STALKING IN ITS MOST ENJOYABLE FORM 7 
sometimes gallop for forty or fifty yards or even 
further and then fall down dead. 
Some years ago, preparatory to a few days' 
stalking in a deer forest in Inverness-shire, I 
arrived one evening at the Lodge ; and later on 
about half-past ten there returned from the hill 
a guest in a state of great dejection who had never 
stalked until he went out in this forest a few days 
before. I felt very sorry for him, for he had been 
keen to seeure a good head and said that he 
had had a splendid chance of a fine stag standing 
broadside at about eighty yards and had missed 
him. This was his last chance as he was leaving 
early next morning. Two days later I was out 
on the same beat when the stalker suddenly 
grasped me by the arm and said, " There is a 
stag lying down there to the left of that hill below 
us. Are you seeing his horns above the ridge ? " 
We went cautiously down in the direction of the 
stag, but had not gone far before we discovered 
that the stag was dead. " That," said the 
stalker, " must be the stag Mr. X. shot at two 
days ago." We examined the stag and found that 
he had been shot apparently through the heart 
from the knoll from which X. had taken his shot : 
it was obviously the same stag. The stalker then 
