IN SCOTCH DEER-FORESTS 77 



Altnaharra, lying halfway between Lairg and Tongue, 

 on the shores of Loch Naver. It was late in the season, 

 and I had kindly been asked up to help my host kill 

 his last half-dozen stags for the year. I had just 

 returned from a month on our island of Hitteren, 

 where sport with our woodland stags had been good, 

 and, coming fresh from some weeks' use of my 

 favourite double '400 Purdey express rifle in Hitteren 

 woods, I naturally thought to hold my own in an 

 open Sutherland forest, with an experienced stalker 

 to take me up to the deer in the most approved and 

 scientific fashion. 



I had something yet to learn of the mischances of 

 sport. 



The first day on the hill we saw no deer until towards 

 mid- day, when a stag was heard belling on the farther 

 side of a low hill. The rifle, which had not till then 

 been taken from its cover, was soon in my hand, and 

 a short and comparatively easy approach brought us 

 to within 150 yards of the deer, who was obliging 

 enough to walk across an open bog in front of me, 

 broadside on, just as we came into the shot. 



Up to this point all had gone well. The wind was 

 right, the light was good, the stag was a fine shootable 

 beast, and there was I, with my favourite rifle in hand, 

 kneeling on one knee within nice range, intent on 

 having his blood. With the utmost confidence I 

 pressed the trigger, though somehow the rifle did not 

 seem to come up quite right. The bullet whistled 

 harmlessly into space, somewhere near, but not into 

 the stag, who with a bound and then a gallop disap- 

 peared over the brow as my second bullet equally 

 ineffectively sped after him. 



It was obviously a clean miss, and a bad one at that. 



