Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 2, 2025
They tossed and stamped and stared straight at the spot where their enemies lay hidden. A moment, and the old stag disappeared; the others followed him. "If they come again, shoot," said Sepp. Rex passed his rifle to Ruth. They waited a few minutes; then the colonel jumped up. "I thought we were after chamois!" he grumbled. "So we are," said Rex, getting on his feet.
By this time August was well advanced, but there had been as yet no "Jagd-partie," as Sepp called the hunting excursion planned with such enthusiasm weeks before. After that first day in the trout stream, Ruth not only suffered more from fatigue than she had expected, but the little cough came back, causing her parents to draw the lines of discipline very tight indeed.
The speck of yellow was almost imperceptibly approaching their knoll, but so slowly that Ruth almost doubted if it moved at all. Sepp had the glass, and declining the one Rex offered her, she turned for a moment to the superb panorama at their feet. East, west, north and south the mountain world extended.
But Sepp, having had his gossip like a true South German hunter-man, finally did ask the important question: "Ach! supper! du lieber Himmel!" There was little enough of that for the Herrschaften. There was black bread and milk, and there were some Semmel, but those were very old and hard. "No cheese?" "Nein!" "No butter?" "Nein!" "Coffee?" "Yes, but no sugar." "Herr Je!"
Sepp gave himself a shake, and his toilet was made. "Colonel," said Rex, standing over a bundle of rugs and hay in which no head was visible, "Colonel! Sepp says we must hurry if we want to see a `gams." The colonel turned over. What he said was: "Damn the Gomps!" But he thought better of that and stood up, looking cynical. "Come and have a dip in the spring," laughed Rex.
"Herrlich!" cried Sepp, and drank the "Waidmann's Heil!" toast to him in deep and serious draughts. Then he took out a thong, tied the four slender hoofs together and opened his game sack; Rex helped him to hoist the chamois in and onto his broad shoulders. Now for the upper Shelter. They started in great spirits, a happy trio.
The sky was beginning to show a tint of early dawn when they stepped once more upon the silent porch. The wind had gone down. Clouds were piled up in the west, but the east was clear. Perfect stillness was over everything. Not a living creature was in sight, excepting that far up, across the stream, Sepp and Zimbach were climbing toward the Schinder. "I must go in now.
The first word which recalled his wandering attention was "Chamois?" and he saw that Monsieur Bordier was pointing to the game bag and looking amiably at Sepp, who, divided between sulkiness at Monsieur's native language and goodwill toward anyone who seemed to be accepted by his "Herrschaften," was in two minds whether to open the bag and show the game to this smiling Frenchman, or "to say him a Grobheit" and go away.
He stood about in some hesitation, and finally addressed himself to Ruth as the one who could best understand his dialect. She listened and then turned to her father. "Sepp doesn't exactly know where to lodge me. He had thought I could stay here with Nani " "Not if I can help it!" cried the colonel. "While," Ruth went on "while you and Rex went up to the Jaeger's hut above there on the rocks.
A shot rang out, followed by another. They turned, sharply. Ruth, looking half frightened, was lowering the smoking rifle from her shoulder. Across the ravine a large stag was swaying on the edge; then he fell and rolled to the bottom. The hound, loosed, was off like an arrow, scrambling and tumbling down the side. The four hunters followed, somehow. Sepp got down first and sent back a wild Jodel.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking