214 HIGHLAND SPORT 



to be mine that day, so I started with Angus forthwith for 

 the spot indicated. On arriving at our destination, after spying 

 the deer, we found the lad's stags were all hinds, for not a horn 

 could be seen in the lot ! Angus having duly blessed that boy, 

 informed me there remained nothing else to do but gain the 

 heights above us, and work our beat towards home, and thus, 

 as there was nothing to be seen, by two o'clock our ground 

 was exhausted, and I was hastening back to the Lodge for 

 an afternoon with Dyke on the loch. Just on reaching 

 home, we saw a figure cross the sky-line of the hill in front, 

 which the glass showed to be Patcham's gillie bounding down 

 with hasty strides ; he was soon with us, when we learnt 

 from him that " Mr. Patcham was just aal wrang the morn," 

 for he had missed two good beasts, while about an hour since 

 he had " haunched " a third, a fine ten-pointer, which had made 

 ofi as if intending to cross into the next forest. 



Patcham with his stalker was therefore some four miles 

 away, awaiting the gillie's return with the dog " Cruachan." 

 Now this animal was no magnificently highly bred deer-hound, 

 but simply an enormous rough-coated St. Bernard, with a 

 wonderful nose, which made him a perfect tracker of a 

 wounded deer, while, moreover, his pace was so good that 

 no injured stag, if shown to him not more than a few hundred 

 yards off, could live in front of him, and, unlike most deer- 

 hounds, Cruachan would kill a stag quickly when once along- 

 side of him. Telling the gillie to go for the dog, we said 

 we would accompany him, and in a few minutes the four of 

 us were climbing the steep hill-side at our best pace, while 

 Angus having handed me Cruachan's lead to catch hold of, 

 he strained at it to such a degree: that he almost trotted me 

 up to the summit. Once there, we started at a double, soon 

 to reach the disconsolate Patcham with his equally depressed 

 attendant. The former received me grumpily enough, although, 

 while we hastened to where the wounded stag was last seen, a 

 few energetic remarks were whispered to me, distributing the 



