Early next morning we proceeded to erect snow-screens at favourable "passes," wherein to await the wild-goats as they moved up or down the mountain-side at dawn and dusk respectively, their favourite food being the rye-grass which the peasants from the villages below contrive to grow in tiny patches--two or three square yards scattered here and there amidst the crags. It is only by rare industry that even so paltry a crop can be snatched at such altitudes, and during the short period when the snow is absent from the southern aspects. At present it enveloped everything--not a blade of vegetation nor a mouthful for a wild-goat could be seen. Although during the day the snow was generally soft--the sun being very hot--yet after dark we found the way dangerous, traversing a sloping, slippery ice-surface like a huge glacier, where a slip or false step would send one down half a mile with nothing to clutch at, or to save oneself. Such a slide meant death, for it could only terminate in a precipice or in one of those horrible holes with a raging torrent to receive one in its dark abyss, and convey the fragments beneath the snow--where to appear next? Each step had to be cut with a hatchet, or hollowed--the butt of a rifle is not intended for such work, but has had to perform it. Every day we saw ibex on the snow-fields and towering rocks above our cave. They were now of a light fawn-colour, very shaggy in appearance, some males carrying magnificent horns. One old ram seemed to be always on the watch, kneeling down on the very verge of a crag 500 or 600 yards above us, and which commanded a view for miles--though _miles_ read but paltry words! From where that goat was he could survey half a dozen provinces. These ibex proved quite inaccessible, and nearly a week had passed away ere a wild-goat gave us a chance. One night shortly after quitting my post, little better than a human icicle, and not without fear of scrambling caveward in absolute darkness along the ice-slope, a little herd of goats passed--mere shadows--within easy shot of where, five minutes before, I had been lying in wait. On another morning at dawn the tracks of a big male showed that he, too, must have passed at some hour of the night within five-and-twenty yards of the snow-screen.