CHAPTER VIII. 



TWO AT ONE STALK. 



BACK from the point where the dead stag lay we moved to our spy 

 place of the morning, and from thence up the old mountain face 

 again, where I had gone on my original climb. 



But, oh, what a difference today ! I was at the top almost before 

 I knew it, and quite willing to start on at once. We lunched upon 

 the mountain top in a little sheltered place where the wind missed us 

 and the sun shone brightly, close by a little crystal rill, which burst 

 from the shattered rock face and gave us water for our whiskey if 

 we needed it. 



And then began one of the most extended stalks of my Scotch ex- 

 perience. From the top of the mountain a good stag was located in 

 the lower ground in a direction opposite to that where the kill of 

 the morning had been made. We stalked down for this fellow. He 

 was gone. We picked him up after a while in the distance and stalked 

 him there. He had moved on. 



In the great pocket of the hills in which we were working the winds 

 were utterly unreliable, and blew this, that and the other way, spoiling 

 our chances over and over. I remember one time during this after- 

 noon that we stalked down a glen which had a fine, big burn in the 

 bottom of it, and in this burn the stalking was done. Sometimes in 

 icy water above the knees, at other moments stepping from slippery 

 stone to slippery stone as far as the legs would reach; crawling along 

 by banks, wriggling over gravelly bars, and what was to be the final 

 stage of a hundred yards or so, snake-wise, stomach on the ground 

 through water seeping up through the moss from one to six inches 

 deep, and at the end of it some hinds between us and the stag took 

 fright and he was up and away before I could get my gun out of 

 its case. 



Night finally came upon us and some eight miles from the Lodge 

 I took the path and made off for home. When I got in the Chief and 



