292 RECENT HUNTING TRIPS. 



the water, I fired at and hit him exactly in the 

 middle of the shoidder. My hullet, as I found 

 out afterwards, went right through him, break- 

 ing both shoulders, but it must have missed 

 his heart, as it did not kill him. 



Directly I fired, dropping the big stag on the 

 spot, his two companions came trotting past me 

 on the one side, whilst the herd came close up 

 to where I was sitting. I coimted them and 

 found they numbered twenty-six altogether, two 

 of them being 3'oung stags, and all the rest does 

 and last year's fawns ; so that with the thi'ee 

 big stags the herd had consisted of twenty-nine 

 animals altogether. 



On walking up to examine my prize, which 

 I thought was dead, he gave a tremendous 

 heave with his hind legs, which were uninjured, 

 and threw himself off the steep bank, on the 

 edge of which he had been lying, on to 

 the ice below, through which he crashed, and 

 then, with a series of plunges, broke his waj'' 

 some twenty yards out into the lake. I then 

 killed him with a bullet through the lungs, and 

 Smart got out to the carcase with the help of 



