120 , SHORT STALKS 



disappeared. Gloomily we turned downwards and camp- 

 wards. 



However, luck must tin^n, and the usual reward of 

 perseverance was yet to be ours. At the upper edge of a 

 curious castellated cliff", which formed a conspicuous feat- 

 ure from our camp, we came upon the tracks of another 

 band, so burning fresh that it was obvious they must be 

 immediately below us in some broken recesses of the rocks 

 which we coukl not command from above ; and, in fact, 

 while we peered about, a backward curl of the strong- 

 wind which was beatino- agfainst the face of the cliffs must 

 have carried a message to some of them, for one, fortu- 

 nately a ram, marched out into full view on the opposite 

 side of the amphitheatre, with deliberate step, but evident 

 signs of uneasiness. The next minute he was spinning 

 backwards through the air with a bullet through his spine. 

 Then — oh, glorious luck I — out stepped another ram, wholly 

 unaware of the ftxte of his companion, and stood on the 

 same identical shelf, and he also was "my meat." The 

 third ram now appeared lower down, and making off at 

 his best pace ; but he was so inferior to the two which I 

 had secured that I let him go. As long as he was pick- 

 ing his way down the rocks his movements seemed to me 

 slow and clumsy, but the moment he cleared them how he 

 did stretch himself out, and " dust" down that mountain ! 

 And now a curious thing happened. The remainder of 

 the herd were all ewes or little ones, and being deprived 

 of their leaders, and apparently bereft of sense, gathered 

 on a buttress just below us, and for some minutes, though 

 I stood up, shouted, and threw stones at them, they 

 seemed glued to the ground as though they were under a 



