But to the two pilgrims of Love the land seemed beautiful even now that the winter was not far distant. In the silent woods, hidden from prying eyes, they sat hand in hand and whispered to each other over and over again the oldest, sweetest story that the Earth has known. Strange to hear words of love from the lips of such a weird-looking couple; yet Muriel in her quaint disguise with her silky hair cropped to the scalp was as beautiful in her lover's eyes as when he had seen her in her prettiest frocks. And she thought the yellow-skinned, wrinkled old lama infinitely more attractive than the gay young subaltern of Ranga Duar--for he was her own now. Such is Love's glamour. Muriel had forgiven royally. Bhutan is a Buddhist-ruled land, therefore slaying for sport and fishing in the rivers is prohibited; nay, more, the Maharajah sometimes forbids the killing of even domestic animals for food. So wild life abounds. The fugitives often saw flocks of burhel--called _nao_ in Bhutan--feeding on the precipitous slopes of the higher hills. Once Frank and Muriel excitedly watched a snow-leopard stalking one of these big-horned sheep sixteen thousand feet above the sea-level. And in these heights they even saw an occasional lynx or wolf, generally only to be found in the highest elevations bordering on Tibet. Silver-haired _langur_ apes, the white fringes around their black faces giving them a comic resemblance to aged negroes, awoke the echoes of the mountains with their deep booming cry; while in the lower valleys little brown monkeys mopped and mowed from the trees at the fugitives as they passed. On one occasion Muriel, exhilarated by the keen, life-giving air, ran gaily on ahead of the others in a wood--and came on a tiger enjoying its midday siesta. But the striped brute only uttered a startled "Wough! Wough!" like a big dog and dashed away through the undergrowth. Another time they disturbed a red bear feeding on the carcase of a strange beast that seemed a mixture of goat, donkey and deer--Tashi called it a _serao_. And at a lower elevation they blundered on two black bears--not flesh-eaters these, yet more dangerous--grubbing for roots, and on another occasion saw one climbing a tree in search of wild bees' nests. In a dense jungle early one morning a beautiful black panther with a skin like watered silk glided stealthily by them, showing its white fangs and red mouth in an angry snarl as it went. And deep down in a valley they espied a rhinoceros feeding a thousand feet below them. But they came across no elephants; and Frank noted the fact despairingly as rendering even less probable a meeting with Badshah and his herd.