NEAR MIDDLE RIDGE. 147 



I was naturally chagrined and furious with myself 

 for missing such an easy opportunity and still more for 

 my idiotic performance in allowing myself to change 

 from one stag to the other at the last moment, even 

 though I had not seen the second stag until he broke 

 out almost on top of me, for a bush had screened him 

 entirely. Yet all the time, Wells told me, this animal 

 had really been nearer to me than any of the others. 

 We followed him in rather an unhopeful frame of mind 

 for about half an hour and then returned to look for 

 the first I had fired at. We found him lying by the 

 edge of a little pond. His head was a very fairly good 

 one, though, I think, a little inferior to that of his 

 companion. 



Early next day I climbed a hill to look for the smoke 

 of Wynyard's camp fire, as I imagined it more than 

 likely that by this time he would have moved from the 

 spot at which I had parted from him. This turned out 

 to be the case, for I quickly perceived the smoke rising 

 some ten miles away to the north-east. As far as I 

 could judge he was camped in the woods by Foxy 

 Lead. I determined to rejoin him, hunting on my 

 way, as by striking to the south-east I could still pass 

 through some country that we had not visited. Late 

 in the afternoon, just as we were on the point of turning 

 back, Jack Wells spied a large stag that was feeding, 

 escorted by fifteen does. Still sore from my experience 

 of the previous day, I stalked him carefully to within 

 a distance of something under a hundred yards, when 

 I shot him through the lungs. Afterwards we took his 

 head and that of the stag I had killed on the previous day 

 into Wynyard's camp, where I was delighted to find that 

 my friend had added another nice head to his bag. 



L 2 



