102 DEER-STALKING. 



when he whispered I had the fore-sight right in the 

 centre of the deer's heart, just as I should have held 

 at a hundred yards, and had I pulled the trigger 

 then the bullet would assuredly have gone over my 

 victim's back ; so I had to thank my cool and active 

 friend for a kill, as well as a very pretty run in. Only 

 a most extraordinary knowledge of the ground and the 

 pace of the deer could have enabled him to time it 

 as he did. 



These three stalks, two of which had been most 

 exciting, and affording a brilliant display of the science 

 as carried on by a past master in the art, had only 

 whetted my appetite for more. It was but four o'clock, 

 and this bright day we could see to shoot till nearly six, 

 and it wanted no persuasion on my part to induce John 

 to give me another chance. Leaving the dog and the 

 gillie, we were soon a couple of miles away from our last 

 kill, and on the highest ground in the forest ; we were 

 close to the Glen Muick march, and beyond that we 

 could see into the forests of Balmoral, Mar, and Ben 

 Avon a glorious scene of hills and peaks and valleys. 

 We sat down to spy, and found a herd of some twenty 

 stags feeding near the march on a very large flat : 

 some of them were lying, the rest standing up, but not 

 moving about, so as time was short the only chance of a 

 shot was a creep across this flat. This was a very diffi- 

 cult matter, but by dint of taking advantage of every 

 depression, and keeping ourselves quite flat, till I felt as 

 if the curse of the serpent was on me, we got to about 

 three hundred yards from them. Here we laid, hoping 

 a stag or two would feed nearer to us. After a time, 



