Part 10 (1/2)
A peculiarity exists in the uished from other animals of the deer kind They have a pair of tusks in the upper jaw projecting doards, each full three inches in length, and about as thick as a goose's quill These give to the aniether a peculiar appearance The rains, or little pellets, inside a sac or pod in the skin, situated near the navel; but what produces this singular substance, or what purpose it serves in the economy of the animal, it is not easy to say It has proved its worst foe But for the musk this harmless little deer would be comparatively a worthless object of the chase; but as it is, the valuable commodity has created for it a host of ene it to the death
The plant-hunters had several times seen musk-deer as they journeyed up the ly 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, fro so
One day as they were proceeding up a very wild ravine, a some stunted juniper and rhododendron bushes, they started froest 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 lacier This did not surprise thelaciers in thefarther within the region of these icy pheno path enabled thelacier, 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 anilacier, 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 lacier 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 iradually 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 forular formation was just what the hunters desired If the valley ended in a _cul-de-sac_, then the gaht have a chance of obtaining a shot
In order the more surely to accomplish this, they separated, and deployed themselves into a line which extended completely across the valley In this formation they continued to advance upward
When they first adopted this plan, the ravine was about four hundred yards in width--so that less than one hundred lay between each two of them These equal distances they preserved as well as they could, but now and then the cracks in the icy mass, and the ied one or other, of them to make considerable detours As they advanced, however, the distance between each two grew less, in consequence of the narrowing of the valley, until at length a space of only fifty yards separated one froa a fine opportunity for all to have a shot; and with the expectation of soon obtaining one, they kept on in high spirits
All at once their hopes appeared to be frustrated The whole line ca each other with blank looks
Directly in front of them yawned an immense crevasse in the ice, full five yards in width at the top, and stretching across the glacier froreat fissure convinced them that it was io no farther Such was the conviction of all
The glacier filled the whole ravine from cliff to cliff There was no space or path between the ice and the rocky wall The latter rose vertically upward for five hundred feet at least, and no doubt extended doard to as great a depth Indeed, by looking into the fissure, they could trace the wall of rock to an ireen cleft of the ice below To look down into that terrible abyss iddiness; and they could only do so with safety by crawling up to the edge of the lye, and peeping over
A glance convinced one and all of them that the crevasse was iot over it? Surely it had not leaped that fearful chase its tracks were traced in the snow, and there, upon the lower side of the cleft, was the spot froe cleared a space of sixteen or eighteen feet! This, however, was nothing to a musk-deer, that upon a deal level often bounds to th; for these ani down a slope to the enormous distance of sixty feet!
The leap over the crevasse, therefore, fearful as it appeared in the eyes of our hunters, was nothing to the musk-deer, who is as nih!” said Karl, after they had stood for so into the lye ”There's no help for it; we o back as we came--what says Ossaroo?”
”You speakee true, Sahib--no help for e no get cross--too wide leapee--no bridge--no bae--no tree here”
Ossaroo shook his head despondingly as he spoke He was vexed at losing the gaht have yielded an ounce or two of uinea an ounce in the bazaars of Calcutta
The Hindoo glanced onceround, uttered an exclamation, which told that he was beaten
”Well, then, let us go back!” said Karl