212 SHORT STALKS 



I had heard that some of the railway officials were 

 going to have a drive, so I went up early and posted 

 myself at a high elevation where I could command a good 

 deal of the cliff. There I spied a band of four, comprising 

 two small bucks. They were quite quiet, and lay down in 

 a good place, and I got quickly within fifty yards of one of 

 the bucks. He went off with the rest at the shot, and 

 Celestin, who followed what he thought was the track, 

 could find no trace of blood, and declared that I had 

 missed. As the shot was a perfectly easy one I could 

 not think of any excuse to account for it. In a very 

 depressed condition w^e climbed up to another high point 

 and stayed there some hours watching. At last we saw 

 two ibex coming away from the drive, and climbed down 

 quickly on the chance of cutting them off; and now a 

 wonderful piece of luck, the only one that fell to my lot 

 on this trip, happened. AVhile sitting and waiting I 

 looked ]-ound and found we had returned to almost the 

 identical spot of my first stalk. At that moment I heard 

 stones rolling Ijelow, and, looking over the edge, saw my 

 beast of the morning rolling over and over, quite dead. 

 It was scarcely a score of yards from where I had lost sight 

 of him. He appeared to have beeu dead some time, and 

 it was the most extraordinary chance which led us back to 

 the identical spot at the fortunate moment when his body 

 rolled down, as we should never have seen him except for 

 the movement of the stones attracting our attention. 



The beaters now Ijegan another drive the reverse w'ay, 

 and across the ground where we were. AVe lay low and 

 let the men pass us, which of course they did without 

 seeing us, then got on to a prominent rock to see what 



