60 MY SPORTING HOLIDAYS 



August morning in the corn. In the hall of our 

 island lodge was a fourteen-point head belonging to 

 our landlord that surpassed anything yet obtained by 

 us on Hitteren, and the sight of which had always 

 made my mouth water, so to speak, and my heart 

 long for such another trophy to take back home 

 across the North Sea. 



Occasionally in past seasons we had tried a stalk or 

 a drive in the great mainland glens and on the wooded 

 hillsides opposite our island of Hitteren, but hitherto 

 without success. The size and nature of this main- 

 land country, with its roughness and density of cover, 

 where the stock of red-deer was comparatively small, 

 had hitherto foiled all our efforts even to get a shot at 

 one of these same old stags. We were almost inclined 

 to give it up as a hopeless task. It seemed like the 

 proverbial search for the needle in the haystack. 



Combined with a perfect knowledge of the mountain 

 glens, with their shifting winds, where they were 

 born and bred, these old stags of the Throndhjem 

 Amt possessed a cunning of the first order and 

 of the most refined description. The sseter girl 

 could occasionally see one quietly feeding when she 

 was going out with the cows in the morning. The 

 native without a gun, and not thinking of deer, at 

 times would jump a stag from his mid-day couch, and 

 count every point of his horns before the owner of 

 them vanished. But for the hunter with the rifle 

 nothing but game- signs seemed ever visible. The 

 stag was never found where he was expected to be, 

 or else he had chosen his lair between two winds with 

 such artfulness that approach and view were well- 

 nigh impossible. 



We had tried a drive or two at times. Either the 



