A SLEEPING STAG 77 



and we were ditto, and he whispered to me that 

 he had seen the horns of a beast 50 yards in front 

 of us ! Another of these tragic stumbles instead 

 of a magic stalk. We made a masterly retreat of 

 50 yards as flat as the proverbial serpent, and 

 then ventured on a peep. We found he was alone, 

 and was cosily tucked up behind a rock quite 

 unsuspicious of any danger. Luckily the wind 

 was fairly strong and right ahead of us. Stone and 

 I thought it better to try and get more above him, 

 which we could easily do by crawling back a bit 

 and then creeping up a little hollow; so leaving 

 Susan and Jimmy where we were, we had no 

 difficulty in crawling into position above him 

 and about 50 yards from him. He did not offer 

 at all a nice shot, as he was lying down with his 

 head curled round on to his body apparently 

 asleep, so only his neck was visible to me. I 

 noticed he had a good spread and that he was 

 still in the velvet, so he was very backward. I 

 got a good rest and took very careful aim and got 

 him right in the neck, but he sprang up and ran 

 a few yards, and then rolled over just below us 

 evidently in extremis. We ran down to him and 

 found him on his back still kicking, so I seized 

 him by the horns, and we turned him over and 

 John stuck his knife into his throat to bleed him. 

 Then suddenly John cried, " Look out !" (I had 

 let go of his horns and was standing admiring him), 

 and with the knife sticking in his throat he 



