210 HUNTING CAMPS. 



successful, only five stags being seen during our whole stay, 

 two of them on our way back to the river. Hardy spied 

 the best of these and generously insisted that I should go 

 after it. However, I was only in time to see it dash away 

 while I was still at some distance, but from the glimpse I 

 had of its horns I think it would hardly have been worth 

 shooting. 



As soon as we reached the river we began to hunt in 

 different directions, and on the third day Hardy killed a 

 pretty head. One afternoon, having left our men in camp, 

 Hardy and I walked to the look-out near which I had shot 

 my first stag. It was a very hot afternoon, the woods 

 filled with a summer-like stillness. We were lying half 

 asleep, and keeping a very desultory watch upon the country, 

 when along a little bare ridge about half a mile away a big 

 stag with an enormous brow antler walked into view and 

 lay quietly down on the highest part of the hillock. The 

 wind was blowing straight from the stag to us, and soon 

 our two telescopes had taken stock of him and we were 

 comparing notes. We agreed that he was worth shooting. 

 Between us and the stag, however, the trees grew very 

 thickly, and the hummock on which he was lying was one 

 of many, so that once we had descended from the look-out 

 it would have been difficult to locate him had it not been 

 for a single gaunt pine, long dead, which towered above 

 the level of the forest about equally distant from us and 

 from him, and this, we hoped, would act as a landmark. 

 Towards it we made our way, but the woodland was so 

 dense that we soon lost sight of it, and so, in addition to 

 the caution necessary to prevent the noise of our passage 

 reaching and alarming the stag, we could catch sight of 

 nothing to give us our bearings, until I imagined I recog- 

 nised the guiding pine. But unluckily I was mistaken, and 

 consequently we came out of the timber nearly two hun- 

 dred yards too far to the west. 



