12 MY SPORTING HOLIDAYS 



and looked back a fatal pause, as it happened, for 

 himself. I sat down on a convenient log, and took a 

 last desperate sight full over his shoulder, and pressed 

 the trigger. All I could see was the upper part of 

 his back and his head turned inquiringly in our 

 direction. Through the smoke of the shot we used 

 5 drachms of black powder in those days I fancied 

 I saw him fall, but was not certain. Eric, a little 

 behind and on one side, saw nothing. We clambered 

 slowly up the steep f jeld, not too hopeful of the result, 

 arrived at the spot, and found nothing. Eric looked 

 gloomy. I felt savage and depressed. We hunted 

 for his track along the fjeld, but could not find it. I 

 returned as near as I could to the spot where the stag 

 had last stood, and peered down through the trees 

 into the valley beneath. What was that reddish- 

 brown object 150 yards below ? I pointed it out to 

 Eric. We moved a little for a clearer sight, and 

 there, to our delight, lay the stag, stone-dead, at the 

 foot of the steep hillside. The Hitteren natives in 

 those days had hardly realized the powers of modern 

 express rifles, and it was only after we had plunged 

 downhill and examined the dead stag that Eric 

 grasped the fact that only my last lucky shot had 

 struck the deer. It had pierced his head from cheek- 

 bone to eye. He had fallen stone-dead, and rolled 

 from top to bottom of the steep fjeld, fortunately 

 without injuring the fine eleven-point head he carried. 

 It may be remarked that the three foregoing inci- 

 dents all relate to stags of eleven points. The number 

 of points might have been varied in one at least of 

 these three incidents, for the sake of artistic effect 

 and to avoid monotony. But as a matter of stern, 

 uncompromising fact all three stags were eleven- 



