M Y FIRST STALK 347 



alongside a half-bred hunter.' Any one of these stalkers 

 can give lumps of weight to an ordinary person and 

 leave him behind, as Donald could have left me on this 

 occasion, ' looking at the infernal view,' as I fancy he 

 mentally expressed it. Eventually he sat down and 

 began to cut up his tobacco, having evidently found 

 out my weak point, and well aware that he would have 

 time to smoke his pipe out before I reached him, and 

 a ten minutes' rest to boot before I could make a fresh 

 start. I shall not easily forget the awful cramps I had 

 in my legs at dinner that night, or the numberless 

 apologies I had to offer for kicking my opposite neigh- 

 bours on the shins, or how nearly I was to kicking 

 over the whole table. However, a glass of cold water 

 gave me relief. 



After coming up with Donald, and a rest, we continued 

 our way, and then commenced what seemed to be an 

 interminable climb, and 1 was forced to stop every few 

 minutes to quiet the beating of my heart and ' mend 

 my pipes.' At last we reached our first spying spot, 

 and before I could pull out my Ross telescope Donald 

 had spotted deer and which way the wind was for us, 

 and with a grunt of approval turned to me, saying, 

 ' There is a good stag lying there amongst that lot of 

 deer under yon rock, and I'm thinking she has a good 

 head of ten points.' In great excitement, but trying 

 to appear cool, and after many explanations as to where 

 to fix my glass, I succeeded after a time in discovering 

 a lot of deer, but for a long time failed to discover the 

 stag ; but when I did, I said, 'Why don't we start at 

 once?' 'She may lie there five hours before Mr. C. 

 will get a chance at her,' Donald replied ; and then he 

 explained how he intended to circumvent 'yon stag,' 



