THE "COXY" 



115 



I knew that these little conies here in the slide (if 

 indeed they could be here) were not those of the 

 mountain-peaks of Palestine. What of that ! The 

 very rocks might be different in kind from the rocks 

 of Nebo or Lebanon ; but peaks are peaks, and rocks 

 are rocks, and the strange little "rabbits" that 

 dwell in their broken slides are all conies to me. The 

 cony of the Bible is the little hyrax, a relative of the 

 elephant. 



I sat for a while watching. Was this the place ? 

 I must make sure before I settled down to waiting, 

 for when in all my life again might I have this 

 chance? 



Out in the middle of the slide was a pile of rocks 

 with an uneven look about them, as if they had been 

 heaped up there by other hands than those that 

 hurled them from the peak. Going quietly out, I ex- 

 amined them closely, and found the perfect print of 

 a little bloody paw on one of them. 



This was the right place. Here was where they 

 had shot the specimen brought into camp. I got 

 back to my seat, ready now to wait, even while I 

 knew that I was holding back the camp from its 

 day's march. 



Perhaps I had been watching for half an hour, 

 when from somewhere, in the rock-slide surely, 

 though I could not tell, there sounded a shrill 

 bleating whistle, not unlike the whistles of the 

 ground squirrels and marmots that I had heard all 



