THE ADVENTURES OF A CHAMOIS HUNTER. 289 



told him a most wonderful and interesting story, which shows 

 not only the cunning of that animal, but the wonderful and 

 great love of its young ones which God has implanted in its 

 breast. 



The previous year he had found a geis or female chamois 

 ready to bring forth. He had followed her for eight days, 

 to see where she would deposit her young. Sometimes he 

 took off his shoes, and climbed on his bare feet, like a cat ; 

 and once, when he had to clamber up the steep face of a rock, 

 he cut off all the buttons from his clothes, that they might 

 not make a jingle. At last he discovered the two young 

 ones in a niche at the top of a high rock, in a hath, as the 

 hunters call it. The little ones were sporting round the mo- 

 ther, who glanced, from time to time, down into the valley, 

 to watch for any hostile approach. To avoid being seen, our 

 hunter made a great circuit, and so reached a path that led 

 to the kath. Exactly in front of the niche the rocks de- 

 scended perpendicularly to an immense depth. At the back 

 was another steep descent. Some fragments of rock formed 

 a kind of bridge between the large masses ; but these were 

 placed too high to be accessible to the little ones, and could 

 only be available for their mother. The hunter rejoiced as 

 he contemplated this position, and pressed upon the animals 

 whose escape seemed impossible. When the old one caught 

 sight of him, she measured with a glance the unfavorable dis- 

 position of the rock, she sprang upon the hunter with a fury 

 that maternal love will breathe into the most timid creatures. 

 The danger of such attacks is less from the thrust, which is 

 not very violent, than from the endeavor of the animal to 

 fix the point of its horns, which are bent like fish-hooks, in 

 the legs of the hunter, and then press him back down the 

 precipices. 



It happens sometimes that the chamois and the hunter thus 

 entangled, rail into the abyss together. Our hunter was in 

 no condition to fire at the advancing chamois, as he found 



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