THE NAKBADA VALLEY. 63 



pace for a few seconds, and looked round at his wounded 

 flanks, and then, as if remembering that he had not yet put 

 sufficient distance between him and the fatal spot, he would 

 again start forward with renewed energy. The two does, 

 as is generally the case when the buck is wounded, had 

 gone off in a different direction ; and were now standing on 

 the plain, a few hundred paces from where I stood, gazing 

 wistfully from me to their wounded lord. Such are the scenes 

 that touch the heart of even the hardest deer-stalker, and for 

 a moment I almost wished my right hand had been cut off 

 ere I pulled trigger on this the loveliest of God's creatures. 



" When he dwindled before the naked eye till he seemed 

 as a black speck on the far horizon, I still continued to watch 

 him through my glass, in the hope that he might lie down 

 when he thought himself concealed, in which case I might 

 steal in and end his troubles by another shot. Suddenly I 

 saw him swerve from his course, and start off in another 

 direction at full speed. Almost at the same instant a puff 

 of smoke issued from a small bush on the plain the buck 

 staggered and fell, and many seconds afterwards, the faint 

 report of a gunshot reached my ears." 



The person who came to my aid in so timely a fashion 

 was a native sportsman, whom I then saw for the first time. 

 He was more like the professional hunter, of the American 

 backwoods than any other native of India I have ever met. 

 His short trousers and hunting-shirt of Mhowa green dis- 

 played sinewy limbs and throat of a clear red brown, little 

 darker than the colour of a sun-burnt European. An upright 

 carriage and light springy step marked him out as a roamer 

 of the forests from youth upwards ; and the English double- 

 barrelled gun, and workman-like appointments of yellow 

 sambar leather, looked like the genuine sportsman I soon 



