THAT MAINLAND STAG 61 



stag was not on that particular hillside on that 

 particular occasion though he had been there yester- 

 day, and would be there probably to-morrow or else 

 he went calmly back through the drivers who threw 

 their sticks at him with a prescience of the hidden 

 danger in front that was almost uncanny. 



But hope springs eternal in the human breast, and 

 on receipt of Ole's message we determined, in spite 

 of past failures, on another mainland campaign. 

 Accordingly, on one fine September morning a day 

 or two later the writer was deposited about mid- day 

 on the shores of a large lake some two miles inland, 

 over the fjord from Hitteren, and close to the old 

 saeter already mentioned, with three days' food- 

 supplies of sorts, a trout-rod, and a rifle, and also with 

 a fixed determination somehow to compass the death 

 of the royal stag. 



One of our best Hitteren stalkers accompanied me, 

 and the same afternoon we undertook a preliminary 

 stalk up the steep hillside above the saeter towards 

 the head of the glen in which our old friend was 

 wont to lie. Upwards we went for 1,000 feet or 

 more through pine and birch, carefully scanning 

 every likely-looking thicket and glade for the tell-tale 

 yellow -brown patch of hair that would betoken the 

 animal we were after. Presently, as luck would have 

 it, we came to a pine-covered ridge, beyond which 

 was a comparatively open flat, and beyond that, again, 

 some 200 yards away, a thickly -wooded hillside, that 

 terminated in the open, heathery fjeld. It was the 

 head of the glen already mentioned. Just at this 

 moment a mountain mist had descended on the tops, 

 and was beginning to obscure our view. 



' Daniel,' said I, handing him my binoculars, ' what 



