Page 17 - English Expedition Class 6

9
opened the door. To her utter horror, she saw a snow leopard crouching in a corner. Th ere were
blood stains covering the fl oor. All her goats and sheep lay motionless. Th ey had all been killed by
the leopard. Only a baby calf was untouched. She quickly shut the door, and ran back to her home
to wake up her family.
‘I don’t believe this!’ said Rigzin to Jigmet, who had joined him at Tashi’s house. ‘A shan in
there?’ he added, pointing to the door of the lhas.
‘Yes, it’s a big one, Rigzin. If you climb onto the roof of the lhas, you will get a glimpse of it.’
Not wasting a second, Rigzin ran to the side of the house and climbed up to the roof. Th e
people on the roof were peering into a small hole that was on one side of the roof. Rigzin joined
them and craned his neck to take a look. Yes, there it was, a real live snow leopard! Although he
had never seen a snow leopard before, Rigzin had learnt a lot about these magnifi cent animals in
10
the nature guides course. He was told that they were endangered animals and were protected by
India’s wildlife laws. He felt concerned when he heard that there were only about fi ve hundred snow
leopards in the country, but also proud that his region was home to one of the most endangered big
cats. He was fascinated by the way they communicated with one another through scents that they
left on large overhanging rocks. ‘Keep away!
Th is is my territory,’ was the message that males • Why did Rigzin get excited at the
oft en left for each other. But the messages they news of the shan?
left for females were quite diff erent: ‘I’m young
• What did Rigzin know about the
and handsome. Would you be interested in me?’ snow leopard that the others didn’t?
Snow leopards have unusually long tails,
• What havoc did the animal wreak in
almost the length of their bodies. When told that
the lhas?
leopards wrap their tails around their bodies to
• Why did people call the snow leopard
keep warm in winter, Rigzin had exclaimed,
the ‘ghost of the mountains’?
‘Just like we use shawls!’ People referred to the
snow leopard as the ‘ghost of the mountains’
11
because it camoufl aged itself so well in the rocky land.
Rigzin was numb, fi lled with a mixture of fear and excitement. Th is was an animal he thought
he would never see. Even though he could not get a full view of the creature in the lhas, he could
tell by its size that it was a full-grown adult. As Rigzin looked into the hole, he could see the baby
calf lying still. It was the only animal in the lhas to have been spared. Th e leopard was fairly close to
the calf, but its attention was on the hole in the roof around which the crowd had gathered.
12
‘Let’s kill the leopard!’ shouted Tashi suddenly, distraught at the loss of all his sheep and goats.
13
‘Yes! Yes! Kill the animal!’ a loud chorus resounded .
Rigzin turned around, and realized that the villagers who had gathered around Tashi’s home
had suddenly turned hostile .
14
‘How do we do it?’ asked Tashi.

9 12
crouching: bending close to the ground distraught: deeply agitated
10 13
endangered: at the risk of extinction resounded: echoed throughout the place
11 14
camoufl aged: (here) matched its surroundings in such hostile: unfriendly; aggressive
a way that it could not be spotted easily due to its
colour or shape
7