Their original incapacity will be easily credited, when I inform
them that my second best man, Buctoo, had followed the sporting
occupation of a village fiddler, before he entered my service, and
knew as much of the capabilities of an English rifle as he did of the
"Pleiades." Jye Sing was a little better informed, for he told me
confidentially, one day, he had seen a gentleman at Subathoo actually
kill quail flying with small shot. His occupation had been that of
findal, or porter, to some families at Simla. Two months' training
turned him out, not only one of the most intelligent, but pluckiest
Shikaree I ever had.
Having, in my numerous excursions into the hills, obtained some very
vague information from the many villagers I came in contact with, that
they had often heard from parties residing near the snow that there
was an animal to be found there strongly resembling the famous sheep,
(_Ovid Burul_,) I determined upon despatching Jye Sing and Buctoo to
those regions, to obtain all the precise information that might be
available, cautioning them not to return without either having seen
the animal, or bringing me some proof of its existence, and further
promising them a handsome present, if they brought me satisfactory
information. They were absent two months, and returned with some most
marvellous stories about what they had seen and heard, and, as a proof
of the existence of the animal, brought me the horn of a wild sheep
they had picked up in one of the valleys in the snow, after an
avalanche had melted.
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