192 THE ROE-DEER 



amid the long yellow grasses. It was too far for a 

 shot, so descending the hill we crept on in an 

 endeavour to gain the shelter of a farther knoll. 

 There are two great enemies of the stalker on this 

 kind of ground the wind and the long grass. 

 The former nearly always those "baffling 

 mountain eddies " which chop and change so 

 unexpectedly gives him away at the most ticklish 

 moments and in the most uncompromising manner ; 

 the latter, tall, dry and brittle, is as confusing to 

 his sight as it is deceitful to his footsteps, for while 

 perplexing to the one its dry unmistakable crackle 

 alarms the game at almost as great a distance as 

 the scrunching of frozen snow. 



So it was in the present case. We gained the 

 knoll and peered through the waving tops. The 

 little glade was empty ; we mournfully descended 

 into the valley, and that finished Act II. 



Like all good comedies though I pictured a 

 tragedy in my lighter moments there was a third 

 act. Again I climbed the hill, again I waited ; 

 and yet again on the succeeding day. An 

 immature and guileless stripling thrust himself 

 repeatedly in my path and practically asked to be 

 killed ; a one-horned veteran allowed me to 

 approach within one hundred and fifty yards ; but 

 I was firm. It was my own particular buck or his 

 equal which alone would tempt me to dye my 

 hands in gore, and the stripling and the veteran 

 were alike spared. 



Yet I saw him again. It was the evening before 

 we broke camp. Saddened and resigned to his 

 loss, I was returning down the hill. It had been a 

 perfect day, diamond weather and overhead " the 



