While
taking a sharp look around us for a herd of some twenty animals which
we had seen the day previously, we suddenly found ourselves close
to a party of five markore, but they scampered off so fast over rock
and snowdrift, that they gave us no opportunity of getting a shot.
Following them up, we came, while clinging to an overhanging ledge of
rock, upon one solitary gentleman standing about 150 yards below. We
both fired together, but the pace we had come, and the ground we had
crossed, had unsteadied our aim, and though my second bullet parted
the wool on his back, it was not written that our first markore
was to fall so easily. After this we tracked the first herd for
a long distance over the snow, until they scampered down an almost
perpendicular face of snow and ice, and here we gave them up, halting
on a spur of the mountain for a repast of chicken, eggs, chupatties,
and cold tea. During our morning's work we had come across some
most break-neck places, and had one or two narrow escapes, which,
at the time, one was hardly conscious of.
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