Antlers 



with a half-light from a segment of a moon, we 

 spent two hours in stumbling up the stony bed 

 of a nullah, which was eventually replaced by a 

 sambhar-run which led up to a knife-edge saddle 

 some two miles distant. The moon proved of 

 little use as soon as we entered the lower part 

 of the forest, and the wind was so piercing that 

 one could scarcely feel one's numbed fingers 

 as one endeavoured to make use of them to aid 

 one on that upward climb. The shikari with the 

 rifle led on without a falter. The tribe seem 

 to be possessed of the sight of the night denizens 

 of the jungle, for they certainly see as well. 

 We had climbed half up the slope when a sudden, 

 short, frightened bark or bell almost in the 

 shikari's face startled us. We had run into a 

 sambhar coming down the path from the opposite 

 direction, and the rapid beat of its hoofs proclaimed 

 its equal fright at the encounter, though in the 

 tenebrian darkness we could distinguish nothing. 

 I heard the shikari grumbling to himself over the 

 mischance, and mischance it proved to be as we 

 afterwards found, for a subsequent examination 

 of the tracks proved the beast to be the very one 

 we were after. Their size was too well known 

 in that part of the hills to leave any room for 

 doubt. At the time I did not dream of its being the 

 old stag. I was only annoyed at the thought that 

 the beast might have startled the big one if he 

 were in the neighbourhood. On reaching the 



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