84 IBEX SHOOTING 



brothers of the plains stagnating in their 

 ease. He is a grand man, is the moun- 

 taineer, and he knows it; his active life 

 and the many risks he braves leave a stamp 

 on his character and his appearance which 

 gives him an enviable nobility from which 

 his poverty, his rough and almost squalid 

 clothes do not detract. 



Up the hill they came, those fine chaps, 

 one behind the other, the first man making 

 a mere scratch for his foothold, the next 

 deepening it with his axe, until by the time 

 the sixth man had made his cut there was 

 a regular step. Now and then the leader 

 (a post each took in turn) would slip, and 

 be stopped with a laugh and a jest by the 

 man next below him. At about five p.m. 

 they were up with us, and much was their 

 joy and ours as we all proceeded down to- 

 gether, reaching the bottom just as it was 

 getting dark. I went to bed, but a sheep 

 was killed for them in honour of Lassoo's 

 escape and of their good day's work. 



Next morning the skin of water which 



