272 A SAD FINISH. 



the carbine. We saw that the latter had broken his fore lee- 

 and that he was evidently hard hit besides ; he stood holding 

 his broken leg in the air, but struggled on again down the 

 hill. I gave him another couple of shots, one of these I saw 

 went over his back. He had got a good way down by this 

 time and was very much crippled. However, Francis handed 

 me another rifle and asked me to " maro," so I fired two 

 more shots, one struck just in front of him, the other we 

 heard strike ; he was now apparently quite done for, so I 

 said it was no use firing any more and hastened down. As 

 I turned a corner I heard a rattling of stones, and to my 

 intense dismay saw this splendid antlered stag rolling like 

 a large rock down the side of the mountain over crag and 

 precipice ; now bounding into the air, now disappearing over 

 a rock to be seen again far below amidst a shower of stones 

 and dust. Oh, dear ! oh, dear ! he will not have a bit of 

 antler left, and he won't stop till he gets down into the low 

 country ! It certainly looked as if he would never stop 

 rolling, but fortunately a slight ridge stopped him quite 

 on the edge of the last precipice. If he had got over this 

 he would have gone right down ; as it was he fell nearly 

 a thousand feet. We followed his track down and picked 

 up two pieces of antler. When we got to him we found 

 his head smashed to pieces, so much so that one of the 

 eyes was in the brain, and there was nothing but the stumps 

 of his glorious antlers left. Five shots had struck him. 

 We hunted up his track again and found five pieces of 

 antler including the two upper tines, but there was a great 

 deal wanting and from the appearance on the rocks I think 

 some parts of the horns must have been pounded to dust. 

 He was a very fat stag, so after taking what we could carry 



