MY FIRST STAG AND SOME OTHERS 13 



pointers. Among the 150 stags or thereabouts that I 

 have killed from first to last on Hitteren were many 

 nine, ten, and eleven-pointers, but only two full 

 royals. 



How these lucky shots dwell in one's memory ! 

 for they give success and secure a fine trophy at the 

 very moment when failure and disappointment seem 

 to threaten. Let us change the scene to a well-known 

 deer-forest hi Inverness- shire, where I had the good 

 fortune some years ago to kill eighteen stags in ten 

 days' stalking, thanks to the kindly hospitality of my 

 friend Colonel W. Walker, M.P. The finest head that 

 I there obtained that season a splendid royal was 

 the result of an equally lucky shot. I was shooting 

 with a *400 double express by Purdey that has been 

 my favourite rifle during recent years for red-deer. 

 The scene was a far-away glen in the wild country 

 bordering on Glen Affaric, where I had been sent to 

 a shepherd's house for a couple of nights by my host 

 to stalk an outlying part of his forest. On the way 

 up the day before I had been lucky enough to get 

 three fair stags, and also to kill a ten-pound salmon in 

 the Beauly River before starting. 



It had been a long and exhausting day, and next 

 morning I tried the trout in the neighbouring loch for 

 an hour after breakfast, partly for rest and change of 

 occupation. Alec, the stalker, had been spying the 

 neighbouring hills, and soon came to tell me he had 

 seen a good stag. Away went all thoughts of trout 

 and fishing, and a mile walk brought us within a few 

 hundred yards of the deer. I wanted to put the glass 

 on the stag, but Alec, for reasons of his own, would 

 not have it. The deer were restless, he said, and I 

 was hustled away for the final crawl along a rocky 



