412 WILD SPAIN. 



day ; nor was it expected to be productive, as our beaters 

 on a former drive must have skirted the outer edge of the 

 Eincon. My position was on the brink of a steep sand- 

 slope, perhaps fifty feet in height, its summit level with 

 the tops of the pines in the mancha below. Outside there 

 stretched away open barrens, some small corrales alone 

 serving to break the monotony of utter desolation. Hardly 

 expecting a shot, I was sitting idly under cover of a bushy 

 pine-top which protruded, half-dead, from the verge of the 

 steep descent, when a hind mounted the slope and broke close 

 at hand. This aroused me, and a few seconds later she was 

 followed by two stags — eight-pointers — slowly crossing out 

 over the open, a lovely shot. They were only fifty yards off ; 

 but, owing to the irregular outline of the mancha, my posi- 

 tion was somewhat embayed, and it was necessary to give 

 the stags extra law to clear that part of our line which bent 

 backwards. I watched them traverse nearly fifty yards 

 ere a shot was permissible, and by that time they were 

 partly hidden from view among some slight hummocks. 

 Any dead cistus or remnant of a sand- submerged pine 

 collects around it that shifting substance, and half-hidden 

 amidst these my stags were trotting forward when I gave 

 them my double salute. Both went on, but on emerging 

 from the hummocks, the larger beast was clearly hard-hit, 

 though they continued cantering down the sloping ground, 

 and two more bullets at long range only raised little puffs 

 from the ground beyond. I knew I was sure of this stag ; 

 and a few minutes later a finer beast emerged, the ivory 

 tips of his antlers shining white in the evening sunlight. 

 Him, I resolved, I must have, and never was gun laid on 

 with more intense desire. The distance would be some 

 eighty to one hundred yards, and the stag treated the 

 advent of two bullets with what looked very like indifference, 

 galloping off at top speed, despite a third salute from the 

 express ambushed on my right. I watched him away 

 to the edge of a small corral half a mile off, and in 

 which the two first stags had sought a retreat. But it was 

 all over with him — poor beast, his c6urse was run, and his 

 tracks plainly told the tale to those who could read — 



