434 WILD SPAIN. 



hunters. As the spoor approached each small jungle, the 

 writer went forward in advance, leaving the men to follow 

 the rastro. Several thickets had been tried in this way, but 

 each time the beasts had passed through and gone on. Now 

 there stretched away before us a long narrow belt of covert, 

 and approaching this the indications of the spoor showed 

 that the two deer, as the men put it, van de recojida, i.e., 

 had entered the jungle wearily, and would now be couched 

 within it. The covert was too long to risk putting the gun 

 at the end, as the game might break on either side ; so we 

 decided to walk through it in line. Unluckily the growth 

 was dense and high — in most places we could not see two 

 yards in front, a tantalizing situation when one knew that 

 each step might now bring one to the promised right-and- 

 left ! We had barely progressed 200 yards when the 

 startled deer arose.* I heard the rush and the crash of the 

 undergrowth, but could see nothing ; my ear told me they 

 had gone to the right, and pushing through the jungle in 

 that direction, a slight clearing in the long grass showed 

 a glimpse of the two heads appearing now and again 

 above the scrub as the deer bounded away. I fired both 

 barrels of the express, directing one at each animal. After 

 the shots nothing could be seen ; but one hart was down, a 

 beast of twelve points. The other barrel appeared to have 

 been a miss — the larger tunante of the two had escaped, 



* These old and cunning stags do not always break covert so 

 readily, as the following incident will show. We had tracked a hart 

 for some rniles, till eventually the trail led towards quite a small 

 clump — not two acres — of 20-ft.gorse and tree -heath with an oiiter fringe 

 of bamboo, all growing on dry ground, though entirely surrounded by 

 flood-water. Every indication pointed to the stag having couched in 

 this congenial covert ; the hunters, however, traversed it without 

 moving game. The water-weeds outside showed no sign of the stag 

 having passed onward : but, to make sure, we took a wide cast on the 

 drier ground beyond, separating so as completely to encircle the 

 manchft. No vestige of a trail could be seen ; clearly the beast still 

 lay in the recesses of his island-sanctuary. The gun once more took 

 up his position to leeward, and the covert was beaten again — this time 

 more effectively, for presently, amid crash of branches and bamboos, 

 the stag, which had been lying like a hare in its form, bounded out 

 across the shallow marsh — with the usual result ! 



