254 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. 



rels, and watched narrowly to see if he was hit. The ground 

 was level for a short way, and no abatement of his speed was 

 perceptible ; but as soon as he began to climb the hill, a 

 labouring motion at once told that one of us had wounded 

 him. Without stopping to load, I ran to see if there was 

 blood upon the grass, and when thus engaged, the hound, 

 which had recovered the track, came up full cry. I had no 

 choice left but to breast the hill, and, if possible, keep within 

 sound of the dog. Panting and breathless, I could hear the 

 bay more and more distant, and was just beginning to fear 

 that the fox's object was the savage ravines of Glen Douglas, 

 when it ceased on a sudden. Encouraged by the hope that 

 he might be run down, I redoubled my exertions, and after 

 scrambling a mile and a half from where I fired, saw the 

 hound at check, at the top of the pine-wood where it joins the 

 heather. I made several unsuccessful casts above ; and then, 

 thinking that, unable to climb the hill, he had returned to the 

 shelter of the wood, I was making a circle below, when he 

 sprang out of the heather, not thirty yards off, and ran straight 

 down the hill, his lagging and staggering gait showing that 

 he had got his death-wound. I would now have given a 

 good deal had my gun been loaded ; but not a moment was 

 to be lost, as the hound viewed the fox, and was again full 

 cry. I dashed over stock and stone, but it was not long 

 before there was another pause in mid career. When I came 

 up, the ground was perfectly bare, not a furze-bush to cover 

 a rat, and the hound completely at fault. I had just taken 

 out my powder-flask to load, when, from no other concealment 

 than the bare stem of a fallen fir-tree, the fox a second time 

 burst out, as fair a shot as I could wish. The hound was 

 close to his brush, so back went my powder-flask into my 

 pocket, and I rushed down the steep with reckless despera- 

 tion. The bay became fainter and fainter ; my head grew 

 dizzy : I had run a distance of three miles on one of the 

 steepest hills in Scotland, and had just given up hope of an- 



