Andalucia and its Big Game 55 
and quality. The ground is open, soft, and easy. The big new 
track, with its spurts of forward-projected sand, are visible yards 
ahead. We follow almost at a run—how simple it seems! But 
not for long. Soon comes check No. 1. A dozen other deer 
have followed on the same line, and the original trail is 
obliterated. The troop leads on into a region of boundless bush, 
shoulder-high, where the ground is harder and the trackers spread 
out to right and left, backing each other with silent signals. 
Their skill and patience fascinate; but it is to me, in the 
centre, that after a long hour's scrutiny, falls the satisfaction of 
rediscovering that big track where it diverges alone on the left. 
Half a mile beyond, our erratic friend has passed through water. 
For a space a broken reed here or displaced lilies there help us 
forward; then the deepening water, all open, bears no trace. 
The opposite shore, moreover, is fringed by a 200-yard belt of 
bulrush and ten-foot canes, and beyond all that lies heavy jungle. 
You give it up? Admittedly these are no lines of least 
resistance, but we will cut the unpopular part as short as may be 
and merely add that it was high noon ere, after three hours’ work 
—puzzling out problems and paradoxes, now following a false 
clue, anon recovering the true one—that at last the big spoor on 
dry land once more rejoiced our sight. More than that, it now 
bears evidence—to eyes that can read—that our stag is 
approaching his selected stronghold. He goes slowly. Here he 
has stopped to survey his rear—there he has lingered to nibble 
a genista, and the spoor zigzags to and fro. Now it turns at 
sharp angle, following a cheek-wind, and a suggestive grove of 
cork-oaks embedded in heavy bush lies ahead. One hunter 
opines the stag lies up here : the other doubts. No half-measures 
suffice. We turn down-wind, detouring to reach the main outlet 
(salida) to leeward; here I remain hidden, while my companions, 
separating on right and left, proceed to encircle the mancha. 
Two hinds break hard by, and presently Juan returns with word 
that the stag has passed through the covert—better still, that a 
second big beast has joined the first, and that the double spoor, 
moving dead-slow and three-quarters up wind, proceeds due 
north. Another mile and then right ahead lies heavy covert, but 
long and straggling, and the halting trail indicates this as a 
certain find. 
The strategic position is simple, but tactics, for a single gun, 
