a clumsy
trot for some little distance, and then stopped and stood up on its
hind-legs and stared at them.

"A curious sheep, Lawrence!" said Mr Preston, adjusting his glass;
"what do you make of it now?"

"Why, it can't be a bear, is it?" cried Lawrence eagerly.

"Undoubtedly, and a very fine one," said Mr Preston.

"Let's have a look," said Mr Burne; and he too focussed his glass.
"Why, so it is!" he cried--"just such a one as we used to have upon the
pomatum pots. Now, from what gardens can he have escaped?"

The professor burst out laughing merrily.

"It is the real wild animal in his native state, Burne," he said.

"Then let's shoot him and take home his skin," cried Lawrence, preparing
to fire.

"You could not kill it at this distance, effendi," said Yussuf; "and
even if you could, it would be a day's journey to get round to that side
and secure the skin. Look!"

The chance to fire was gone as he spoke, for the bear dropped down on
all-fours, made clumsily for a pile of rocks, and Mr Preston with his
glass saw the animal disappear in a hole that was probably his cave.

"Gone, Lawrence!" said the professor. "Let's get on."

"I should have liked to go on after him," said Lawrence, gazing at the
hole in the rocks wistfully; "there's something so strange in seeing a
real bear alive on the mountains."

"Perhaps we shall see more yet," said Yussuf, "for we are going into the
wildest part we have yet visited. Keep a good look-out high up on each
side, and I daresay we shall not go far without finding something."

"Right, Yussuf," cried the professor; "there is another of those grand
old watch-towers. Look, Burne!--just like the others we have seen
planted at the corner where two defiles meet."

"Ah, to be sure--yes," said the old lawyer. "What! an eagle's nest?"

"And there goes the eagle," cried Lawrence, pointing, as a huge bird
swept by them high up on rigid wing, seeming to glide here and there
without the slightest effort. "That's an eagle, is it not, Mr
Preston?"

"A very near relative, I should say," replied the professor. "The
lammergeier, as they call it in the Alpine regions. Yes, it must be.
What a magnificent bird!"

"We shall see more and finer ones, I daresay," said Yussuf! quietly;
"but the time is passing, excellencies. We have a long journey before
us, and I should like to see the better half of a difficult way mastered
before mid-day."

Their guide's advice was always so