270 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



was soon unable to speak, and could only hold up his 

 hand imploring mercy." 



" And what became of the poor fellow?" I asked. 



" He was ill for a long time, and will never quite 

 recover; he must have received some very severe in- 

 ternal injury, for though he still goes about, he is 

 quite a different person to what he was before." 



"And were any of the men punished?" 



" The doctor, who was a thorough radical, said the 

 injuries the young forester had received were slight, 

 and the punishment therefore was also a slight one, 

 as for a misdemeanour only. Among the mob were 

 two or three common- councilmen (Gemeinde Rathe) 

 of Partenkirchen, and there they are still." 



We were going onwards up the stony road, when 

 Neuner said, " Yonder to the left is a salt-lick : it is 

 as well to look if anything is there." 



We left the path accordingly, and passed among 

 the firs with which all this part of the mountain was 

 covered. There was little need of choosing our way 

 here, for in front a mountain torrent rushed along 

 so boisterously, as completely to drown the sound of 

 our footsteps over the dry prickly leaves. We came 

 to the edge of the bed of the stream, a deep and broad 

 gully torn and broken up, and desolated by the swollen 

 torrents which come sweeping down from the moun- 

 tain-tops in spring-time. Heaps of rock and large 

 stones were piled in the middle of the broad bed, be- 

 sides whole trees, dried and sapless as the very stones 

 themselves, which had been flung there like wrecks. 



