When we reached the stream it was only to find a flat wall against which the water surged in a mass of white foam, separating us from the place where the serow had fallen.  I tried to wade around the rock but in two steps the water was above my waist.  It was evident that we would have to swim, and I began to undress, inviting Achi and the wood cutter to follow; the former refused, but the latter pulled off his few clothes with considerable hesitation.

It was a swim of only about forty feet around the face of the cliff but the current was strong and it was no easy matter to fight my way to the other side.  After I had climbed out upon the rocks I called to the wood cutter to follow and he slipped into the water.  Evidently the current was more than he had bargained for and a look of fear crossed his face, but he went manfully at it.

He had almost reached the rock on which I was standing with outstretched hand when his strength seemed suddenly to go and he cried out in terror.  I jumped into the water, hanging to the rocks with one hand and letting my legs float out behind.  The wood cutter just managed to reach my big toe, to which he clung as if it had in reality been the straw of the drowning man and I dragged him up stream until, to my intense relief, he could grasp the rocks.

We picked our way among the boulders for a few yards and suddenly came upon the serow lying partly in the water.  I felt like dancing with delight but the sharp rocks were not conducive to any such demonstrations and I merely yelled to Achi who understood from the tone, if not from my words, that the animal was safe.

The men who had shouted when the animal fell over the cliff were only fifty feet away, but they too were separated from it by a wall of rock and surging water.  They said that there was an easier way up the cliff than the one by which we had descended, and prepared a line of tough vines, one end of which they let down to us.  We made it fast to the serow and I kept a second vine rope in my hands, swimming beside the animal as they dragged it to the other shore.  It was landed safely and the wood cutter was hauled over by the same means.

I had intended to swim back for my clothes but discovered that Achi had disappeared, taking my garments and those of the wood cutter with him.  He evidently intended to meet us on the hilltop, but it left us in the rather awkward predicament of making our way through the thick brush with only the proverbial smile and minus even the necktie.

The men fastened together the serow’s four legs, slipped a pole beneath them and toiled up the steep slope preceded by a naked brown figure and followed by a white one.  The side of the gorge was covered with vines and creepers, many of them thorny, and pushing through them with no bodily protection was far from comfortable.