A SUCCESSFUL SHOT. 107 



swell, in the distance I saw my friend at a stand-still, 

 evidently anxiously scrutinising my direction. My cap was 

 of a very light colour, so I concluded he did not see me, 

 and my supposition was again correct, for after a few 

 minutes he relaxed his pace, and taming at right angles, 

 walked into a small expanse of dense rushes, interspersed 

 with an occasional stunted willow. In deer-shooting, if 

 you suppose an animal severely wounded, never hurry him; 

 if he once lie down, and you give him time to stiffen, you 

 will not have half the trouble in his ultimate capture that 

 you would have by constantly keeping him on the move. 

 So I practised in this instance ; carefully for ten or fifteen 

 minutes I watched that he did not leave the cover; then 

 having concluded that he had laid down, I quietly lit my 

 pipe and dawdled away an hour more. Deeming that I had 

 granted sufficient law, I renewed operations and pushed 

 forward ; the track was very irregular in length of pace 

 from where he had reduced his gait to a walk, and several 

 times, from want of lifting his feet high enough, he had 

 ploughed the surface of the snow with his toes. An old 

 deer-stalker will know these symptoms, a young one may 

 without harm remember them. Having cautiously followed 

 the trail three parts of the way across the cover, and almost 

 commenced to think I would have done better by waiting 

 half-an-hour longer, the buck jumped up within twenty 

 yards, heading straight from me, when I gave him the 

 contents a second time of the right-hand barrel in the back 

 of his head. 



The distance was too great to remove him home that 

 day, so cutting a branch off a willow, I affixed my hand- 



