THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
Some great landowner assembles a party of ten or twelve guns for the 
function. He has himself his own pack of hounds; but possibly two or three 
of the bidden guests will bring their packs — each with full kennel staff — to 
supplement that of the host. So extensive are these mountain beats that 
each drive occupies a whole day; the different huntsmen, each with his 
pack and the requisite number of beaters in addition, starting before dawn 
in order to reach their assigned positions — possibly a dozen miles away — 
across devious hill-tracks. The guns also may have considerable distances 
to traverse. They leave the lodge in time to reach their posts at an hour 
fixed beforehand — usually about 11 a.m. — when the various packs (each 
separate and acting independently) are cast off. Headstrong by nature as 
are these Spanish hounds ( Podencos ), they are held well in hand, being 
trained to return to the call of the hunting-horn after each animal (stag or 
boar) has been started and seen to take the desired direction — that is, 
towards the guns. Each “ find ” is notified to the far -distant line of guns 
by blank shots fired in the air. At first, of course, these distant signals are 
almost beyond ear-reach; but on occasion, when the firing-line occupies 
some commanding ridge of the sierra, an entrancing view of the whole 
strategic operation (with opportunity also of observing the wiles of the 
hunted stag) unfolds itself before the gunner’s eye. Each pack of hounds 
holds its appointed line, the intervals secured by beaters, mounted or afoot. 
Hours pass in rapt attention. There occurs not one uninteresting moment 
till that crucial epoch when the rattle of hoof upon rock and a crash of 
brushwood conveys instant warning, and maybe a glorious stag with 
40 -inch antlers, or a great grizzly boar dashes across the narrow ride. 
To me, the appearance in life of these bigger mountain-stags, with 
their huge superstructure and bunching “ tops,” often conveyed a sense 
of actual disproportion as between body and horn. 
On these occasions there is, moreover, ever present the contingency of 
encountering lynx and wolf. The latter, of all the beasts of the field, is the 
most astute, and rare are the occasions when he fails to detect danger 
ahead and finds himself ambushed. That such fate may befall him at times 
the annexed photo of a grand wolf- head, shot in Mor6na, serves to prove. 
In the sierras the difficulties of marksmanship vary considerably. Many 
shots must be taken with hurried aim at game bouncing in full career 
through some rugged and broken “ pass,” with a baying hound in pursuit 
and one’s view intercepted by obstructive rocks or brushwood. On the 
other hand, an element favourable to the gunner lies in the circumstance 
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