228 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



for in about this time, it was thought, we might get to 

 the top. We walked fast and did our best. 



As seen from below, a mountain-ridge presents gaps 

 not seemingly of great size; but when you stand 

 close to them they wear a different aspect. Torn, 

 broken, crumbling, the sides overhang a gulf. Up 

 one of these we climbed. The blocks of stone were 

 loose, and as I clung to some of them standing but 

 little out of the perpendicular so steep was the place 

 in parts I could feel that a vigorous pull would bring 

 them down upon me, an unpleasant sensation where 

 there is a fair depth below, into which you would in- 

 evitably roll ! Once, when half way up, a stone on 

 which my hand was laid gave way. I was already 

 falling back, I knew I was lost, and in that second 

 of time thoughts came crowding on my mind as though 

 each would have a hearing in the one moment which 

 was left, and after which it would be too late. I re- 

 member quite well my sensations ; that I clenched my 

 teeth, held my breath, and that one word, the last as 

 I thought, escaped me. It was a moment of horror. 

 I felt that the shadow thrown by the wing of the 

 Angel of Death was over me. My hands were still 

 outstretched before me, involuntarily trying to clutch 

 somewhat, and grasping only the air ; when my striving 

 fingers felt something touch them, and convulsively 

 seizing it, held on with the locked grip of despair. It 

 was the slender stem of a sapling latschen ; it did not 

 snap, nor did its roots give way, and to that young 

 thing I owed my life. 



