XXV 
THE SAME UR 
329 
them, and be certain to appear sooner or later, they 
will keep the deer at bay, and never give up their 
game till nightfall; but if they are not well sup¬ 
ported, the best dogs would probably get tired of a 
prolonged hunt, and return to kennel after having 
uselessly held their stag at bay in the absence of 
human assistance. 
My hounds seldom lost a sambur; but if they 
were unlucky, they never returned home until long 
after dark, showing that they had only given up the 
game with failing daylight. 
There was one memorable stag that beat us upon 
several occasions, and I shall extract the account 
from my old diary exactly as it was written upon the 
day following the last hunt:— 
“ 1853. March 11.—Stag found at the foot of the 
hills in the Elk Plains. 
“ On several occasions an elk (sambur) had been 
found in this spot and invariably lost, as his habit 
was to make off to some unknown line of country, 
which had always ended in his escape, and in keep¬ 
ing the best dogs out till nightfall. They had then 
returned to kennel crestfallen and tired out; 
evidently having been beaten off. 
“ On this day, sure enough, the tracks of a stag 
were fresh at the usual place, and in a few minutes 
after our entrance of the jungle, the entire pack 
opened with beautiful music, all well together. 
“We immediately ran out of the jungle, and 
on the open patina only a few notes of the tailing 
hounds were audible ; these were at a great distance, 
