_August 26._--Everything outside the tents was frozen solid last night, but with sunrise the temperature goes up with a bound. We had trout for breakfast, caught by hand from the burn below. To-day the work was easier, for the two beats were both small and more or less on the same level as our camp. The first lasted five hours, but gave no result. We then moved to the west, always rising till we found ourselves on the summit of another ridge looking down into a mighty gorge and upon the mysterious rock-cradled Cinco Lagunas de Grédos. The plains of Castile lay beneath us like a map, towns and villages distinguishable through the glass though not without. Bertram was placed in a "pass," about 100 yards wide, piercing the topmost peaks, myself in a similar _portilla_ rather lower down. An hour later Dionýsio, who had climbed the crag above me, whence he could see into the abyss beneath, signalled as he hung over the edge of his eyrie that something was coming. Then he slid down to my side to tell me that three goats were moving slowly up the gorge. Dionýsio returned to his ledge, and for half an hour I enjoyed that state of breathless suspense when one expects each moment to be face to face with a coveted trophy. The three goats, I perceived, must pass through this _portilla_ on one side or the other of the rock behind which I lay expectant. At last there caught my ear the gentle patter of horned hoofs on rocks, but oh!... it was succeeded by the bang of a gun. Dionýsio had fired from his ledge twenty yards above me. The three ibex had come on to within ten yards of where I lay, looking, as it were, down a tunnel. The wind had been right enough, but it appeared an erratic puff had elected to blow straight from us to them. They caught it, and in a flash disappeared down the ravine, Dionýsio, as he hung from the ledge, giving them a parting shot. That was friend Dionýsio's version of the event. What actually occurred, all who are experienced in this wild-hunting will divine without our telling. I ran from my post along the lip of the abyss--luckily there was a bit of fairly good going--hoping to get a chance as the game turned upwards again; for at once, on hearing a shot, the beaters far below joined in a chorus of wild yells to push them upwards. This they succeeded in doing, but the goats passed beyond my range. I now saw there were four in all--three females and a handsome ram. Dionýsio made a further effort to turn them, which so far succeeded that the ram separated and bounded up the rocks towards the higher pass, where he ran the gauntlet of Bertram within thirty yards. Now the whole stress and burden of a laborious expedition fell upon the youngest shoulders, for B. was barely out of his teens, and more skilled with shot-gun than with ball. The responsibility proved almost too great--almost, but not quite; for one bullet had taken effect, and the rocks beyond the little "pass" were sprinkled with blood.