"We can't find a better spot than this," replied his father, examining his gun.
"But what's the use of shooting him? What's the good of a dead chamois if we can't get him?"
"When he's once dead, boy, we'll soon find some means of getting at him," was the answer. "A board laid over the crevasse will be an easy way of recovering the venison."
"But we haven't got a board, father."
"That we'll see about. Just stand on one side, Watty."
The hunter cocked his gun, took aim for a moment, and was going to fire, when he turned suddenly pale, and dropped his arm.
"What's the matter, father? Do you feel ill?" inquired Walter, with anxiety.
"No," replied the huntsman; "but it seemed as if the ice was giving way just as I was going to fire. But it can't be," he continued, stamping his foot; "the ice is solid and firm enough."
"Let us go home, father," implored Walter. "I feel a presentiment that something will happen. Come home now, and we can try for the buck to-morrow."
But the old mountaineer had in the mean time become self-possessed again, and again raised his gun to fire. Just as he pulled the trigger, however, his foot slipped, and with an exclamation of horror, Walter saw him carried rapidly toward the rift in the ice, and suddenly disappear. With the recoil of the gun the hunter had lost his balance on the slippery ice, and at the same moment that his shot struck the chamois, he was hurled into the "rift."