60 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. 



then to look and listen, kept perfectly motionless, and I was 

 first made aware that my comrade had turned their flank 

 by the united eyes and ears of the listeners being raised in 

 the same direction. Instantly aware of their danger, they 

 marched with deliberate caution round the base of the hillock 

 on the other side of which was the gun, and again were safe 

 from the snare. Sharper-eared than Indians, they had heard 

 stealthy footsteps on the crusted snow, and fairly circumvented 

 their pursuers by this masterly double. The snow which had 

 revealed them made amends by being the abettor of their 

 escape ; and it seemed as if the white carpet spread on the 

 mountain by the skies disdained to have its purity sullied by 

 the red blood of the victims which itself had betrayed. 



Scarcely had the three roes flitted from the high ground 

 above me, when the keeper and retrievers rose from the 

 hollow underneath. His hawk eye had caught a glimpse of 

 the guns on the hillside, and seen that we avoided the passes ; 

 and, profiting by this discovery, he had followed in the wake, 

 until he too perceived the cause. Unable, however, to find 

 out our plan of approach, he had prudently kept himself and 

 dogs in hiding until the deer made their wary exit. 



A better illustration of the power to compel success which 

 knowledge of the sport gives the roe-hunter, I have seldom 

 had the pleasure to record. Here were three men left entirely 

 to their own resources, and none of them made the slightest 

 mistake. At parting, they all made sure that their game had 

 taken shelter in the wood. These deer at first were half a 

 mile distant from the nearest gun, and yet all three hunters, 

 though far separated, detected them and marked their last 

 dodge, while they themselves had no idea that even one spy 

 had witnessed their cunning. 



The short winter day was fast wearing out, but the pur- 

 suers' hopes were as strong as ever. The roes had been 

 scarcely able to feed all the forenoon, and they no doubt felt 

 confident that the last clever trick on the hill-peak had fairly 



