ANE CD GTE OF LA TE L ORD LOVAT 309 



now, however, most of the best heads are at once 

 picked off, partly owing to the very great improve- 

 ments in rifles, and the way the deer are circumvented. 

 As is well known, the late Lord Lovat was for 

 fifteen years after a stag called ' Square Toes ' before 

 he succeeded in getting a shot at it. Like many of his 

 kind, this old stag was possessed of an extraordinary 

 amount of cunning, and although seen constantly with 

 hinds he always contrived to disappear when they were 

 moved in the most unaccountable way. At last, at the 

 end of fifteen years, while Lord Lovat and his men 

 were spying the ground, they saw the stag and hinds 

 moving towards a hill, but when the deer got to the 

 sky-line the hinds alone appeared to cross over it ; the' 

 stag had again vanished, and had apparently left them 

 as usual. The old stalker took his glass down and 

 shut it up with a slap in disgust, and Lord Lovat 

 resigned himself to his usual fate. Amongst the gillies 

 there was one of them who was a new hand, and he 

 had also been spying the deer with the rest of them, 

 and he very bashfully remarked that one of the hinds 

 going over the sky-line appeared to have three ears. 

 The old stalker, overhearing it, exclaimed to an under- 

 keeper, ' What is it yon lad says to you ?' On the 

 remark'^eing repeated the old fellow jumped for joy, 

 and turning to Lord Lovat he said, ' My lord, yon 

 stag is with the hinds ; we'd better be going.' Lord 

 Lovat, not having distinctly heard the above conversa- 

 tion, was at a loss to understand how the old man 

 could tell that the stag was with the hinds, for they 

 had all seen the deer cross over the sky-line without 

 any stag. The knowing old stalker had, however, at 

 once grasped the whole situation, and how it was they 



