98 'THE STILL-HUNTER. 



catch sight with your rifle. You have seen plenty of 

 deer to-day, but all going, going, going, glimmering 

 through the dream of things that ought to be. Yet 

 somehow you feel a supreme contempt for the ex- 

 ploit of your friend who last year sat by a salt-lick 

 and bagged two in one night with a shot-gun. You 

 feel rich in a far higher and nobler experience, and 

 feel that to him who has within the true spirit of the 

 chase there is far more pleasure in seeing over a ridge 

 or among the darkening trunks a flaunting flag wave 

 a mocking farewell to hope, than in contemplating 

 a gross pile of meat bagged with less skill than is 

 required to wring a chicken's neck on a moonlight 

 night. 



And you have learned at last the first steps in what 

 is the most important part of hunting very wild deer, 

 and about the last thing about which the tyro is likely 

 to imagine any difficulty; viz., to get sight of a deer at 

 all. 



