272 A SAD FINISH. 
the carbine. We saw that the latter had broken his fore leg, 
and that he w^s evidently hard hit besides ; he stood holding 
his broken leg in the air, but struggled on again down the 
hill. I gave him another couple of shots, one of these I saw 
went over his back. He had got a good way down by this 
time and was very much crippled. However, Francis handed 
me another rifle and asked me to *• maro," so I fired two 
more shots, one struck just in front of him, the other we 
heard strike ; he was now apparently quite done for, so I 
said it was no use firing any more and hastened down. As 
I turned a corner I heard a rattling of stones, and to my 
intense dismay saw this splendid antlered stag rolling like 
a large rock down the side of the mountain over crag and 
precipice ; now bounding into the air, now disappearing over 
a rock to be seen a^ain far below amidst a shower of stones 
and dust. Oh, dear! oh, dear! he will not have a bit of 
antler left, and he won't stop till he gets down into the low 
country! It certainly looked as if he would never stop 
rolling, but fortunately a slight ridge stopped him quite 
on the edge of the last precipice. If he had got over this 
he would have gone right down ; as it was he fell nearly 
a thousand feet. We followed his track down and picked 
up two pieces of antler. When we got to him we found 
his head smashed to pieces, so much so that one of the 
eyes was in the brain, and there was nothing but the stumps 
of his glorious antlers left. Five shots had struck him. 
We hunted up his track again and found five pieces of 
antler including the two upper tines, but there was a great 
deal wanting and from the appearance on the rocks I think 
some parts of the horns must have been pounded to dust 
He was a very fat stag, so after taking what we could carry 
