“I’m in the same position precisely,” said Eric. “You therefore agree to our hunting expedition, eh?”
“Yes; the more especially as I wish to try and pot that old billy-goat. He is such an artful old fellow that he always keeps just out of range of my weapon, as if he knows the distance it carries. He will thus offer good sport. That other kid too, that we saw, must be grown up by now.”
“He shall be my prey,” cried Eric, proceeding immediately to polish his rifle, so as to be ready for the excursion.
A day or two afterwards, the two ascended the cliff by the now familiar tussock-grass ladder; but, although Eric could almost have gone up blindfold this time, the ascent was quite as difficult as it had been at first to Fritz, who had never climbed it once since the day he sprained his ankle in coming down, having left the look-out department entirely to the sailor lad, on account, as he said, of its “being more in his line!”
As he had not, therefore, seen it for so long, Fritz noticed a considerable change on going up.
The grass had grown very much taller, while the trees appeared more bushy; but, besides these alterations, the inhabitants of the plateau had become changed and more varied.
The droves of wild hogs had increased considerably; while the goats, headed by the old billy, who looked as lively and venerable as ever, had diminished—of course, through the ravages of the Tristaners, as mentioned before.
Still, not even the loss of these latter animals specially attracted his attention; what he particularly observed was, that the prairie tableland had a fresh class of visitors, which must have arrived with the new year, for they had not been there when he had previously ascended the cliff.
Eric was too much taken up with looking for seals to notice them, for he certainly never mentioned them on his return below to the hut; and, so, Fritz was doubly surprised now at seeing them.
These newcomers were the wandering albatross—the “Diomedia exulans,” as naturalists term it—which sailors believe to float constantly in the upper air, never alighting on land or sea, but living perpetually on the wing!