THE ISLAN 7 D OF HITTEREN 41 



end of the season. A heavy stag had recently been 

 seen on the ground, probably an autumn visitor from 

 the mainland, and I was after him. As it happened, 

 on coming round a knoll on comparatively level 

 ground, in the early morning, and not an hour after I 

 had left the house, I came in sight of a parcel of hinds 

 feeding in an open marsh. With them was a heavy 

 stag, big-bodied, ruffed, a lordly master, evidently the 

 stag I was looking for. The deer had not seen me, 

 were not 400 yards away ; the wind was right. It 

 looked as near a certainty for a successful stalk as 

 anything in the way of deer-stalking can be. 



I spent a few moments in examining the stag 

 through my glass, and saw that he carried an excep- 

 tionally heavy ten-point head ; then laid my plans for 

 an approach, and proceeded to put them into execu- 

 tion. By making a detour of half a mile and then a 

 crawl of 100 yards, I hoped to get within easy range. 



All went well for a time. The final crawl over a 

 bog was in progress. Just over a brow in front of me 

 the deer were calmly feeding in the open flat. I had 

 reached the point of marking a tuft of heather a few 

 yards ahead of me whence I could take the shot, when 

 I heard the rasping bark of a hind on my left. There 

 was a wooded knoll, round which I had come in my 

 detour, on the brow of which a solitary hind, apart 

 from the rest, had been all the time feeding among a 

 few small trees. She was invisible from where I had 

 first seen the deer, and had only come into sight 

 during my final crawl, when my eyes and thoughts 

 were solely intent on the deer in front. 



This objectionable hind had seen me, of course, had 

 then promptly sounded the danger-signal, and away at 

 a gallop went the hinds and the stag in front. 



