43 CHAPTER VI. 



a better or more perfect pull-off in my life, but I'll be hanged if I 

 thought about the necessity for getting that front sight down into 

 the very bottom of the V, and the consequence was once more, just 



over. 



The Chief fired after I had done my worst and broke the back of 

 his beast, a fine stag which afterward dressed over 200 pounds. But 

 you could not spoil my temper that way. The climb and the stalk, 

 the feeling of new and vigorous life that was crowding all through 

 me, made me a hard man to make angry. There was so much good 

 in the worst of what I was getting, that it was impossible to make 

 me complain. 



We made the climb down the balance of the cliff and the men 

 attended to the stag, which they then dragged over to the pony path, 

 and down this we walked the six miles which intervened between us 

 and the Lodge. 



That night at dinner the Chief said to me; "I have to motor down 

 to the Castle tomorrow (this meant fifty-eight miles to his home 

 estate). It is Friday. You can come with me if you like, spend 

 Sunday comfortably at the Castle and then take part in a grouse drive 

 to which a friend of mine has invited you for Monday. We can come 

 back Tuesday and stalk again Wednesday. Or you can stay here if 

 you like, and stalk tomorrow, Saturday. If you do that I shall 

 probably come back Sunday night. Of course we do no shooting here 

 on Sunday, nor fishing. My Scotchmen are very devout and believe in 

 respecting the Sabbath. You do just what you like." 



I decided to stay, rather than lose three days of stalking. The 

 incident was typical of my host's attitude toward me. I suppose, being 

 eternal, these hills were here before his ancestors, but not long before, 

 I imagine, for the land upon which sits the Lodge at the head of 

 Loch Ailish, has been in his family for more than seven hundred 

 years. There are, as I have said, about 55,000 acres in the Benmore 

 deer forest. I judge this to be measured around its boundaries, but 

 as I said to the Chief one night, I suspect there are close to 200,000 

 acres, if you measure both sides of the hills; so many of them sit 

 up edgewise. 



The Chief has other deer forests and grouse moors; several, I 

 don't know how many; and his holdings in Scottish and English lands 



