22.2 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



alone, I should have crept into the latschen and staid 

 there, and I know they would not have ventured after 

 me ; and if they had, I should have quietly brought down 

 the nearest fellow, and that would have stopped them. 

 They would have hardly liked to risk having the con- 

 tents of my second barrel sent into one of them ; and 

 even if I had fired that, I could easily have crept away 

 without their finding me." 



I am quite sure that all this was true. Once in the 

 latschen, he would have felt perfectly safe ; being able 

 through the boughs to watch his enemy's advance, with- 

 out being seen himself, and thus might bring him down 

 with a bullet, or remain quiet, as he found advisable. 



As he knew the ground better than myself, I followed 

 his directions, exactly, without argument ; indeed for this 

 there was no time. He, on his part, never having been 

 with me under like circumstances, could not tell how I 

 should get on, and was naturally unwilling to stay on 

 ,the mountain, since any awkwardness on my side might 

 have proved fatal to me, if not to both of us. Berger's 

 sole anxiety was for my safety, and it was this alone 

 which caused his precipitate retreat. 



When we reached home, having taken the most by- 

 ways, in order to meet no one who might tell the men 

 of Hundsham they had seen us returning so unusually 

 early on that day, the forester said it would be useless 

 to go out again at present, for the game having been dis- 

 turbed would not return to its usual haunts so quickly. 

 I therefore bade my kind host and hostess farewell, and 

 leaving behind a friendly greeting for the Solachers, set 

 off the same afternoon across the Kiihzagel Alp for 

 Tegernsee, intending to go on from thence to Munich. 

 Berger, who had a brother at a village on the lake, ac- 

 companied me. Night overtook us on the road, and we 



