198 FORAYS AMONG SALMON AND DEER. 



without any satisfactory results, and we were now al- 

 most lapsing into carelessness, and our hopes of sport 

 beginning to flag, when suddenly our guide dropped 

 to his knees, and a movement of his hand speedily 

 brought Alister and myself into the same position. 

 Carefully raising oar heads and looking in the direc- 

 tion indicated by Gillespie, we perceived the ears of a 

 hind just visible above the outline of a rising ground 

 three hundred yards to our right front. The creature 

 was " wide awake ; " and her ears anxiously pricked 

 forward in our direction, betokened that her suspicions 

 were aroused. In this crouching position we were 

 kept for fully the space of twenty minutes, neither 

 hand nor foot moved, lest we should increase her 

 uneasiness. But just as our limbs began to ache to an 

 almost insupportable degree from the awkwardness 

 of our attitude, the hind's head disappeared as she 

 recommenced feeding. Telescopes were now brought 

 out, and receding a few paces to the shelter of a rock, 

 we commenced observations. The hind's back was still 

 occasionally in full view, but her uneasiness seemed to 

 be removed, and though now and then throwing a 

 hasty glance towards us, she continued her browsing. 

 Presently we detected the points of some horns just 

 appearing above the intercepting ground, showing that 

 other animals were feeding in the rear of the hind. Our 

 object now was to discover whether there were any 

 good heads among them ; and as the ground in front 

 was too open to admit of a nearer approach at present, 

 it was determined that we should remain in our present 

 position, in the hopes that the deer would feed their 

 way into some more favourable locality. In this way 

 nearly an hour was passed. Once or twice horns were 

 detected, but we could not discover whether they were 

 those of large stags, or of the younger ones, called in 



