We continued our precarious jour- 

 ney for another quarter of a mile, when 

 I motioned that I was going to try to 

 get a sight of the antelope, which, ac- 

 cording to my notion, were under the 

 rock some hundred feet below, and 

 signed to Nimrod to stay behind. 



Surely my guardian angel attended 

 that descent. I slid down a crack in 

 the rock three feet wide, which gave 

 me a purchase on the sides with my 

 elbows and left hand. The right hand 

 grasped the rifle, to my notion an 

 abominably heavy awkward thing. 

 One of these drops was eight feet, 

 another twelve. A slip would probably 

 have cost me my life. Then I crawled 

 along a narrow ledge for about the 

 width of a town-house front, and, mak- 

 ing another perilous slide, landed on 

 a ledge so close to the creatures I was 



