152 INDIAN BIG GAME chap. 



close up under his feet. I poked my head up 

 and got a shot with the -818 at twenty yards, a 

 lying-down shot. The stag vanished over a little 

 knoll, and we never saw him again, nor did we 

 find any blood. The memory of this shot grieved 

 me all that day and for many days, but this year 

 I met the local man again, and he told me that 

 the stag had gone, not where we believed and 

 searched, but in an entirely different direc- 

 tion into more open, bushy country, and had 

 dropped dead ; that he had seen the body, 

 but that the local herdsman had cut off the 

 horns. 



This information was volunteered. The man 

 had nothing to gain by telling a lie and I believed 

 him. I do not care what rifle or bullet of this 

 class one uses, this occasional entire absence of 

 blood is the curse of the small bore. I have often 

 seen it. 



This stag must have taken a line over shale 

 slopes for his first half-mile. With the Central 

 or South India trackers one would never have 

 lost him. 



This little -318, however, vindicated itself 

 with the next stag, a 12-pointer, and dropped him 

 dead at eighty yards. This animal was calling 

 in a dark pine forest and gave us a pretty stalk 

 uphill, and well in view. 



I went up to Kashmir again this year, hoping 

 to get a really big stag, but I was too late for 

 the calling season and too early for the real cold 

 weather, when the stag come low down. I saw 

 one glorious 10-pointer five hundred yards off 

 and a 10- and a 12-pointer in range. But these 



