UP THE MOUNTAIN. 271 



We did not speak in a whisper, for the waters were 

 filling the solitude with a voice louder than ours. 



" There is nothing here," I said, after looking for a 

 minute up and down the ravine ; when, just as I had 

 spoken, from beneath a projecting part of the bank 

 forth bounded a chamois, scared at hearing a sound 

 suddenly jarring and breaking in upon the monotonous 

 din that surrounded his loneliness. He leaped upon 

 a high stone, quite unable to make out what sound it 

 was that had intruded on the solitude. His fine ear 

 had caught an unfamiliar tone; the loud equal hum 

 that was in the air, and in the ground, and rolling on 

 with the water, was suddenly interrupted ; but what 

 it was the creature did not know. He stared and 

 listened again, terrified as men are when the cause 

 of alarm is unseen. He presently observed us, and, 

 springing down from his eminence, turned toward the 

 steep on the opposite side. There he stood and gazed 

 again, not more than fifty yards from me ; but as it 

 was only a yearling I let him pass. On he bounded, 

 then looked back, and leisurely passed up among the 

 trees to other haunts on the mountain-top, where his 

 own footsteps pattering on the rock would be the only 

 sound rising through the heavy silence. 



On our way upwards we had already passed such 

 a lick, almost hidden among the trees, a dark and 

 shady spot, but nothing was there. Further on was 

 another. It was in the same gully we had seen before, 

 and close to a waterfall, caused by the accumulated 

 trunks and branches of trees, stones, and fragments 



