I 9 8 RIFLE AND ROMANCE 



deep-cut tributary ravine gave approach to a long terraced 

 hillside that was smothered in shady woods. The whole 

 aspect of the place indeed would have indicated to even a 

 half-trained eye the fact that it was an ideal haunt of 

 Cervus unicolor ; and one felt instinctively that those bosky 

 dells held something good. The height to which a neigh- 

 bouring tree-trunk was scored with deep horn-gashes 

 showed incidentally that a stag of uncommon size had his 

 home somewhere near. 



My own man I had left with the beaters to keep them 

 up to their work, so the small aborigine and I began 

 climbing towards the post that would command the best 

 position whence to mark a startled beast. Up a long spur 

 we toiled, under the now scorching rays of a February 

 sun, crackling in an unavoidable way the deep carpeting 

 of fallen teak leaves. At the debouchure of a trans- 

 verse ravine the jungle man was posted in a tree ; 

 myself climbing higher up, and finally settling on a 

 point that gave the best view up and down hill. Here 

 I seated myself, in shade, marking my position by a 

 whistle that was answered by my scout in the tree down 

 below. 



The surrounding slopes were very thickly covered with 

 jungle. Only here and there a glimpse might be caught of 

 the ground through the maze of mingled stems and bam- 

 boos. One's whole attention in such places has to be 

 centred on the locating of an animal's line of advance by 

 the sounds of his feet in the tell-tale leaves after which one 

 must endeavour to cut that line, and await his coming 

 and one's luck at the nod of fortune. It is seldom indeed 

 especially in the case of but a single rifle to watch the 

 large extent of such approaches that a deer is ever 

 driven up to the watcher's post. 



After the usual lengthy wait, the distant sounds of the 

 rousers of the game came wafting along the hillsides. 

 The " beat " had begun. It came along slowly. 



