THE SWITCH'S DANCE SCHERZO 53 



They were on a small plateau, and I could only 

 see the body of our evasive friend, as his legs were 

 below the surface of the plateau; but it was get- 

 ting late, and he was broadside on, and the hinds 

 were suspicious, so I fired, and evidently hit him, 

 as he gave a great kick and seemed about to fall, 

 when he slowly began to move off after the rest, 

 and away they went for a bit, uncertain, and not 

 very fast, loth to desert their lord, who was 

 travelling very slowly. However, we could never 

 quite get near him; he kept moving on round the 

 big basin at the foot of the Hare Hill, deserted 

 now by all except the small fellow, who kept 

 butting him on with his horns ; if we had had more 

 time and light, of course, we would have given 

 him time and lain concealed, but it was getting 

 dark and it was a race against time. Finally 

 even the little fellow deserted him, but he struggled 

 on, and now turned up between the Hare Hill 

 and the sanctuary and escaped into the darkness at 

 8 o'clock. Sickening to lose him after a seven- 

 hours stalk, and more sickening to know that 

 he would die in agony in a few hours. However, 

 it was so dark it would have been impossible to 

 see to shoot, and so, sadty and sorrowfully, we 

 had to turn our footsteps homewards, especially 

 as we had separated, Fraser having left me the 

 last few minutes to dash on alone and see if he 

 could get near enough to finish him. I waited 

 about a quarter of an hour for him, and then 



