covered both the health and the good-humour as essential
to Southerners as the sun of their skies. They drank deep, they ate
solidly. After many toasts to the president and his coming ascension,
Tartarin, who had puzzled over the tavern-sign ever since his arrival,
inquired of the horn-player, who was breaking a crust in a corner of the
room:

"So you have chamois here, it seems?.. I thought there were none left in
Switzerland."

The man winked:

"There are not many, but enough to let you see them now and then."

"Shoot them, is what he wants, _ve_" said Pas-calon, full of enthusiasm;
"never did the president miss a shot!"

Tartarin regretted that he had not brought his carbine.

"Wait a minute, and I 'll speak to the landlord."

It so happened that the landlord was an old chamois hunter; he offered
his gun, his powder, his buck-shot, and even himself as guide to a haunt
he knew.

"Forward, _zou!_" cried Tartarin, granting to his happy Alpinists the
opportunity to show off the prowess of their chief. It was only a slight
delay, after all; the Jungfrau lost nothing by waiting.

Leaving the inn at the back, they had only to walk through an orchard,
no bigger than the garden of a station-master, before they found
themselves on a mountain, gashed with great crevasses, among the
fir-trees and underbrush.

The innkeeper took the advance, and the Taras-conese presently saw him
far up the height, waving his arms and throwing stones, no doubt to
rouse the chamois. They rejoined him with much pain and difficulty over
that rocky slope, hard especially to persons who had just been eating
and were as little used to climbing as these good Alpinists of Tarascon.
The air was heavy, moreover, with a tempest breath that was slowly
rolling the clouds along the summits above their heads.

"_Boufre!_" groaned Bravida.

Excourbanies growled: "_Outre!_"

"What shall I be made to say!" added the gentle, bleating Pascalon.

But the guide having, by a violent gesture, ordered them to hold their
tongues, and not to stir, Tartarin remarked, "Never speak under arms,"
with a sternness that rebuked every one, although the president alone
had a weapon. They stood stock still, holding their breaths. Suddenly,
Pas-calon cried out:

"_Ve _ the chamois, _ve_.."

About three hundred feet above them, the upright horns, the light buff
coat and the four feet gathered together of the pretty creature stood
defined like a carved image at the