through the neighbourhood as a precaution against robbers, and with him was a native from Baguezan whom he had chanced to meet.
The alarm had turned out to be false. Nevertheless, I did not readily forget my native’s instant expectation of a fight with enemies, and the familiar manner in which he accepted the situation. His were the actions of one who lived from day to day in the midst of dangers, and had been bred and born to the habit of defence against foes that ever lurked near.
Many incidents of this character I experienced later on, and had soon learned that the alarming rumours relating to robbers which were prevalent farther south were all too true, and that the shadows of lurking foes were foremost in the thoughts of every Tuareg in Aïr, where robbers imposed a terrifying oppression.
On reaching camp, a camel was despatched to find Minerou in the hills and bring in the sheep, which in due course arrived in camp to be skinned and used as food, as neither beast was perfect enough to serve as a museum specimen. The larger of the two had a fine head, but the body hair was thin and patchy, and altogether out of condition.