I30 THE OLD BUCK OF KODAKARNAL. 



make signs to me to come quick. Come quick, indeed, over 

 such ground ! Picking my way carefully I got up to him at 

 last, he pointed, and there was the ibex lying on a rock 

 below me. I planted a ball just behind the shoulder and 

 he fell over on his side, but in the death struggles he rolled 

 off the rock, and in another minute would have tumbled 

 over the precipice into the jungles far below, had not the 

 horns caught fast in the bough of a rhododendron bush. 

 The hind legs were within a yard of the precipice, and a 

 tremendous one it was, if I may judge from the sound of the 

 fall when we tumbled the body over after securing the head. 

 It was indeed a close shave of losing him. We had a rouo-h 

 scramble to get down to him, but a worse one to get back. 

 I was quite in a tremble for fear that Francis would be pulled 

 over by the weight of the ibex when he unhooked him 

 from the bush. He was a fine old saddle back with good 

 horns. 



There was a well-known old saddle back which fre- 

 quented the rocks about Kodakarnal, whose head and horns 

 it was my ambition to add to my trophies. I had many a 

 stalk after him, but he always managed to give me the slip. 

 One evening when busy drawing, the boy who I had 

 stationed at the look-out, came running in to say that the 

 saddle back was in sight. I started off at once, and when I 

 got to the station, on putting up the glasses, there, sure 

 enough, was my old friend. He was busy at his evening 

 meal, keeping a sharp look-out, and close to the edge of a 

 precipice, which, with an occasional break of slope and rock, 

 went clean down to the low country. 



The difficulty was to get down to him without being 

 seen ; fortunately the wind was all right, and the mist, which 



