Oh, joy! On a little peak down beneath, and not a hundred yards away, stands one of the noblest guanacos I have ever seen. He has heard something, or scented something, for he stands there as still as a statue, with head and neck in the air sniffing the breeze.
How my heart beats! How my hand trembles! I cannot understand my anxiety. Were I face to face with a lion or tiger I could hardly be more nervous. A thousand thoughts seem to cross my mind with a rush, but uppermost of all is the fear that, having fired, I shall miss.
He whinnies his warning now: only a low and undecided one. He is evidently puzzled; but the herd down in the bottom of the cañon hear it, and every head is elevated. I have judged the distance; I have drawn my bead. If my heart would only keep still, and there were not such a mist before my eyes! Bang! I have fired, and quickly load again. Have I missed? Yes--no, no; hurrah! hurrah! yonder he lies, stark and still, on the very rock on which he stood--my first guanaco!
The startled herd move up the cañon. They must have seen their leader drop.
I am still gazing after them, full of exultation, when a hand is laid on my shoulder, and, lo! there stands Dugald laughing.
'You sly old dog,' he says, 'to steal a march on your poor little brother thus!'
'Dugald,' I say, 'did I really kill that guanaco?'
'And you've only just come--only just this second? Well, I'm glad to hear it. It was after all a pure accident my shooting the beast. I _did_ hold the rifle his way. I _did_ draw the trigger----'
'Well, and the bullet did the rest, boy. Funny, you always kill by the merest chance! Ah, Murdoch, you're a better shot than I am, for all you won't allow it.'
Wandering still onwards and still upwards next day, through lonely glens and deep ravines, through cañons the sides of which were as perpendicular as walls, their flat green or brown bottoms sometimes scattered with huge boulders, casting shadows so dark in the sunlight that a man or horse disappeared in them as if the earth had opened and swallowed him up, we came at length to a dell, or strath, of such charming luxuriance that it looked to us, amid all the barrenness of this dreary wilderness, like an oasis dropped from the clouds, or some sweet green glade where fairies might dwell.