198 THE SHOT. 



who brought up the rear were vanishing and in 

 another moment gone. 



And now the change which came over our movements 

 would have indeed astonished a spectator not in the 

 secret ; we had been moving only with the greatest 

 caution for the last hour, we were now racing at full 

 speed, dashing through water and bounding over rocks, 

 indifferent to every obstacle, and intent only for the 

 moment upon the one sole object of each securing his 

 deer. A turret-shaped rock overhung the path down 

 which the herd were slowly winding, and we were not 

 long in reaching it, my light weight telling in my 

 favour I was first at the point, and looking over the 

 edge of the rock, there I saw the deer just beneath me, 

 and within eighty yards. 



Looking round with no little impatience for Alister, 

 I beckoned him to hurry forward, and then singled out 

 the best deer I could see, ready to fire, the moment he 

 should join me. In another instant he was at my side, 

 a pause followed of some forty or fifty seconds and 

 then the rocks on all sides rang with the report of two 

 rifles, and the herd tore madly down the pass leaving 

 behind them two fine fat hinds, which fell dead without 

 a struggle, and slowly rolling down the hill in the wake 

 of the fast disappearing herd, were presently stopped 

 in their course by a projecting rock where both lay 

 lifeless together. We now descended to admire our 

 booty, Gillespie expeditiously relieved the bodies of 

 their intestines, and other parts which should never be 

 suffered to remain in a deer many minutes after death, 

 and then placing them for concealment under a rock, 

 where the gillies would be able to find them, we 

 started for home, a walk of ten miles, well satisfied 

 with the conclusion of the day's sport. 



