About mid-day they were slowly following the valley of a stream somewhat broader than those hitherto encountered, hoping that it would bring them out some distance up the Yalu about the neighbourhood of Sukuchen. As they proceeded, they came almost unawares upon a remarkable cleft in the hills to their right—a wild and rocky gorge, strewn with irregular masses of rock small and large, and narrowing as it led upwards to a sparse clump of trees at the top. Even in broad daylight it formed a dark forbidding gully, the hills rising sheer precipices on either side, showing masses of granite too steep even to give lodgment to the snow. From a point high up, a thin waterfall plunged over the crags and wormed its way down among the boulders. The travellers stopped for a few moments to observe the scene. Suddenly Ah-Sam pointed upwards: on a ledge of rock almost at the summit, near a narrow fissure, he had descried the form of a bear motionless on its haunches. Following the Chinaman’s outstretched finger, Bob at last made out the distant form. For a moment the instinct of the British sportsman prompted him to attempt to stalk the animal, but even as he looked it suddenly disappeared, and he remembered then that as a menial Korean he would have cut an absurd and outrageous figure in pursuit of a bear. He was still regretting the impossibility of obtaining the skin, when he was startled by the sound of a high-pitched voice coming from some spot ahead of them. The valley here rounded a prominent bluff; no human form was to be seen. Before he had quite collected himself he heard the voice again; it was a woman’s voice, speaking in accents of distress, or at least excited remonstrance, and he fancied that it had a very British ring. Springing from the cart, and bidding Ah-Sam follow him quickly, he hurried on ahead, turned the bend, and saw before him, hastening up the slope, five persons, two of them little more than a hundred yards away, the other three at a somewhat greater distance. He was amazed to see that two of the five were ladies, in European costume. The nearer was a young lady, tall, in a costume of grey tweed; her right wrist was in the grasp of a native. The farther was a lady of maturer years, equally tall, very stout, wearing a heavy sealskin jacket, her bonnet awry, her arms pinioned by two natives who were urging her along. The captors were obviously Manchus; they wore the pigtails, the wide-brimmed hats, cotton blouses and loose pantaloons common to the country.