snow up there."

"In the snow, perhaps. God knows exactly where we shall lie tonight--Mr.
Brown."

There was an odd look in Siurd's soft brown eyes; he turned and spoke to
Herr Professor von Dresslin, using dialect--and instantly appearing to
recollect himself he asked pardon of Stent and Brown in his very perfect
English.

"I said to the Herr Professor in the Traun dialect: 'Ibex may be stirring,
as it is already late afternoon. We ought now to use our glasses.' My
family," he added apologetically, "come from the Traunwald; I forget and
employ the vernacular at times."

The Herr Professor unslung his telescope, set his rifle upright on the
moss, and, kneeling, balanced the long spyglass alongside of the
blued-steel barrel, resting it on his hand as an archer fits the arrow he
is drawing on the bowstring.

Instantly both Brown and Stent thought of the same thing: the chance that
these Germans might spy others of the Athabasca regiment prowling among
the ferns and rocks of neighbouring slopes. The game was nearly at an end,
anyway.

They exchanged a glance; both picked up their rifles; Brown nodded almost
imperceptibly. The tragic comedy was approaching its close.

"_Hirsch_" grunted the Herr Professor--"_und stueck_--on the north
alm"--staring through his telescope intently.

"Accorded," said Siurd Von Glahn, balancing his spyglass and sweeping the
distant crags. "_Stueck_ on the western shoulder," he added--"and a stag
royal among them."

"Of ten?"

"Of twelve."

After a silence: "Why are they galloping--I wonder--the herd-stag and
_stueck_?"

Brown very quietly laid one hand on Stent's arm.

"A _geier_, perhaps," suggested Siurd, his eye glued to his spyglass.

"No ibex?" asked Stent in a voice a little forced.

"_Noch nicht, mon ami. Tiens! A gemsbok_--high on the third
peak--feeding."

"Accorded," grunted the Herr Professor after an interval of search; and he
closed his spyglass and placed his rifle on the moss.

His staring, protuberant eyes fell casually upon Brown, who was laying
aside his own rifle again--and the German's expression did not alter.

"Ibex!" exclaimed Von Glahn softly.

Stent, rising impulsively to his feet, bracketted his field glasses on the
third peak, and stood there, poised, slim and upright against the sky on
the chasm's mossy edge.

"I don't see your ibex, Siurd," he said, still searching.

"On the third peak, _mon ami_"--drawing Stent familiarly to his side--the