262 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



" Yet that's a pretty fair weight to carry a long time." 



" Yes, but I am not what I once was : formerly I 

 cared for nothing; — heat, or cold, or hunger, it made 

 little difference to me. I used to be out day after day, 

 and night after night, and did not return home from one 

 week's end to the other. But once I went out, and in 

 the evening, on reaching the hut where I intended to 

 sleep, found it full of snow; so I could make no fire. 

 I was in a profuse sweat, and of course had nothing to 

 put over me; I got some brushwood and made a bed 

 on the snow, and lay down. The next morning I felt 

 ill, and went home ; but I was so cold and stiff that it 

 took me a whole day to get there. I have never been 

 quite well since." 



There were no signs of stiffness in his limbs now, for 

 on he went at a smart pace, despite the rough path and 

 the chamois at his back. 



In coming down a mountain, there is every now and 

 then some appearance which gives indication of your 

 approach to the valley ; and each one, as it shows you 

 are nearing your home, is welcome and makes you glad. 

 We cftme to a meadow affording capital pasturage, and 

 strewn over it were the rude log-huts for storing the 

 hay.* 



"Often enough at evening," observed Neuner, as we 

 stopped a moment or two for him to rest his load, " often 

 enough were stags to be seen here formerly. The mea- 

 dow, you see, is quite surrounded by the woods, and as 

 the sun was going down they liked to come forth and 

 graze. 



"Once, near Ettal, my brother saw twenty stags all 



* After the haymaking the whole crop is put up in such log-huts, 

 and when winter comes and the snow is hard enough to bear, the hay is 

 piled on sledges and carried down to the village. 



