262 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



turned and fled away down the ride, and I emptied 

 a third cartridge at an opportune moment, so that 

 there should be no jealousy. We watched those 

 two dogs clear right out of the wood, with their tails 

 very much between their legs, towards a big dell of 

 mine on the boundary. While this dell was being 

 driven in, just before my shoot began, my mate 

 came across a dead dog, and some of the beaters 

 saw it, too. From their description there was little 

 doubt that it was one of the dogs 1 had stung up a 

 few days before a big collie, sheep-dog-goodness- 

 knows- what-else brute. You may be sure that after 

 the shoot I lost no time in going to have a look for 

 myself. There was not much doubt that it was one 

 of my brace. There was a close-range shot-wound 

 in its brain, which gave me a double feeling of 

 relief. 



I heard a great deal more than pleased me about 

 a dog which was found dead, with a swollen head 

 and neck, in a ditch next a fence of wire-netting 

 which marked the boundary between my ground 

 and another keeper's. This dog had been a great 

 nuisance to me, and I had complained about it 

 more than once. To deny to his owner that I had 

 a hand in the dog's death was useless, so I told him 

 that I ought to have dealt with the dog years before, 

 adding that it rested with him to prove that I had 

 done so now. The true cause of the brute's death 

 was a collision with a single strand of wire, and that 



