vin A GRAND IBEX 213 



back the way he had come. I whistled to the others 

 and showed them where I had seen him, and they were 

 delighted of course. Now came the agony ; naturally I 

 knew I had the best chance I should ever have in my 

 life of a real good beden. I was almost sure to get him 

 before night if I went up at once and found him, which 

 I could not fail to do, the wind being grand, and then 

 watch him till he was in a place that I could make certain 

 of stalking him. I knew all this ; it did not admit of 

 question. ' In twenty minutes I could have been on 

 the spot I had seen the ibex standing on, but with a 

 party, one of four, it was not to be thought of. Plans 

 that are not to be written in any civilised journal were 

 proposed during lunch, and I found it very hard to keep 

 quiet. We had just lit up a weed preparatory to 

 starting for a beat for the ibex when one of the 

 Bedouins ran to us to say the old ibex had come back 

 to take another survey. We all got glasses and rushed 

 off. There he was, the same hardy old veteran ; not 

 one rap did he care about us, scratching his ear with 

 his hind foot and picking the dry lichen as he sauntered 

 quietly out of sight again. We all fancied he had gone 

 down into a gorge on the north versant of the hills. 

 It looked just like it from where we were. Had this 

 been so our plans were good, if any plans for beating 

 in such a case can be called good. We told the 

 Bedouins to remain in camp till they saw us on the sky- 

 line where the ibex had been, and then beat the gorge 

 up, i.e. the gorge into which we imagined he had gone, 

 we taking posts around its head. As I got up near 

 the place I soon saw all was different to what we had 

 fancied. A very deep longitudinal valley intersected 

 the main chain of El Webed into two parallel running 

 minor chains, the northerly of which, namely that on 

 which the ibex and we were, being merely a narrow ridge ; 



