and how Chaffer enjoyed it! He had grown quite thin and gaunt, his
finely formed muscular neck was lean and scraggy, and his limbs felt
weak.

But a week or two of good feeding, with an occasional bit of salt,
soon put him right, and by the time summer arrived Chaffer had not
only regained the strength he had lost in the winter, but had
developed more power and growth in many ways. He had rejoined the
herd, for the old chamois had left it by this time, and Chaffer and
some other young males had determined that, come what might, they
would allow no old chamois to turn them out again.

It was a beautiful summer, and the herd, which numbered about twenty,
had a fine time. They sported and leaped from crag to crag--climbed up
to the highest and most inaccessible peaks, where they would stand
sniffing the clear air, and look out with their beautiful eyes over
the picturesque landscape which lay like a vast panorama before them--
glide down the chasms and precipices, and take leaps and bounds which
would have made almost any animal but a chamois giddy.

And, during that summer, Chaffer grew fat and sleek and handsomer than
ever, and by the time October came again was the largest animal in the
herd. Only the year before he had been wretched and miserable and very
lonely; now he was settled and contented and very happy, for, not only
had he refused to allow the old chamois to enter the herd again, but
he had chosen a pretty and graceful little wife, and was just as proud
of her as he could be.

She was a beautiful creature, and her dark, liquid eyes looked timidly
and pathetically out from beneath her nicely developed horns--for both