n 4 SPORT AND TRAVEL 



beat high with hope, for I made sure that the stag 

 would not be far behind them; but he never appeared, 

 nor did I see him again, for that day at least. The 

 cunning beast, with a sagacity that outweighed his 

 chivalry, had realised, when my bullet whizzed past 

 him, that danger threatened ; and so instead of follow- 

 the ladies of his harem, had left them to do as they 

 pleased, and gone off along the side of the hill by 

 himself. There was nothing more to be done. The 

 night was closing in, and we still had a long tramp 

 back to camp, so dispirited, dejected, and disappointed, 

 I trudged wearily home behind my guide, " la mort 

 dans Tame," as the French say. 



By this time I knew the mountain well, and re- 

 quired no guide to take me about or bring me back to 

 camp, so I determined to try my luck on the following 

 day unaccompanied by a native hunter. I was up be- 

 fore the sun on the morning of Oct. 19, 1894, and 

 was early in that part of the mountain where we had 

 first heard the big stag roar the previous day ; but the 

 sombre pine forests were silent, and I neither saw nor 

 heard anything the livelong day, though late in the 

 afternoon I came across a small clearing surrounded 

 by rocks and pine-trees, where a combat had evidently 

 taken place between two big stags on the previous 

 night, as their splayed-out hoofs had cut deep grooves 

 in the ground, and in one place I found a good deal of 

 blood sprinkled about. On my way back to camp in 

 the evening, and when still some three miles distant 



