126 WILD SPORTS EN THE SOUTH. 



did not intend to turn aside ; he saw his feeding ground 

 beyond, green with the succulent herbage of the low- 

 lands, where his mates had awaited him all the night, and 

 he walked right onward. ISTow he was too near to 

 shoot. What should I do ? If he sees me, he will dash 

 off, giving me the worst possible shot. My heart beat 

 so I could not lay on my side, but raising my gun gently 

 on my left elbow, I depressed the breech, and without 

 taking sight, when the deer was almost over me, pulled 

 the trigger. With the report of my gun the frightened 

 animal sprang into the air as though he had been blown 

 up by a mine, and then dashed off into the woods. He 

 flew over the hills, and just as I had given him up for 

 lost I heard the clear ring of a rifle in the direction he 

 had gone. It was Mike's ; I knew its voice. What a 

 load fell off my mind — the deer was ours ! 



On reaching the place from whence the shot came, I 

 found Mike loading his rifle, and the deer with his 

 antlers ploughed mto the ground by the force of his 

 running fall, and his throat cut. On looking for my shot 

 I readily found it in the breast, and the ball had gone 

 through the thick part of the neck without doing much 

 damage. Mike's had struck him in the head. 



Selecting two small trees that grew from the same 

 root, we lifted our quarry up until his horns caught in 

 the angle, and his body hung down with his back to the 

 tree. Mike then cut the skin in a line from the throat to 

 the tail, and also a transverse line down each foreleg. 

 Then loosening the neck from the skin, he cut it off from 



