HUNTING IN THE ANDES. 33 



where I was unable to follow the trail, and so did not 

 see how the unequal contest ended. 



Next morning we pushed on up the valley. From 

 the top of the cliffs a tableland stretched westwards to 

 the valley of the Jeinemeni, and I fancied this strip of 

 high country should be a likely hunting ground. And 

 in fact, as I was riding the following afternoon along the 

 top of the barranca, a young guemal buck suddenly 

 sprang out from some rocks in front of me. As I was 

 the first human being he had ever seen, he halted in 

 curiosity to have a good look. His pretty attitude, no 

 less than his confidence, made it hard for me to shoot, 

 and had we not been in urgent need of meat I should 

 have let him go, as his horns were but four or five inches 

 long. However, Nemesis followed at once, for, though 

 I hid the meat while I went to fetch my man and the 

 other horses, the condors took such full toll of the deer 

 that we had a very scanty meal after all. Before leaving 

 this tableland I shot another young buck in the failing 

 light of a cold evening. 



My next chance and my first at a warrantable buck 

 came at a most inopportune moment. The river had 

 risen during our stay on the tableland, its shallow 

 current had changed to a yellow, tumbling torrent, which 

 carried down with it from the heights trunks of trees 

 and other debris. 



After a good deal of manoeuvring and a closer 

 acquaintance than I desired with the snow-fed water, 

 we had crossed over and were not more than fifty yards 

 from the river bank, when two guemal does, led by a 

 beautiful buck with horns far larger than any I had seen 

 in the museums, broke out of a thicket of wild currant 

 bushes and stood for a moment at gaze. Having 



H.C. D 



