The Stories of Two Ibex 27 



and speckless, one o'clock my correspondence all 

 finished. By three o'clock I had smoked more 

 tobacco than was good for any one who wanted 

 heart and lungs in climbing order. The day was 

 long, but it passed, and evening closed in still 

 wet. Stalking in mist and rain with the wind 

 blowing in all directions at once was a hopeless 

 impossibility, and it was no use going out either 

 that day or the next. Wet weather when in 

 camp among the mountains is abominable. Wet 

 tents, wet clothes, wet carpets, wet dogs, food 

 smoked instead of cooked, are some of the ills 

 one has to laugh at, and the acme of comfort one's 

 imagination can depict is a dry room with a fire 

 in it, and an arm-chair before that fire. 



On the third day rain had stopped, and patches 

 of blue sky oh, how welcome ! had appeared, 

 though the great clouds still rolled in the valley 

 below us, and at times enveloped us in a dense 

 wet mist. Our ibex had in the meantime shifted 

 their quarters, and were discovered among some 

 black jagged -looking rocks at the opposite side 

 of the glen we were in. Early next morning we 

 were on our way across the valley, knee-deep in 

 sopping grass and flowers and mountain vegeta- 

 tion. The rain had been snow only a few hundred 

 feet above us, but the white line was quickly 

 creeping up the slopes under the intermittent 



