36 MY SPORTING HOLIDAYS 



the next and last visit to Helgebostad I stationed 

 myself behind a convenient rock in the centre of the 

 island, with an open bog behind me and another open, 

 heathery space of hillside in front. All round, in a 

 great semicircle, were the dense birch-woods the men 

 were quietly walking through. The drive progressed, 

 and not a deer did I see for an hour or more. 

 Presently Eric appeared on the far horizon, beyond 

 the immediate open hillside in front. The drive was 

 nearly over, and I thought the big stag whose tracks 

 I had previously seen must again have gone wrong. 

 Then a stray hind ran out of the woods in front of 

 Eric and made a detour past him and back to the 

 cover that had been driven. Then to my ears, as 

 I sat disconsolate, came the unmistakable welcome 

 sound of a heavy deer stepping through wet marsh. 

 It was behind me. I turned in time to see a splendid 

 stag quietly making his way over the bog behind, 

 and not 100 yards distant, to the thick woods on the 

 other side of the island. This crafty old stager had 

 doubled back past the drivers, and was crossing to the 

 thick cover near where the drive had started. We 

 had fairly outwitted him, as much by luck as good 

 management, for I expected and had laid plans for 

 him in front of me, and not behind. He never 

 reached his point, for the next moment a half-inch 

 leaden expanding bullet finished his career. He 

 proved to be a twenty-five-stone stag, with a very 

 heavy ten-point head. 



The heads of the two stags whose killing is above 

 described were among the trophies I took back with 

 me to Havn a week or so later, vainly thinking that 

 one, at least, would prove the master Hitteren head of 

 that year. In the hall of the Hotel Christopher I 



