KITTEN GUIDE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 485, 15 October 1928, Page 13

KITTEN GUIDE

LED BY BLACK TAIL 1 EXPERIENCE OF ALPINISTS A black kitten which guided tourists j up the famous Blumlisalphorn (12.000 feet), near Muerren. has suddenly de- ■ serted its post. The small mountaineer used to meet tourists about halfway up the moun lain and accompany them to the sum mit. skipping from rock to rock with his tail straight in the air to show those trudging behind that all was well, says the “Daily Kxpress.” At the top he used to make an ample meal at the expense of his admiring : charges. All this is now no more. A would-be kind-hearted tourist a few days ago thought that the kitten would be grate ful for being brought back to the luxuries of civilisation and tucked him into his haversack, which he tied up and left on a rock with a camera while the party went on to the summit When he returned he found no truce j of haversack, kitten or camera. There I was only the precipice. Another party of tourists who had heard the sad story of the kitten’s end the next day stopped at the place ■ They were opening packets of sand j wiches when they saw the black kit - i ten -watching them wistfully from the ! top of a rock. They tried to entice him nearer with tempting morsels, but nothing would persuade him to trust the good failli of man again. No trace has been found of the tourist’s haversack or camera, and it is thought that the kitten’s struggles to escape loosened the fastening sufficicnUy to allow the ani mal to leap out as his prison rolled over the precipice-edge.