Chapter Thirty Six.
Caspar retreats to the Rock.
Caspar now perceived that the rock was not all in one piece. In other words, there were two rocks—both of them immense boulders, but of very unequal size. The largest, as already observed, was of the size of a small house, or it might be compared to a load of hay; while the smaller was not much bigger than the wagon. They lay almost contiguous to each other, with a narrow space, about a foot in width, forming a sort of alley between them. This space resembled a cleft, as if the two blocks had once been united, and some terrible force had cloven them asunder.
Caspar only glanced at these peculiarities as he came up—his eye mechanically searching for the best point of the rock to shelter him from the game, while it afforded him an opportunity of aiming at them. It was altogether a very awkward cover—the rock was square-sided as a wall, with no jutting point that he could crawl behind and rest his gun over. In fact, at the corners it rather hung over, resting on a base narrower than its diameter. There was no bush near to it—not even long grass to accommodate him. The ground was quite bare, and had the appearance of being much trampled, as if it was a favourite resort—in fact, a “rubbing-stone” for the yaks. It was their tracks Caspar saw around it—some of them quite fresh—and conspicuous among the rest were some that by their size must have been made by the hoofs of the bull.
The sight of these large fresh tracks conducted Caspar, and very suddenly too, into a train of reflections that were anything but agreeable.
“The bull’s tracks!” muttered he to himself. “Quite fresh, by thunder! Why he must have been here but a minute ago! What if—”
Here Caspar’s heart thumped so violently against his ribs, that he could scarce finish the interrogation.
“What if he be on the other side of the rock?”