174 GLENFALLOCH ROES. 



a shred of his wretched clothes lay close at hand, 

 when my son gave the warning word " roes." 

 There were three in group, and a fourth at a short 

 distance from them. All were full grown, and 

 much of a size. Excepting a scanty sprinkling 

 of trees interspersed with occasional patches of 

 brushwood, the whole hill-face was bare, and ap- 

 peared more so from a thick coating of snow. The 

 creatures seemed fully to comprehend the situa- 

 tion, and to know as well as we did how difficult 

 it would be to steal on them unperceived. Those 

 in company therefore went leisurely ahead, while 

 the single one deigned no further retreat than 

 to move a little on one side, so as to give us " a 

 wide berth" in passing him. Our game, by appear- 

 ing equally careless and sangfroid, was to entice 

 them to slip quietly into some secluded hiding, 

 either among the alder bushes fringing the brooks 

 which seamed the mountain-side, or perhaps be- 

 hind some cluster of hillocks, where by humour- 

 ing the wind we could stalk them like deer. 



As in all wild shooting, success depended en- 

 tirely on our marking the next resting retreat of 

 the roes, without making them aware that we had 



