MY FIRST STALK. 25 



I had not thought any place or time or situation could fill me with 

 so deep, so strong, so pure and unadulterated a happiness. I looked 

 upon the view below, and I gloried. I gazed on the other hand and 

 saw the mountains before me to be scaled, and I gloried. It was 

 good to be alive. At the moment a few gentle raindrops fell. It was 

 as if the high hills had said: "We baptize you thus to be brother 

 on probation with us. If you prove yourself worthy you shall be 

 full brother." 



It did me good to see Donald walk. There was no effort. He 

 moved on like a beautiful machine. One glance was enough to tell 

 me that he could keep to that gait all day and all night if need be, 

 up hill and down dale. It is a grand thing to be a good walker and 

 thus be prepared to take out one's spite on all man's mechanical 

 contrivances conceived to carry one places. 



Winding on, my eyes drinking up the good sights to see, my ears 

 losing no beautiful sound, my imagination full of the real atmosphere 

 of the place, and my mind absorbed in it, far from all thoughts of 

 deer or deer stalking, I saw Donald step aside upon a heather mound, 

 and unfasten the case of the long telescope which hung at his left 

 side suspended by a strap over the other shoulder. 



Seeing him prepare to look, I reached for my field glasses that I 

 might also see what there was to be seen. Donald, sitting down upon 

 a little hillock, extended the telescope to its length, thrust the native 

 wood cane he carried into the ground for a 'scope-rest, and looked 

 at the slope of a hill perhaps a mile and a half to our left front. 



When I had fixed my glasses upon the same spot there leaped into 

 view in their circle, it might be fifty deer, feeding, lying down, or 

 moving peacefully about. Donald said nothing; nor did I. To get 

 a better look I started to descend from my saddle. One of the 

 gillies was instantly forward at my bridle rein. I, too, sat down upon 

 the hillside and looked long and intently at the distant deer. They 

 were unaware of us or oblivious of our presence at that distance 

 and we could gaze as long as we chose. Donald said nothing; I said 

 nothing. Five minutes passed; ten, maybe, then he slowly, de- 

 liberately closed his glass, section by section, and with a thoughtful 

 air slipped it back into its case; contemplatively he pulled the cap 

 over the end thereof and buckled it; then he rose, quite slowly, to 



