134 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



symptoms whatever of getting along. Instinctively 

 I felt he was going to " jib." 



" We can't get a yard farther, sir," he whispered. 



"Now, Duncan," I replied in the same tone, "I 

 never take a shot at a hundred and fifty yards when 

 I can get one at a hundred and ten. You ought to 

 know that "by this time. Do you see that stone for- 

 ward there," indicating one quite forty yards off 

 " that's where I mean to shoot him from ; so get 

 along, and I'll follow." 



He gave me an appealing look, but I was inexor- 

 able, and off he crawled. It was rather risky, that 

 last forty yards, but he got to the stone all right, and 

 I was soon by his side. Here was the situation : 

 about seventy yards in front of us was a small ravine, 

 say forty yards across, on the other side of which, 

 and exactly opposite us, the stag was feeding, the 

 hinds being some little distance above him. He 

 didn't disappoint us on a closer inspection. I had 

 never seen anything to compare to him. He had 

 a head of only eight points, but these points like 

 the plums in the sailor's pudding weren't " within 

 hail of one another." I've seen "royals" that would 

 have gone comfortably inside his horns. He was 

 making noise for half-a-dozen, roaring continuously; 

 and as he put his head in the air to bellow out his 

 challenge, his horns fell over his arched back, stretch- 

 ing half-way down it reminding me, as it did vividly, 

 of one of Landseer's glorious pictures. After admir- 



