A LOST STAG. 71 



from it with feverish fingers before I could think of shooting. Of 

 course, while there was a cartridge in the chamber the safety was on ; 

 one touch of the thumb put it flat as I threw the rifle to my shoulder, 

 but at that instant my deer bobbed out of sight behind a fold of the 

 hill a hundred yards away. 



I ran at my top speed to the place where I had seen him last, but 

 he was out of sight. I thought he might have turned to the left 

 and I ran in that direction to the next view point. No stag in 

 sight. Then I turned sharply to the right and sprinted for all I was 

 worth for a hundred yards or more, this time to see the stag nearly 

 four hundred yards down the hill and making away at an incredible 

 rate of speed. He literally seemed to fly through the air. It was 

 marvelous how that deer could and did disappear on three legs. 



We sat down upon the hillside, John and I, and I finished the 

 operation of loading my pipe. I did not swear, although I felt like 

 it. Meanwhile, through the glasses our stag could be seen making 

 his way down into the bottom of a large corrie and then across toward 

 the high wall which rose on the other side. Finally, he disappeared 

 in a ravine two miles or more away. I gave John instructions to sit 

 on the hillside and watch very carefully through his glasses the point 

 where the deer had gone out of sight, while I, this time with the 

 rifle uncased in my own hand, went across to see if I could, by the 

 faintest possible chance, find him. 



I did not expect to, because, if my recollection served me right, a 

 deer which could run at all under such circumstances, and this one 

 most assuredly could do something in that line, would continue to run 

 until he fell if disturbed from his first rest, and that might be for 

 miles and miles. 



I made a fruitless search in the vicinity of the ravine. John came 

 over and we beat out every inch of ground near the place possible 

 for a hiding point, until darkness had closed around us. But no sign 

 of the stag could we find. After dark we made along the shore of a 

 small loch a mile in length toward the path. It was bad going. 



The deep, sticky, peat gullies and hags, the loose, sharp cornered 

 stones, the sudden breaks and falls in the ground made us go care- 

 fully, and even then furnished more than one tumble. We came out 

 after a time upon the path none the worse for it except for the mud 

 which was never yet known to seriously injure anyone. 



