THE SWITCH'S DANCE FINALE 55 



Dance," for the gallant fellow who had beaten us 

 for the nonce, and who had led us a merry dance, 

 was a big switch ; but his horns had a good spread, 

 and he was well worth the chase. 



On the llth of September we were out again, 

 and found our switch right on the top of Cairn 

 Slofti. We were lunching about two miles off, 

 a little below and west of the high spying cairn, 

 and Fraser spied what he at first thought was a 

 dead hind, as he could see no horns. However, 

 after repeated inspections during luncheon, he 

 and Ross, who had joined us, came to the con- 

 clusion that what they thought was an ear was 

 the nose of a beast sticking up, in which case the 

 horns would be buried in the ground; so we deter- 

 mined to make a long detour so as not to disturb 

 the ground, and climbed to the top of Cairn Slofti, 

 and there, sure enough was our switch, with his 

 nose in the air and his horns buried in the ground. 

 He was enormously swollen from acute peritonitis, 

 my bullet having hit him rather far back, and of 

 course his venison was useless; but his horns were 

 long with a fair spread, 26 inches, so I determined 

 to keep his head as a memento of a long stalk, 

 easily the record of my stalking career. Sandy 

 removed it and carried it down to the car, a good 

 four miles, on his back. Fraser thought he would 

 have weighed about 15 stone; he certainly was a 

 goodish stag, and a game one to travel as far as 

 he did with such a wound. He was only about 



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