"Stop, stop, Harry!" sang out Jerry. "We are near enough to fire; stop and let us recover our wind." The advice was good, and I was about to follow it, when one of the guanacoes turned his head and saw us. Before we could bring our rifles to our shoulders, they were off like the wind. Jerry was going to fire after them but I stopped him, pointing to another herd a short distance further off, along the side of the mountain. "You'll frighten them too if you do," I observed. "Let us try to get up to them more cautiously." One great difficulty was to keep Surley back, or he would have followed the herd till he had caught one of them, or broken his neck over a precipice. Consoling ourselves for our disappointment with the hopes of getting near enough up to the next herd to fire before being seen, we scrambled on as before. Now and then we glanced behind us to mark the spot where we had left Fleming, while we kept an eye in the direction Mr McRitchie had taken; and on that broad exposed mountain-side, we did not think it possible that we could miss each other. We climbed on, therefore, without any misgivings as to how we should find our way back again. I fastened my handkerchief through Surley's collar to keep him back. He was thus able also sometimes to help me up a steep place or a rock quicker than I could have got by myself. Jerry followed close behind me. The distance was, we found, greater than we expected to the next herd. We were, fortunately, to leeward of them, and not one of them noticed our approach. We halted behind a thick cactus. There was a rock some three hundred yards further off, and within a good shot of the herd. "Now, Jerry, you mark the fellow to the left; I'll take the one to the right," said I, almost trembling in my eagerness. "Don't let us fire till we get up to the rock; then rest a moment, and it will be hard if we don't hit one of them. If we miss, we'll see what Surley can do for us." Jerry nodded his agreement to this proposal, and crouching down, we crept on till we reached the rock. For an instant we waited to recover breath, then we lifted up our rifles and rested them on a ledge of the rock. It would be impossible to have got a better aim. Crack-- crack--we both fired. Off scampered the herd up the mountain. "We've missed! we've missed!" we cried. "Oh, bothera--No, no! there's one fellow staggering. The one I fired at," I exclaimed. "Hurrah!" "There's another! See, see!--he's over--no! he's up again, and away with the rest," sung out Jerry. "Let Surley after him, Harry. He'll bring him down. Hurrah, hurrah, what luck!"