Hunting at High Altitudes 



saw the ibex, fully forty in number, lying about the 

 rocks. 



For half an hour we in turn used the glasses 

 to pick out the best heads, far from an easy 

 job when an inch or two makes such a differ- 

 ence, and decided on a little bunch of six that 

 were directly below us. Of these I chose the two 

 which to my mind had the longest horns, and then 

 asked Khudai's advice in a whisper. He took six 

 little stones, arranging them in the same positions 

 as the ibex were lying, and chose the two which I 

 had picked. Taking a fine sight, as they were 

 almost directly under us, I got the first one with the 

 right barrel and wounded the second as he was 

 dropping out of sight over the cliff. It took us 

 some time to get down to the first ibex, which had 

 never moved a lucky thing, as if he had moved 

 at all, he would have rolled some thousand feet 

 further down. As it was, we had a hard time 

 getting off his head and skin on the narrow ledge. 



By this time it was well on in the day, and the 

 other ibex could be seen very sick, lying under a 

 rock some distance away at the foot of a high wall 

 of rock. He heard us coming over the sliding 

 shale, but was too weak and stiff to climb the face 

 of the cliff, although he made a gallant attempt. 

 .Our lunch tasted very good about 4 o'clock, after 



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