82 NARROW ESCAPE. 



Looking upwards, to my horror I saw that the lad had lost 

 his footing on the slippery wet earth, and was rolling and 

 sliding down the slope, clutching frantically at the short 

 grass with his free hand, for, notwithstanding his danger, 

 he still kept hold of my rifle he was carrying with the other. 

 At once I saw that his only chance lay in my being able to 

 arrest his progress before he reached the brink of the preci- 

 pice. I had scarce time to deposit the gun safely on the 

 steep ground, in order to have both hands free, ere he was 

 down within a few yards of me. Fortunately I happened 

 to be almost directly below him, so I set my teeth, dug my 

 feet as firmly as possible into the wet earth, and, holding 

 my breath, stood ready to try and stop him, for I knew his 

 life depended on my being able to do so. Another roll and 

 he would have been over. Making a desperate clutch at 

 him, I luckily got firm hold of his loose clothes, thereby i 

 checking his descent sufficiently to enable him to recover 

 his footing, otherwise his weight and impetus must have 

 taken us down together. All this, of course, happened in 

 very much less time than I have taken to tell it ; and my 

 mingled feelings of horror and thankfulness at this narrow 

 escape were such as to be not easily forgotten. 



We now called a short halt to recover the tone of ouF 

 nerves, which had naturally been rather shaken by what 

 had occurred. But as any one who hunts properly over 

 such mountains as these is often more or less exposed to 

 dangers of this kind, it is best to keep the mind as much 

 as possible from dwelling on them. We therefore were not 

 long in resuming our search for the wounded gooral, and 

 we shortly after came up with him where he had lain down, 

 when I secured him with a shot-cartridge. 



The shikaree soon rejoined us after having tracked the 

 tahr into ground where it was impossible for him to follow 

 farther. It was now getting late in the day, and we had 

 still some very difficult ground to get over, so, the gooral 

 being shouldered by the shikaree, we made the best of our 



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