UP THE MOUNTAIN. 239 



gled together so finely that your eyes turn thitherward 

 almost unconsciously ; it juts out too, and rises at once 

 from the plain, and the bold upward line, especially when 

 seen in profile, gives it a commanding aspect. 



" What a thorough chamois mountain that seems to 

 be," I observed : " what capital places everywhere for 

 them to maintain themselves in, — just such places as the 

 chamois love. Are many there now ?" 



" Formerly it was one of the very best places : now I 

 doubt if there are any, — two or three perhaps. You 

 might go out day after day and not see the trace of a 

 living creature. And how the poachers used to be about ! 

 You might have heard rifle-shot after rifle-shot on the 

 mountain continually. Garmisch, you see, lies close at 

 the foot of it, and the Garmisch people were always 

 out." 



" As it is so conveniently at hand, most of them, I 

 suppose, were poachers ?" 



" Nearly all. They are a bad set there : work they 

 will not, and so they take their rifles and amuse them- 

 selves. I know most of them ; but if I met one on the 

 mountain, and went afterwards to the authorities to in- 

 form against him, the fellow would have a dozen witnesses 

 ready to swear that at that very hour he was elsewhere, 

 and I should get no redress. Formerly the Kramer was 

 in the Ettal district, and then I wished that it had been 

 in mine. Well, now it is so ; but as things are, I would 

 rather not have it. Ay, formerly ! that was a place in- 

 deed — the best of any here." 



"On this side there are some wild-looking spots, 

 Neuner; yonder, for example, where the rock shows 

 through the latschen, — a difficult place that, I should 

 think, eh?" 



" Yes," he said, " ugly places are there. The gullies 



