UP THE MOUNTAIN. 279 



creature was gone. He did not disappear with a 

 bound, but vanished like a falling star. We looked 

 at each other astonished, for neither very well knew 

 how he had got on that point of rock, nor how he 

 had quitted it; but gone he was. It was doubly 

 vexatious, for not once in fifty times might I get a 

 shot under such circumstances. To bring down the 

 animal you are after is of course always pleasant, but 

 the satisfaction is at times greatly increased by the 

 accompanying incidents. The chamois I shot on the 

 Roth Wand, for example, gave me a hundred times 

 more pleasure than I should have felt in getting one 

 of those first seen on the Miesing. The spot where 

 the creature stands, the scene around it and you, it 

 is this enhances the charm, and makes the heart leap 

 with delight. Now here was all I could wish for: 

 from that pinnacle, on which he was poised, how he 

 would have come toppling down through the air into 

 the latschen below ! And as I rehearsed the whole 

 scene in my fancy, and grew more and more vexed 

 that it had not been realized, an angry "Donner 

 Wetter!" came rumbling through my teeth; and 

 flinging my rifle over my shoulder I strode away. 



"Do you see yonder green knoll?" said Neuner, 

 pointing to a rock rising out of the valley, and 

 behind which a path seemed to lead from the lower 

 pasturages. " Well, just on that spot a poacher was 

 shot." 



"Who shot him?" I asked. 



" One of the under-foresters. The fellow was a 



