MEETING WITH POACHERS. 237 



your rifle ready : look if all is in order, and it will 

 be better to put back the stoplock ; for there 's no 

 knowing what may happen." 



In going up the Heissen Flatten we found the track 

 of a deer in the moss and on the soft ground ; and on 

 nearer examination I saw it was quite fresh, and that 

 the animal must have passed there but a very short 

 time before. We foUowed it for some distance, but 

 the men had no doubt scared it away, and there was 

 not much likelihood of meeting it again. Berger was 

 at some distance, and while waiting for him I leaned 

 on my staff and looked at the ridge of the mountain 

 before me, high up in the sky ; while doing so I 

 thought I saw something move. Although far away, 

 it still was on the sky-line, where every object is more 

 easily discerned. I looked steadily, and now was sure 

 I had not been mistaken. It could not be a chamois, 

 I said to myself, it was too large for that, and a 

 stag? it might be, but I thought not; the move- 

 ments were not like those of a stag. Keeping my 

 eyes steadily fixed on the object, I put my hand into 

 my rucksack behind me and pulled out my glass. The 

 figure was now clear enough ; it was a man who was 

 walking along the ridge, with a rifle at his back. I 

 whistled to Berger : he answered, and a moment or 

 two after joined me. " Look up there/' I said, giving 

 him my glass ; " there goes one of the fellows we 

 tracked just now. Do you see him ? just to the right 

 of that latschen ; now he is hidden there now he 



comes 



again 



