io8 CHASE OF THE WILD RED DEER 



beyond doubt he has to cope with a wily animal, 

 endowed with great sagacity and peculiar cunning in 

 baffling his pursuers. It happens frequendy that a 

 stag will, as I have before remarked, put up a 

 substitute, and crouch down in his lair. Time after 

 time must the tufters be stopped and brought back 

 on 'heel,' until the quarry is again forced to 

 leave his hiding place. In hunting a deer in the 

 water, too, every faculty of the huntsman is called 

 into action. The distance which a deer will travel 

 along the bed of a river is very great, and unless the 

 hounds are watched and hunted with great care, the 

 point where the animal has ' broken soil ' — that is, 

 left the water — may be missed, and the day's sport 

 destroyed. 



There have been many celebrities among the 

 huntsmen and whips connected with the staghounds 

 of the West. In 1775, Bob Anstey held the horn, 

 while John Slade acted as whipper-in. From 1784 

 to 1794, John Dunscombe was prime minister. He 

 was succeeded by Joe Faulkner, a man never to be 

 forgotten by those who knew him. What veteran 

 stag-hunter of the West does not recall to his 

 recollection the round red face, short thick body, 

 and little ' toddling' legs and waddling gait of Joe ? 

 — his surpassing skill and merit in the field, when he 



