358 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



was not of his opinion ; urging that a stag, wounded as 

 this one was, would not seek the high ground ; and I did 

 not believe, lame as he was, that he could get up the 

 steep bank where Hans believed he had seen fresh traces. 

 That he sought the water was, I contended, quite natural ; 

 and, had he not been disturbed by the peasant, would 

 either have remained near the stream, or following its 

 course have got lower down into the wood at the foot of 

 a neighbouring mountain. 



It was too late however to continue our search that 

 day, so we turned homewards. At the hat we found two 

 more keepers, who had stopped there for the night on 

 their way to some distant hills to look after the game, 

 and, if possible, drive it from the border. As we sat 

 over the fire that evening the whole affair was again 

 rehearsed, from the moment of firing the first shot till 

 we had lost all traces of the wounded animal ; and many 

 a sagacious question was put by one or the other relating 

 to something seemingly unimportant, but from which, in 

 reality, useful information might be educed. It would, 

 I think, have interested even one of the uninitiated to 

 have heard the various opinions as to where the stag 

 should be sought, with the reasons on which they were 

 founded ; based as these opinions were not only on an 

 attentive observation of the habits of red-deer generally, 

 but on the habits also of certain well-known individuals 

 among them. 



" If it is the stag which, from the description of the 

 antlers, I think it is," said Franz, one of the jager who 

 had joined us in the hut, " then I have no doubt he is 

 gone back again whence he came, and is in the low wood 

 on the hill-side. All last summer that was the ground he 

 kept to : I have often seen him, and know him well. He 

 has short antlers, but very thick : he is a stag of ten, but 



