A GOOD DAY IN THE FOREST 77 
The ground was rocky and very broken, and I 
felt sure that he could not have gone far, and was 
lying down hiding himself. We began to search, 
when suddenly the stag jumped up from under a 
rock about some eighty yards from us, and after 
running for about 500 yards farther lay down 
behind a rock, showing only the point of his 
horns. I had not shot at him again, as he was end 
on, and was evidently in such a condition that he 
could not go very far. We followed up, keeping 
well out of sight, but found it impossible to get a 
chance of shooting, so cleverly had he concealed 
himself. Whilst hesitating as to what would be 
the best course to take, the stag suddenly got up 
again and bolted, but this time he gave me a fair 
chance of a shot, and I killed him before he had 
gone more than a few yards. On getting up to 
him, we found that my first shot was not suffi- 
ciently forward, but was a raking shot through 
the body, and the stag could not in any case have 
gone very far. He was a good beast with a strong 
horn, and later turned the scale at 16 stone 9 lb. 
clean. After gralloching the stag, one of the 
gillies went off to signal to the ponyman ; and 
Maclennan, the other gillie, and I proceeded to 
work our way back to the lodge, hoping to get 
