90 Tibet and Turkestan
thousand feet, then down again to sixteen thousand five hundred, in a rather narrow valley. Lassoo now began to revive memories of his march with Captain Welby. His little yellow face was turned knowingly from side to side, and he soon delighted us by declaring to Achbar that we were going in the wrong direction. Think of it, somebody who knew what was the wrong direction ! The next morning we gave Lassoo his head, and were soon scaling another eighteen-thousand-foot ridge, down into another valley at about sixteen thousand five hundred feet elevation. Mohammed Joo, ever an optimist, said that was Lanak Pass. Lassoo said it was not, but he could take us to Lanak and probably find shepherds there. Our hearts swelled with satisfaction. A shepherd meant a trail ; a trail meant a way back to the world where people lived, where the map should no longer be blank and where the ear should no longer be hurt by the refrain "Adam Yok ! "
Another day we followed Lassoo, who held down the valley wherein a friendly stream accompanied us for a while. But now the little compass read N. W., and all day long N. W., and there were no shepherds. But men had been in this valley. Lassoo triumphantly chuckled over a piece of pottery found near to three blackened stones, dear to the eyes of the trail-seeker. Then we passed a curious line of little stone-piles about a foot high, two feet apart, and stretching a clean mile across the valley, with a six-foot opening about the middle. I think it served to cull the foolish flocks that may have grazed last year, or a hundred years ago, or a thou-
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