5 30 Notes on Sport and Travel x 



side on the snow. We had killed the third, and 

 there he lay stiffening between us ! 



But hillo, Joseph, we are nearly getting senti- 

 mental, after all, over this brute (that I should say 

 so ! ) who has all but broken our necks already, and 

 who in all human probability will do so entirely 

 before we have done with him. Fish up the 

 decanter, and let us have a schnapps over our quarry ; 

 my throat and lips are burning, as if I had lunched 

 off quicklime. Well, what are you fumbling at ? 

 Oh, horror ! Joseph's hand returns empty from the 

 bag, with a large cut on one of the fingers, weeping 

 tears of blood ! The bottle is smashed, smashed to 

 atoms ! and the unconscious Joseph has had the 

 celestial liquor trickling down his back, how long we 

 know not, and care not ; it is gone, and for ever ! — 



' Like the summer-dried fountain, 

 When our need is the sorest ! ' 



But it is of no use blaspheming in that manner, 



Joseph ; not one of those ten hundred and fifty 



millions of bad spirits you are invoking so freely 



will bring us back one drop of our good ones ; so 



we must e'en 'girn and bide.' But still it is as bad 



as bad can be, — not a drop of water for hours to 



come, perhaps. 



' Water, water everyw here. 

 Nor any drop to drink.' 



Munching snow only chars one's lips like hot cinders, 

 and the cool plash of the waterfall there below us 



