Professor McFaggin, an American mountaineer, in his late-sixties, was taking comfort inside the sanctuary of a cave, located amidst the isolated large stretches, rough valleys and Himalayan peaks, all of which were seemingly uninhabited. He took comfort in the fact that he was not alone, being accompanied by members of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, or NMA.  It was a small friendly group of seven, including himself.  Everyone was heavily dressed in their trekking, rock climbing gear to survive the hostile altitudes and sat around a crackling log fire.  As the flames of the fire rose higher, they illumined the cave walls.  It was snowing very heavily outside and the speeding winds howled uncannily, producing whistling sounds.  One of the group, an attractive young Sherpa girl handed him a clay bowl of warm broth.  He reached out his arms, as he was seated cross legged on the ground like the others, took it from her and smiled, nodding his head.   It was very dark outside and the group began to hum and sing in a low pitched voice reaching their hands closer to the flames. 

     While the MNA group were here, exclusively for training purposes on rock climbing, the professor was just posing as student.  In fact he was here solely for one personal purpose which was to make contact with a yeti, face to face.  Just a week back, before the climb, he had visited a Tibetan fortress just below the mountains where the yeti, meaning “magical creature”, was supposed to roam.  He was convinced about one thing, that the yeti were basically shy and peace loving, like gorillas, preferring to avoid human contact and that if they really did exist up here in the upper reaches of the barren Himalayas, where few men dared to tread, then this really was the ideal place for them to take refuge as they would be a lot safer for a long time to come.  He respected this.

     For most of the time, the group didn’t take their eyes off him because he was the only foreigner among them which made him feel awkward and out of place.  But then he thought to himself that if he was to come face to face with a nine foot yeti then it would be a similar situation, namely,  the communication barrier.  He smiled and said to himself,

     “They’re staring at me as if I were a yeti myself!”  As the professor leaned across to reach for a log to toss in the fire,  his right elbow accidentally knocked over a book from out of his backpack containing a cover sketch of ferocious looking yeti.  It fell on the ground and was noticed by everybody. 

     “Oh no; that’s it.”

End of Chapter 1.