372 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



fired. At the same moment I felt that I had missed him : 

 and it was so ; — he gave a hound and disappeared. 



Hans soon came, his honest face looking pleased and 

 inquiring. " He's not hit ; I know Fve not hit him." 



" Where did he come ?" asked Hans, and we went to 

 the spot where he was standing at the moment I fired. 

 « H — m ! there's the mark of your bullet in the snow : 

 and here he stood. The ball must barely have passed 

 under his shoulder. A little higher only, and you'd 

 have had him. You ought to have hit him too at that 

 distance," he added, looking back to the knoll where I 

 had been lying, " for it's not so very far after all." 

 "I aimed just at the middle of his shoulder." 

 " Aye, but you did not make allowance for the wind 

 that bears right down from above here. Such a gust as 

 that presses down a bullet several inches ; and if you did 

 not allow for it, no wonder you missed." 



He now told me why he had been so long absent. 

 After going round and descending into the hollow, he 

 looked for the chamois at the place where he had first 

 seen him, but he was gone. He examined attentively 

 every spot, and at last saw far away behind him, at 

 the very further end of the hollow, a chamois at rest 

 on a ridge of rock. It was probably not the one we 

 had first seen. He had therefore to retrace his steps, 

 mount the opposite hill, and thus come down upon the 

 buck so as to ensure his moving off in my direction. 

 After hearing how much trouble he had taken, I was 

 doubly sorry it should have been to no purpose. 



We now went higher up towards a point whence a look 

 might be obtained over another wide expanse. In going 

 along we saw a bridge of solid ice thrown across a wide 

 cleft. The arch was of considerable span and height, and 

 had a curious as well as bold appearance. 



