54 SHORT STALKS 



chamois which you have found. The proper way is to 

 take some conspicuous object which any one can identify 

 in a moment, and lead up from it by a chain of minor 

 ol)jects to the precise spot you wish to indicate ; something 

 like the following : — " You see the green alp at the top of 

 the wood. Follow up the couloir to the left of it till you 

 come to a dead tree. To the left of that is a cliff with a 

 black shadow shaped like a camel, and just below the camel 

 is a rock with a narrow gray streak. They lie ten yards 

 to the left of that." In this way one is led Ijy the hand 

 as it were, step by step, to the presence of the chamois. 

 " See," says Joliann, " I will show you with my stick." 

 But the stick is useless as a pointer, for it is bent by 

 Johann's fifteen stone of weight. " Stay, I will point the 

 rifle," and he draws a bead on them, and puts his head 

 on one side so that 1 can look alon^ the sights. Now I 

 see where he means, and pick them up with the glass — a 

 doe, a kid, and a two-year-old. Presently we find six more ; 

 then another lot of three. The last were low down, and as 

 it was getting late we chose them for attack. 



It was a long and rough descent into the ravine, and 

 we had to o'o down stream to a Ijrid^e. After half-an-hour 

 of ascent at Johann's pace I began to be sorry I had come, 

 but I was not really pumped till the leg-fohi-ea was 

 reached. The flexible stems of this curious dwarf fir (the 

 Plnvs miKjlins is, I think, its correct name) are every winter 

 bent flat under the weight of snow, and never Cjuite recover 

 their erect })Osition, ])ut remain partly recumbent and inter- 

 laced, each stem growing down the slope. It is easy enough 

 to o'o straioht down throuoh it, and not verv difticult to 

 clim1) straight u]», l)ut to cross it diagonally is a trial to 



