ioo HUNTING TRIPS 



while the sides rose up from it at an acute 

 angle. -After following this for a few hun- 

 dred yards, we turned a sharp corner, and 

 shortly afterward our eyes were caught by 

 some grains of fresh earth lying on the snow 

 in front of our feet. On the sides, some 

 feet above our heads, were marks in the 

 snow which a moment's glance showed us 

 had been made by a couple of mountain 

 sheep that had come down one side of the 

 gorge and had leaped across to the other, 

 their sharp toes going through the thin 

 snow and displacing the earth that had fallen 

 to the bottom. The tracks had evidently 

 been made just before we rounded the corner, 

 and as we had been advancing noiselessly 

 on the snow with the wind in our favor, we 

 knew that the animals could have no sus- 

 picion of our presence. They had gone up 

 the cliff on our right, but as that on our left 

 was much lower, and running for some dis- 

 tance parallel to the other, we concluded that 

 by running along its top we would be most 

 certain to get a good shot. Clambering in- 



