THE ISLAND OF HITTEREN 



35 



500 Henry express, the stag, shot through the heart, 

 plunged madly down the brae towards us, and the next 

 moment fell dead almost at our feet as we ran for- 

 ward. He carried one of the finest heads of my col- 

 lection, a twelve-pointer, but not a royal, for the tops 

 were not properly cupped, while a separate third horn, 

 or single point, grew out of the forehead just below 

 the burr of the main antler. 



\Ve sportsmen of Hitteren were as jealous of one 

 another's trophies in those days as young mothers of 

 their respective first offspring, and my heart grew 

 light as I gazed at the stag at my feet. ' That's a 

 head will take a lot of beating/ thought I, as our 

 approaching gathering at Havn and comparing of the 

 season's trophies came to my mind. But I was 

 destined to be disappointed, as will shortly be related. 

 Besides this particular head, I had some very good 

 ten and eleven pointers already secured that season, 

 and I felt fairly confident of making a good show 

 among my brothers of the rifle. One in particular, 

 a very heavy ten -pointer, came from the little island 

 of Helgebostad, at the mouth of the Strom Fjord. 

 This island, perhaps a mile in diameter, was for the 

 most part densely covered with birch-wood, and stalk- 

 ing there was a very chancy and almost impossible 

 business. So once a week we used to drive it, and 

 at first the stags invariably went wrong. Their ideas 

 of the route to take when disturbed by Eric and his 

 men differed radically from our own. 



On the occasion of the last failure I had gone back 

 with Eric after the drive and tracked a very heavy 

 stag, and thus ascertained that he had broken back 

 over the open centre of the island while we had vainly 

 waited for him in the thick woods by the sea. On 



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