296 SPORT AND TRAVEL 



less just risen. As I have said, I could only see his 

 head and horns and a bit of his neck, all the rest of 

 him being hidden from view by the fir scrub behind 

 which he was standing. But he was looking straight 

 towards me, and was, I felt sure, alarmed, and might 

 bound off at any moment ; so raising my rifle and aim- 

 ing straight below the portion of his neck I could see, 

 for where I thought his chest ought to be, I fired. I 

 saw that he did not fall to the shot, but jumped away, 

 becoming immediately invisible behind the fir scrub, 

 yet I went towards where he had been standing, feel- 

 ing confident that he was hit, for I thought I had 

 heard the thud of the bullet. 



I soon reached the spot where he had stood when 

 I fired, and looking forwards could see the traces of 

 the first half-dozen of the great bounds he had taken 

 down the hillside. But as far as I could see, the 

 pure white snow was unsullied by the least trace of 

 blood. After all, I thought, I must have made a bad 

 shot and missed a good chance ; and I wished that 

 I had risked disturbing the buck by taking a step 

 forwards after I saw him, and steadying my rifle 

 against the stem of the great fir-tree just in front of 

 me. Still I had thought I was steady enough when 

 I fired, and moreover I believed I had heard the thud 

 of my bullet, but yet there was no blood on the snow ; 

 at least not immediately, nor within twenty yards of 

 where the buck had commenced its headlong flight. 

 Then indeed there was blood enough, and a crimson 



