as the animal is exceedingly shy, and one of the
swiftest of the deer kind, they had not succeeded in getting a shot.
They were all the more anxious to procure one, from the very difficulty
which they had met with in doing so.

One day as they were proceeding up a very wild ravine, among some
stunted juniper and rhododendron bushes, they started from his lair one
of the largest musk-deer they had yet seen. As he kept directly on, and
did not seem to run very fast, they determined to pursue him. Fritz,
therefore, was put upon his trail, and the others followed as fast as
they were able to get over the rough ground.

They had not gone far, when the baying of the dog told them that the
chase had forsaken the ravine in which they had first started it, and
had taken into a lateral valley.

On arriving at the mouth of this last, they perceived that it was filled
by a glacier. This did not surprise them, as they had already seen
several glaciers in the mountain valleys, and they were every hour
getting farther within the region of these icy phenomena.

A sloping path enabled them to reach the top of the glacier, and they
now perceived the tracks of the deer. Some snow had fallen and still
lay unmelted upon the icy surface, and in this the foot-prints of the
animal were quite distinct, Fritz had stopped at the end of the glacier,
as if to await further instructions; but without hesitation the hunters
climbed up on the ice, and followed the trail.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

THE GLACIER.

For more than a mile they toiled up the sloping glacier which all the
way lay between two vertical cliffs.

That the musk-deer was still in advance of them, they had evidence from
the imprint of its tracks. Even without this evidence they could not
doubt that the game was still before them. It would have been
impossible for it to have scaled the cliffs on either side, so far as
they had yet seen them; and as far before them as they could see, both
sides appeared equally steep and impracticable.

As the hunters advanced, the cliffs gradually converged; and at the
distance of a few hundred yards before them, appeared to close in--as if
the ravine ended there, and there was no outlet in that direction. In
fact they appeared to be approaching the apex of a very acute angle, the
sides of which were formed by the black granite cliffs.

This singular formation was just what the hunters desired. If the
valley ended in a _cul-de-sac_,