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Besides, seeing him was like a bit of Scotland their auerhahn is kin to the black-cock and capercailzie. So I marked him to the skirt of Thusis, yonder in line with that needle across the gulf and, through it, to that bunch of pinkish-stemmed pines there where the brook falls into silver dust above that gorge. He'll lie there. Just before daybreak he'll mount to the top of one of those pines.
Then unseen by them, the east glimmered like a sheet of tarnished silver. And out over the dark world of mountains, high above the solitude, rang the uncanny cry of an auerhahn. Again the big, unseen bird saluted the coming day. McKay stole forward drawing his pistol and the girl followed.
The weird outcry of the auerhahn guided them, sounding from somewhere above among the black crests of the pines, nearer at hand, now, clearer, closer, more weird, until McKay halted peering upward, his pistol poised. As yet the crests of the pines were merely soft blots above.
McKay seldom ventured to kill any game merely an auerhahn, a hare or two, a red squirrel and sometimes he had caught trout in the mountain brooks with his bare hands the method called "tickling" and only too familiar to Old-World poachers. "Roebuck," she repeated trying not to speak wistfully. He nodded: "One crossed the stream below.
It is HABIT, because he does it in spite of a crippled left hand." She nodded again. "Also," whispered McKay, "everything else about him is convincing the pack, tump-line, moccasins, Winchester: and his manner of moving.... I know deer-stalkers in Scotland and in the Alps. I know the hunters of ibex and chamois, of roe-deer and red stag, of auerhahn and eagle.
He owned he might have been mistaken, as the brilliant fellow flew swift and high between leaves, like an ordinary fritillary. Not the less did they get their glimpse of the wonders in the sunny eternity of a child's afternoon. 'An Auerhahn, Chillon! she said, picturing the maturer day when she had scaled perilous heights with him at night to stalk the blackcock in the prime of the morning.
He owned he might have been mistaken, as the brilliant fellow flew swift and high between leaves, like an ordinary fritillary. Not the less did they get their glimpse of the wonders in the sunny eternity of a child's afternoon. 'An Auerhahn, Chillon! she said, picturing the maturer day when she had scaled perilous heights with him at night to stalk the blackcock in the prime of the morning.
These rations act like cocktails: I could barbecue a roebuck and finish him with you at one sitting!" "Monsieur et Madame Gargantua," she mocked him with her enchanting laughter. Then, wistful: "Kay, did you see that very fat and saucy auerhahn which the Swiss soldiers scared out of the pines down there?" "I did," said McKay. "My mouth watered."
All that day they watched the Swiss soldiers searching Mount Terrible; saw a red fox steal from the lower thickets and bolt between the legs of the beaters who swung their rifle-butts at the streak of ruddy fur; saw little mountain birds scatter into flight, so closely and minutely the soldiers searched; saw even a big auerhahn burst into thunderous flight from the ferns to a pine and from the pine out across the terrific depths of space below the white shoulder of Thusis.
Then, flashing her own torch, she sprang to her feet and ran lightly down to where the snow brook whirled in mossy pools below. When she came back he took her cold smooth little hand fresh from icy ablutions: "We must beat it," he said; "that auerhahn won't stay long in his pine-tree after dawn. Extinguish your torch."
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