The Maral Stag 229 



evening after a long round, tired and dispirited 

 with a succession of blank days, I found D. bathed, 

 shaved, and sitting down to dinner ; while, in the 

 light of the fire, propped up in front of him, re- 

 posed a magnificent head, horns heavy, rough, and 

 well pearled, with fourteen white points. " You've 

 had bad luck, Major," he said; "that beast ought 

 to have been yours." D.'s morning had been 

 spent thus. When he and his shikari arrived at 

 the ridge on which I had seen them, they spied 

 in the corrie a very big stag with some hinds. 

 Almost immediately they saw us, and supposed 

 that I was stalking the deer. The latter were, 

 as a matter of fact, hidden from us in a hollow, 

 though we passed close by them. When they 

 saw that we were ignorant of the deers' presence, 

 signals were made; and D., very nobly and gen- 

 erously, sent his shikari round to show me where 

 they were, he himself going back to spy some 

 rocks for ibex. The shikari took some time to 

 get down through the forest, and, of course, found 

 us gone. Then D. returned, saw his shikari be- 

 low, and the deer quite undisturbed. He then 

 followed down, made the stalk with his shikari, 

 and got a running shot. The stag, badly hit, 

 went down to the Gurgan river and eventually 

 dropped dead, and so they got him. But their 

 adventures were not ended. Whilst D. went to 



