IX THE LAND OF THE BORA. 270 



crossing the mass of wildly split and broken rocks 

 which I called the Bad Lands. I threw myself 

 down for the shot, but where he stood the back- 

 ground was so bad that I could not draw a bead. 

 Just then he was obliging enough to move on a 

 dozen yards, which brought him into sharp relief 

 against a dark fir tree. Although the distance 

 was really too great for my weapon, being well 

 over two hundred yards, I was tempted to take 

 the shot as my last chance for the day. I was 

 very steady, and thought I heard the bullet tell. 

 A crash followed, and when the smoke cleared 

 he was gone. 



After carrying out my original plan of taking 

 a look into the snow-clad valley, which was blank, 

 I went to the place, but found it such a mass of 

 boulders, clefts, and crevices, that I could not 

 hope to do anything that evening. 



Next morning I made my way to the spot 

 with the dachshund, who, however, as I shall 

 presently relate, proved useless in the search, 

 and the upshot was that I could find nothing, 

 and probably must own to a miss. With a rifle 

 it would have been a certainty. 



Now followed a ludicrous bit of bad luck. Just 

 before I reached the spot I heard a stone roll on 

 the Velikigradac behind me, and, looking round, 

 I saw a single chamois moving up it. In order 

 to watch him more easily with the glass, I sat 



