220 HUNTING CAMPS. 



his horn. As I had taken the one hundred yards sight, 

 both the white and black of it, the fact that I had found 

 the range was one of the luckiest of chances. The head, 

 too, pleased me very much, for though not a handsome 

 one, as the stag was past his prime, its curious shape and 

 its weight made it valuable. Above all, both of us felt 

 that the long run of blank days was at last broken. 



While we were skinning out the head and cutting up 

 the meat a heavy cloud spread over the sky, and a cold 

 and rainy wind blew up through the trees. Evidently 

 we were in for a thunder-shower, and such are often 

 particularly severe in Newfoundland. We therefore 

 hurried the work and were soon on our way to camp. 

 I was leading, but I found myself every now and then 

 looking back with deep satisfaction at the head and 

 horns that Jack was carrying on his shoulders. We 

 arrived just as the storm burst. In descriptions storms 

 almost always break with " a rattle and a roar." In 

 this case it actually did so. First came a blast of wind, 

 tearing off branches and uprooting dead trees ; the blast 

 was followed by deluges of rain and hail. We hurried 

 in beneath our lean-to and tried to start a fire, but the 

 attempt was useless. In the event our failure proved 

 fortunate, for, believing that the fury of the storm and 

 the stinging of the hailstones would probably move any 

 stag that happened to be in an exposed situation, I left 

 Jack struggling with the match-box and walked out to 

 the edge of the thicket with my rifle. 



The hailstones were pelting into the river like bullets, 

 beating up little spurts of water, and it was not possible 

 to see more than a few yards. At length, by degrees, 

 the hail ceased, or rather turned to a soft rain, and the 

 long vista of the river came into view. One glance 



