64 NEWFOUNDLAND 



impossible that I had missed him, and so begged for leave 

 to take up the spoor. 



" I can take some tea and go two days, and then I will 

 come up wi' him, if he don't go hard ground," said the old 

 fellow. 



" But what about stags in the meantime, Bob," I sug- 

 gested, as we had only one rifle. This proved unanswerable, 

 so we returned to camp to wait for another monarch of the 

 woods. 



During the day several deer passed the marsh, but it was 

 not till the evening that the sight of another snowy neck 

 and waving horns of a stag coming along the lake side 

 changed the tenour of our thoughts. It was growing dusk, 

 so I could not see the antlers very well, particularly as he 

 kept close along a belt of trees that fringed the marsh. I 

 ran and took up " the position favourable," as Monsieur 

 Alphonse would say. With the stag was a doe who carried 

 large horns with eight points, an unusual number. She 

 came along in front of her lord and master, looking sus- 

 piciously from side to side as she took each step. I thought 

 she would see me as I lay out on the bare moss not loo 

 yards away, but she went by quietly, and as the stag oame 

 on I gave him a shot that looked like a settler. He did 

 not fall, however, but stood again at 200 yards, so I fired 

 again and dropped him quite dead ; the bullet piercing the 

 kidneys, an instantly fatal shot. 



He had nice brows, and was a fair beast, but not such a 

 head as I would have shot had the light been sufficiently 

 good to properly distinguish the animal. But one has to 

 take one's chance sometimes. The first royal I ever shot 

 in Scotland was killed at 200 yards in a failing light, when 

 I could not do more than see he was a large beast. 



