"HE'S A DEAD 'UN." 47 



It was a delicious morning. The sun shone warmly on my back as 

 I swung along, the ponies ignominiously relegated to the rear. I 

 reveled in the crispness of the air, the music of the burn's down-rush 

 was sweet to my ear beyond expression. Nor were there any terrors 

 for me in the big mountain ahead. Step for step after my sturdy 

 stalker I covered the zig-zag path to the point where on the first day 

 I had dismounted from my pony to commence the strenuous climb up 

 the hill. 



Today I was already on foot and quite willing, indeed anxious, 

 for some stiff uphill work. But we were not going to attempt the 

 mountain again just now, for at the white stone spy spot, now grown 

 an old friend, Donald sat down as usual to spy. I noticed that he 

 looked longer at the right front than anywhere else and I tried my 

 field glasses for some time in that direction. 



His gaze seemed to be directed upon a wide plateau which stretched 

 from the foot of the hillside upon which we sat for four or five miles, 

 in a general northerly direction. I saw nothing on all this grassland 

 which even faintly resembled deer, so, after a rather cursory sweeping 

 of the glasses across it, I turned to the valley in which lay Loch 

 Ailish, sparkling and scintillating in the morning sun, and nearer the 

 red roof of the Lodge its blue smoke curling above, while like over- 

 grown daisies showed the white sheep dotting the green of the Lodge 

 enclosure. 



Hearing a low murmur of voices, I took my eyes from the glasses 

 to see the gillie, now seated alongside of Donald with his telescope 

 fixed upon the same point toward which the stalker looked. I sat 

 patiently waiting, knowing that I should have whatever information 

 I was entitled to when the proper time came. I had filled and 

 lighted my pipe and I was quite content to sit in that salubrious sun- 

 shine absorbing the serene happiness of the hour, careless of the 

 future, but pleasantly thrilled by the thought of what might be in store. 



Donald's lean forefinger was perfectly steady as he pointed toward 

 the spot upon which his glass had been directed, and his voice be- 

 trayed no excitement, but I caught a gleam in his eye as he said: 

 "There's a shootable staug over yon, sir, and the wind is na' sae bad, 

 but the groond is verra bad. I'm thinkin' 'twull be a long and deeficult 

 stalk, sir." 



