GALICIA, 1910 
Mine host, with his usual thoughtfulness, had arranged that I should 
go out to hunt at once, so, in company with Fedochuk, I took a ten-mile 
walk around the mountain of Janetz without hearing a sound. At 3 a.m. 
the next morning another hunter, Fedor Koranuk, and I drove in the moon- 
light to another beat, Gejaintzej, which embraced some stony fells of 
dense raspberries and fallen trees. We ascended an old timber road, and 
then went up a steep face of 300 feet just as the day broke. This was a new 
beat, where never before had a stag been killed, but my hunter said that 
two stags frequented it, and was much disappointed, when we had reached 
our point of general view, neither to see nor hear a sign of them. The only 
thing in sight was a roe and fawn, which stood silhouetted against the black 
forest above us, watching our movements with suspicion. It was seven 
o’clock, with the prospects of a warm day ahead, when a stag suddenly 
roared magnificently on the shoulder to our right and almost dead down 
the wind. A moment later I saw a small bunch of hinds running and feared 
the game was up, but it proved to be a false alarm and only the stag driving 
in his harem. We dived at once into the deep gully that separated the two 
hills and found that our wind had been swept downwards and out of harm’s 
way. As we slowly ascended the hill on which we had seen the deer, a per- 
fect chorus of roars and grunts greeted our ears. In fact, we soon ascer- 
tained that there were two big stags and a “ bei-hirsch ” in front of us. After 
advancing with the utmost caution through the crackling sticks and 
raspberries, here six feet tall, we paused to reconnoitre and found that one 
of the big stags had passed away rapidly over the hill, leaving one stag, 
four hinds and the ‘ 4 bei-hirsch ’ ’ in possession of the ridge above us . The wind 
being perfect we still advanced until Koranuk climbed on a log, but at once 
descended and announced that we could go no further as the 4 4 bei-hirsch ’ ’ was 
then only about a hundred yards away and directly in front. I took a look 
at him and saw a third -year stag running about excitedly, snuffing the 
ground where the hinds had been. As yet we were uncertain as to the position 
of the master stag, but almost at once he roared again, and I saw his three 
hinds feeding quietly in a thicket of small trees and fallen timber above us 
and to the right. The 44 bei-hirsch” could not get our wind if we moved some 
fifty yards, and this we did, crawling through the noisy undergrowth as 
if our lives depended on it. By standing on a log and pressing against 
Koranuk’s shoulder, a cranky position at the best of times, I could now 
see the stag slowly driving a hind before him into the cover. He was wood- 
bound and only his head showed clear, and my position was so shaky that I 
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