CHAPTER XII. 



JOHN AND I GO TO TH HIGH FI.ATS. 



BL,ACK browed John had me again on the day after I had missed 

 the slant-wise stag and we went to the plateau land of our other 

 stalk, but on this day the sun shone, oh, most merrily and 

 graciously the sun shone; and the air was clear, as clear as a crystal 

 bell. 



I vowed the discomforts and hardships of a thousand days like the 

 one just passed, wiped out and forever obliterated by one hour of 

 such supreme bodily comfort and satisfactory elevation of mind as 

 the warm sun and the sweet wind and the fair, friendly hills, and 

 the twinkling lochs and the singing burns and the dancing blood gave 

 me. 



And when we had to sit for a little time on a grassy bank, for a 

 wonder almost dry, it seemed to me I had in the sweet aroma of 

 my dear old pipe a physical gratification and enjoyment beyond classi- 

 fication or expression. When John was spying from the point near 

 where I sat making sweet medicine with my pipe, five deer were 

 visible and soon others. 



A large herd of seventy or eighty animals in all was on the move. 

 They were more than a mile from us. The two telescopes of John 

 and the gillie, Duncan, and my field glasses followed them on. They 

 were making a journey. That was certain. Occasionally an individual 

 would take a hurried nibble of grass, but that was exceptional. They 

 kept walking on almost as steadily as a flock of sheep driven by a 

 shepherd. Their course would cause them to disappear behind the 

 crest of a grassy hill a mile and a half in front of us. 



When they were out of sight we were on foot and moving in their 

 direction. We approached the top with caution. There was nothing 



