3 oo SPORTING ADVENTURES 



those sensitive organs to what species of the animal world I 

 belonged, and whether I was friend or foe. I permitted him 

 to stare for a few moments, then brought the gun to my 

 shoulder, but I had scarcely moved my arm before he was oil'. 

 I fired at him as he was disappearing in the undergrowth, 

 giving him both barrels in rapid succession, and when I went 

 to seek him I found him lying dead within one or two hundred 

 yards of where he had vanished from sight. lie was hit with 

 only one buckshot, but that reached a vulnerable part, the end 

 of the spinal column. He would have fallen at once in all 

 probability were it not for the pace at which he was running, 

 and that momentum carried him to where he fall. I gralloched 

 him in a few seconds, and dragged him after me to my original 

 stand, where I resumed my weary sentinel duty. 



After being there half an hour longer I heard the stirring 

 cry of the hounds far in the distance, and this produced a most 

 welcome feeling of animation, for I knew by the clamour that 

 the 'mme was afoot. The chorus sounded exceedingly musical, 



O O / * 



for the echoing hills and forests modulated every tone to a soft 

 silvery strain, and wafted it in so many directions that phantom 

 canine voices seemed to issue from every tree, shrub, and rock. 

 The cries were heard all over the hills, apparently far away, 

 but they soon began to approach, and I became on the alert 

 immediately. In what seemed to be only a period of ten 

 minutes, the chorus swelled into a grand volume that echoed 

 through the forest from end to end, as if hundreds of dogs were 

 giving tongue at the same moment. Onward it rolled like 

 the peals of some organ in a massive cathedral, now far, now 

 near, now here, now there. While listening to it, in the most 

 interested and anxious manner, I was surprised to hear it cease 

 suddenly; and was wondering what could have caused it, when 

 the detonations of several rifles and shot-guns, which came 

 crackling through the forest, gave me the explanation. A few 

 moments later and the hounds emerged on my runway, weary 

 and bedraggled ; and I could see by this that they must have 

 chased more than one deer during their long absence. 



Several of them were missing, and thinking they would 

 soon come up, I waited half an hour or more for them, notwith- 



