to glance round for a single instant, for it was not necessary; he
knew only too well what was behind him, and his one object was to get
away.

At this moment, however, there was another whistle from the sentinel
of the herd, much fainter this time because farther off, but
containing the information that there was danger at the top of the
mountains as well as at the base. Chaffer hesitated a moment, but he
decided to go on now, whatever came; he was far more at home on these
sharp crags and dangerous heights than he was on smooth, even ground,
and he could go where it was quite impossible for a man to follow.

So he gave a few more leaps, a few more bounds, although the scent of
the man now was so strong as to bewilder him, and then landed on a
tiny ledge face to face with a hunter!

It would have been hard to say which was the most surprised--the
hunter or Chaffer. As a matter of fact, the hunter had been carefully
watching another chamois a little lower down--a young male who had
been turned out of the herd with Chaffer--and had no idea a second
chamois was so close to him until Chaffer alighted on the ledge of
rock at his very feet. The two looked at one another for an instant in
deathlike silence, their eyes wide open with surprise and fright; for,
had the chamois only known it, he could, with one touch of his horns,
have sent the hunter whirling through space and onto the rocks
beneath, where he would have been dashed to pieces.

Then, with a wild leap, Chaffer sprang--sprang down the precipitous
chasm which yawned beneath them, a distance of nearly thirty feet. As
he went down, with his graceful body hanging in the air, and his