THE LOST JAG EH. 



clouds were lazily creeping. It was a still, sunny day, and he gradually 

 ascended far enough to get a view over the splendid glacier of Rosenlani. 

 Its clear ice, here and there streaked with a line of bright crystal blue, 

 that marked the edge of an ice-reft. Hans was not to be seen. All 

 was still, except now and then the shrill piping of the marmot, or the 

 reverberated roar of the summer lavanges, in the remote and snowy 

 wilds above him. He had just reached the edge of the glacier, and was 

 clambering over the lebris, which a long succession of ages had carried 

 down from the rocky peaks above, when the strange whistling sound 

 emitted by the chamois caught his ear. On they dashed, a herd of nine, 

 right across the glacier bounding like winged things over the fathom- 

 less refts, with a foot as firm and confident as if it trod on the green- 

 sward. Fritz muttered a grim dormerwetter between his teeth, when 

 the unerring measurement of his practised eye, told him they were out of 

 shot ; and dropping down between the huge blocks of stone among 

 which he stood, so as to be out of sight of the game, he watched their 

 course, and calculated his chance of reaching them. They crossed the 

 glacier sprung up the rocky barrier on the opposite side, leaping from 

 crag to crag, and finding footing where an eagle scarce could perch, 

 until they disappeared at the summit. A moment's calculation, with 

 regard to their probable course, and Fritz was in pursuit. He crossed 

 the glacier further down, and chose a route by which he knew, from 

 experience, he would be most likely, without being perceived by the 

 chamois, to reach the spot where he expected to meet with them. At 

 some parts it consisted but of a narrow ledge, slippery with frozen snow, 

 on which even his spiked mountain-shoes could scarcely procure him 

 footing. Sometimes the path was interrupted, and the only means of 

 reaching its continuation, was by trusting himself to the support of some 

 little projection in the smooth rock, where the flakes, which last winter's 

 frost had carried away, broke off abruptly. Sometimes the twisted and 

 gnarled roots of a stunted pine, which had wrought into the clefts, and 

 seemed to draw their nourishment from the rock itself, offered him their 

 support. He did not look back ; he thought not of danger perhaps 

 not even of Netty but merely casting an occasional glance to the sky, 

 to calculate the chances of a clear evening, resumed his perilous journey. 



Many hours had elapsed in the ascent, for he was obliged to make a 

 long circuit, and the sun was getting low in the west when he arrived at 

 the summit. His heart throbbed audibly as he approached the spot 

 where he expected to get a view. All was in his favour. He was to 

 leeward the almost unceasing thunder of the avalanches drowned any 

 slight noise which the chamois might otherwise have heard and a little 

 ridge of drifted snow on the edge of the rock behind which he stood, 

 gave him an opportunity of reconnoitring. Cautiously he made an 

 aperture through the drift there they were, and he could distinguish 

 the bend of their horns - they were within reach of his rifle. They 

 were, however, evidently alarmed, and huddled together on the edge of 

 the opposite precipice, snuffed the air, and gazed about anxiously, to 

 see from what quarter they were menaced. There was no time to lose 

 he fired, and the victim he had selected, giving a convulsive spring, fell 

 over the cliff, while its terrified companions, dashing past, fled to greater 

 heights and retreats still more inaccessible. 



The tnumph of a conqueror for a battle won, cannot be superior to 

 that of an Alpine huntsman for a chamois shot. The perils run, the 



