Narasimha, Bhavani and Dilipa reached a creaky, old suspension bridge made up of wooden rafts and ropes. The condition of the bridge was very bad. It didn't look as though it could withstand the weight of all of them if they crossed at the same time. It seemed as though it would collapse any instant.

"Is there no other way except this?" Bhavani inquired turning towards Narasimha and Dilipa.

Narasimha shook his head, "This is the only route connecting these two mountains. And the Buddhist Monastery straddles on the plateau of the second mountain to the other side. We are in the last leg of our journey. We have to cross this bridge one by one. You go first. Then Dilipa and I will cross after you."

Bhavani slowly crossed the rickety old bridge on her horse. She safely reached the other end and signaled to Dilipa and Narasimha to start crossing. Dilipa went next. The bridge held on for the second trip too. Now it was Narasimha's turn to cross. The ropes of the bridge were badly straining due to the traction. Midway through, strands of the ropes started splitting and the bridge became highly unstable. Narasimha's horse started galloping as an instinctive stress reaction increasing the burden and strain on the already weak and fragile bridge. Narasimha was unable to bring the scared beast under control.

The bridge capsized into the steep valley leaving Narasimha and his horse precariously dangling with barely a foothold on a steep ledge fifteen feet below the place where Bhavani and Narasimha were standing. The legs of the horse were broken because of this fall. Fortunately, Narasimha escaped with a few scratches here and there on his body.

"Are you alright, Narasimha?" His terrified friends shouted as they threw a few tree vines down to help Narasimha climb up.

"I am fine. Only my horse is severely injured. Both of his back legs are broken. He will never be able to recover completely", he replied.

Narasimha clobbered up using the vines. Once he was up, his friends asked, "Shall we go?"

Narasimha turned backwards to look at the poor wounded animal still stranded on that ledge, "But the horse? He brought me till here. I can't leave him like that. He will surely die."

Bhavani turned to Narasimha and said, "I know you are very compassionate and soft-hearted. But it would be impossible for the three of us to pull a lame and wounded horse so high up. We might have to abandon him wherever he is."

Dilipa patted Narsimha's shoulder and said, "Yes, she's right. Even I hate what I am telling you to do. But it is literally impossible. Come let's go."

Narasimha went in slow steps behind his friends. His mind knew his friends were right. But his heart refused to accept it. The horse started frantically neighing and making vain attempts to stand up. The horse realized that they were leaving him there. Narasimha beheld the wordless reproach in the eyes of the lame horse, 'I brought you here but the minute I needed your help you are abandoning me.'

Narasimha wrenched his hand from his friends' grasp and said, "No, I am not coming. Would you two have abandoned me if I was in the place of that horse? No, you would have saved me at any cost. Then why such different standards for a horse that helped us throughout our journey? Shame on us if we can't stand beside a mute animal who can't speak for himself."

"But, friend. What you speak of is impossible. Three of us just cannot pull up the horse. To make matters worse, he is lame", Dilipa said.

Narasimha said, "Who said we are three? Look we are five."

"What?" Both Dilipa and Bhavani exclaimed in astonishment.

"We human beings are so preoccupied with ourselves that we often forget the animals and their presence. Resources are resources! Human, animal or both. We can easily pull him up." Narasimha beckoned towards the other two horses standing beside them and looking at their lame companion with forlorn eyes.

Realization dawned upon Bhavani and Dilipa that Narasimha was planning to use the power of the horses along with their own power and strength. Narasimha tied up all of them in a tight knot to a nearby tree trunk and then around all five of them before throwing the lasso around the back of the lame horse, "Now, everyone pull!"

All five of them struggled for nearly half an hour. Occasionally they made progress in lifting a couple of feet, occasionally nothing budged for minutes together. They despaired if the vines would actually hold up till they pulled the horse. Finally, they succeeded in pulling the lame horse up from the steep ledge to safety. Narsimha said, "With time, he will heal. We will leave his other two friends here as well. They will look after him. We will make the rest of our way on foot."

Bhavani and Dilipa nodded in acquiescence.
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Well into the afternoon, all the three youngsters safely reached the Buddhist Monastery. They explained the purpose of their visit to one of the senior Lamas. He gave them a beatific smile but did not speak anything in reply. He was observing a week-long solemn vow of silence. He beckoned his student and gestured him to take the three of them to the library where many ancient books were preserved.

"Here you are.....All these are ancient handwritten manuscripts, several hundreds of years old......Handle these with care. You may search and read manuscripts within this chamber for as much time as you want. But you may not take them outside along with you. Once you're done, call me. I have to lock up this chamber", the student said in an extremely cordial and polite manner.

Narasimha, Bhavani and Dilipa perceived the tall and stately chamber housing thousands of manuscripts with awestruck eyes. Narasimha said, " We will never be able to check all the manuscripts if we do it together. We have to equally divide the work among ourselves. Bhavani, you check the manuscripts in the right wing. Dilipa, you check the left wing. I will proceed to the center wing. If any of us find anything important, we will snap our fingers three times like this. This means that the person who is snapping the fingers has discovered what we came looking for. The others will then rejoin them and read that particular manuscript together again. If we find the manuscript we came looking for, all of us will commit every small detail and description to our memory. This snapping of fingers will be our secret common code. Now, disperse!"
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Three hours of unfruitful labor passed. Though all the books were very interesting and informative, they hadn't come across any manuscript about the Yeti. When they began despairing about finding anything at all, Dilipa snapped his fingers three times. Both Narasimha and Bhavani ran up to him with great excitement, "Did you find anything?"

He showed them a manuscript with a picture corresponding to the legendary Yeti. They carefully opened the book and started reading the account:

"The Yeti, despite all the stories and rumors shrouding it, is no real mystery. It is a species of creatures that used to exist in large numbers on the upper reaches of these mountain ranges. They have physical resemblances to both white hairy apes and fuzzy bears. An average Yeti reaches to a height of around seven and half feet.  As humans started encroaching into the snowy wilderness, the Yetis started moving upward and upward on these mountains. Men, who established their settlements on the foothills, started hunting and persecuting these creatures out of their morbid fear for these huge, hairy and mammoth creatures. Several generations ago, a group of villagers killed the last of the Yetis whom they discovered sleeping in a cave. The Yeti they trapped and killed was a female Yeti. The male Yeti did eventually escape. But he must have also died in due course of time. The entire race became extinct after that. To this day, people in villages keep talking about how the  male Yeti would come to avenge the female Yeti. Little do they know that a Yeti can never come because the entire race is extinct. We, humans must take the ignominious credit for wiping another of God's beautiful creations off the face of the earth. Yetis survived cold and harsh conditions, wilderness and snow. But what they couldn't survive was humans!"

They closed the manuscript after reading this sordid tale of human avarice and self-entitlement, "So this only means somebody is taking advantage of the ancient tales and rumors surrounding the Yeti to kidnap and kill people for some hidden agenda of their own. But why?"

A few questions were answered while a few questions remained questions. Narasimha said, "Tomorrow morning, at the first break of dawn we will set out from the Monastery back to our Ashram. I inquired a short while ago. There is a longer route that doesn't go across the route with the broken bridge."
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