34 SHORT STALKS 



snow ; but it was impossible to get nearer tlian a quarter 

 of a mile. We had left Benjamin at the point where we 

 had refound them, with instructions to hold them with the 

 glass. Once he thought they had discovered us, for all 

 their heads went up together ; but, turning his glass 

 towards the quarter at which they were looking, he 

 discovered the cause in a laroe boar snoutino- about the 

 scrub. In the meanwhile there was nothinsf for it Init to w^ait 

 till they fed into a more accessible place. This they at 

 length did, feeding down the stream till a friendly shoulder 

 hid them. Then we jumped up and ran along the liill as 

 quickly as our stiffened limbs could travel, till we got 

 right above them. The supreme moment seemed to have 

 arrived. They were cjuietly feeding through some tall 

 niacquia towards a clearing. We slid down a hollow 

 which faced this opening, and waited seventy yards 

 from it. First came a suspicious old ewe gazing about. 

 Now they were all in the open exce23t the big one. Last 

 of all he trotted out, and turned to graze on the edge of a 

 steep bank, the whole length of his broad back exposed to 

 us. What a grand trophy he will make set up in AYard's 

 best style ! It was just the loveliest chance I ever saw, 



and after such a stalk too ! I whispered to F to 



take him so. There was a crash of lead on splintered 

 rock — twenty l)0unds, and he was gone. Alas that the 

 minute treml)ling of some superfluous erratic nerve should 

 squander all that labour, forethought, endurance, and 

 science I We]], J know whereabouts he is, and — I hope 

 to look him up again some day. 



It would be extremelv interestino- to me, 1)ut I fear 

 tedious for the reader, to describe other stalks, successful 



