A DIFFICULT STALK 249 



me several chances before they were out of reach. 

 Such was my desperate plan, and my companion's 

 numerous objections to it were useless to make me 

 abandon it. I must do the General justice to say that 

 whenever I formed a resolution not in accordance 

 with his ideas, he always did his very best to carry it 

 out successfully, where others would have proceeded 

 reluctantly, and would have hoped for a failure. 



The heat by this time had become intense, and mos- 

 quitoes were highly troublesome. In order to accom- 

 plish my plan it was necessary to creep down the slope 

 in full view of the animals, a detour being of no avail 

 on account of the snow which lay around and made us 

 all the more conspicuous. Here, at least, we could 

 descend cautiously against the rocks, and my previous 

 experience of their comparatively poor sight con- 

 tributed to facilitate the task. The descent seemed 

 interminable, as we crawled down on all fours, occasion- 

 ally putting up the glass to watch the sheep, and 

 crouching" motionless whenever one of them turned 

 his head in our direction. It took us certainly an hour 

 and a half to negotiate this dangerous approach before 

 we found ourselves out of view, and breathed a sigh 

 of relief when a last look through the Zeiss showed 

 us the animals as calm and unsuspicious as ever. We 

 now dashed across the hollow, and a few minutes later 



