232 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



dropped down on the spot, stone dead. When they 

 heard the shot, they all stopped, and ran back some 

 distance, and grasped their rifles. They were exceed- 

 ingly astonished, for they saw no one, and could not 

 tell where the shot came from. Kothbacher, as he 

 lay among the latschen, could hear them talking to- 

 gether, and deliberating what they should do. Some 

 were for going back, when one of them said, it was 

 a shame to think of going away without knowing more 

 about the matter. If even there were six or seven 

 foresters there, what should they mind; there were 

 twenty-three of them, and it would be a cowardly 

 thing to turn back for a mere handful of men. Come 

 what might, he said, he would go on, and as to the 

 others they might follow if they liked. So with rifle 

 in hand all ready to fire, on he went alone, straight 

 towards the place where Kothbacher was lying con- 

 cealed. He let him come on to about sixty paces, 

 and fired : the shot turned the fellow quite round on 

 one side ; he stopped short and then fell, and when 

 the others saw this they all turned, and were off as 

 fast as they could go. Kothbacher now crept down 

 the mountain among the latschen on the opposite 

 side, keeping in the bushes, and passing through the 

 woods so that nobody might see him. I don't know r 

 how it was, but when he came down by the Gems 

 Wand, instead of going the way he always did, he 

 took the path that led to Baierisch Zell. It leads, 

 you know, over the mountain stream, and there is a 

 very narrow path along it, and across it is a bridge 



