306 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



" I thought you would soon come," he said ; " so I 

 sat down here to wait for you, and was looking across to 

 my sister's cottage at Ettal. It is just visible through 

 that dip in the hill yonder. She was in the garden a 

 moment ago, and then somebody came in from the road. 

 1 could see all capitally from here." 



We went on, and were soon at our old quarters. I 

 fetched a pan of milk from the cupboard, and slicing 

 into it the bread which I had brought with me, had my 

 supper, and then went to bed. 



The next morning we were out betimes, and, as we 

 mounted higher, saw, soon after dawn_, a couple of stags 



the evening, after his day's round in the mountains, that he learned they 

 were gone. He would not lose the opportunity, so without resting and 

 late as it was, off he set from the village of Farchant, to overtake them 

 at the hut on the mountain-side, where he knew they would pass the 

 night. With his rifle at his back and his dog for companion he walked on, 

 and reached the spot at dawn an hour before the party started for the sum- 

 mit. They soon reached it : the cross was erected, and firmly soldered 

 in a socket of rock, and then all turned to descend the way they had 

 come. But Bauer resolved to try if it were not possible to get down on 

 the north side. All wished to dissuade him ; and indeed, when you 

 look down that almost perpendicular slope, covered as it then was, and 

 is at all times indeed except in the height of summer, with snow and 

 ice, it is hardly conceivable that any one could ever dream of such an un- 

 dertaking. As none would accompany him, he went alone ; and the 

 others turned homewards. After scrambling and sliding down the 

 frightful slope for some time, Bauer at last came to a place where he 

 could get no further. To climb up again was impossible. There he 

 stood in that dreary desert of snow, high up in middle air, where as- 

 suredly till then no human being had ever passed or even thought of 

 passing. He had come to the ridge of a perpendicular waU, down which 

 there was no getting save by leaping below. But something must be 

 done, for he cannot stay there to freeze among the ice. So in order to 

 see if the snow was hard enough to bear him were he to spring down, 

 he took off his rucksack, in which he carried his dog, whose feet had got 

 sore, and flung both below upon the snow-field. The snow bore the weight. 

 He then tried his rifle, for he knew that if this did not sink deep, he 



