MULE DEER AND MOUNTAIN GOAT 83 



and with very little hope in my luck I caught up with 

 my companion. At his side, I enlarged upon the 

 difficulties of hitting microscopic puppies, or even 

 good stags, through intervening boughs ; the slipperi- 

 ness of frozen streams in general and my own mis- 

 fortunes in particular. " If" I began ; but it is 

 always "if "in hunting; what indeed would hunting 

 be without it? He cut me short. In a perfectly 

 colourless and even voice, unconscious of plagiarism, 

 he remarked, " There's hair ! " My arguments, un- 

 convincing even to myself (N.B. Always keep your 

 mouth shut when you've missed) came to an abrupt 

 end. Not so the hair nor the great red splashes 

 which besprinkled them. 



" Why, you must have hit him ! " cried Henry, 

 as he saw the blood, experience (he remembered 

 my big ram, the brute !) and incredulous hope 

 struggling in his tone. I said nothing, and wished 

 I had remained silent before. It would have been 

 so much more satisfactory and impressive to have 

 walked quietly up to the grey-brown mass which 

 I could see lying motionless beneath a fir and to 

 have regarded the little hole behind the shoulder 

 as a matter of course. Still I had him, which was 

 the chief thing, and Henry was magnanimous and 

 said nothing. The head was a very pretty one, 

 and as after hanging the dead beast up we glanced 

 around before continuing our goat hunt, I had a 

 sudden presentiment that my luck had really 

 changed. And so it turned out. 



