“Well, I must confess,” observed Smythe, “that does appear to be most remarkable. I should have thought that ‘tree tigers,’ as we term them, would have been there in abundance.”
“I saw none, and if there were any they did not trouble me.”
“You were a most fortunate man.”
“Possibly so. No doubt I was.
“The time must now have been about mid-day, when I came to a gap in the forest, occasioned by the fall of several spruces. Here, whilst examining the spot, a horrible feeling came over me that I had passed the identical opening shortly before dark on the previous day, so that as I pushed along I could not help muttering to myself, ‘I am walking in a circle. This comes of always trending towards the left.’
“I consequently started in an opposite direction, and soon found myself on an incline, and before another hour had gained a small torrent, the bed of which was choked up by tall bracken and wild balsams, from whence numbers of the gorgeously attired Monal pheasants rose and fled down the glen, with the metallic sheen of their gorgeous plumage glistening in the sunshine.
“Here, virtually, my troubles seemed to have come to an end for ever. Since the stream was discovered, hopes grew stronger and stronger that if I could follow it up there would be an end to my anxieties.
“At length the narrow gorge gave way to an open valley, and, listening now and then, I fancied I could catch the murmur of distant waters, until the sound finally ended in a continuous roar, and I found myself on a footpath, with the Chenaub rolling rapidly along its rocky bed.
“One problem, however, remained unsolved, ‘Was my tent up or down stream?’ Now considering the sameness of the scenery, and very irregular, not to say eccentric, windings of mountain footpaths in general, and Himalayan foot-tracks in particular, it would have taken a greater experience of wilderness ways than I could then command to have recognised one object more than another, along the route I had trodden on the way from Cashmere.
“Nevertheless, expecting that footprints might turn up on softer parts of the path, I searched for such indications of man, but without success, and the forest on either side gave no token of commanding positions from whence a survey could be made; consequently, only one of two alternatives remained, either to push up or down the river bank.