128 AMID THE HIGH HILLS 
could see the space between his forks at the top. 
It was a ten-pointer, I think ; the points were 
very regular, but as far as the head goes it is not 
much to grieve over, for it was on the narrow 
side." " Still, it is a bad business," I replied. 
" If we only had had a tracker we should certainly 
have got him without any trouble." A really 
reliable tracker is indeed invaluable on an occasion 
of this kind, but it is only in a few forests that 
dogs are now used in following wounded stags. 
The noble deer-hounds which were the trusty 
allies of our fathers on the hill have during the 
last forty or fifty years been replaced in those 
forests where dogs are still used by the golden 
retriever, or more often by the collie, the two 
dogs last mentioned having been found more 
suitable for pursuing wounded deer. The deer- 
hound was so high-couraged that he would not 
bay the stag, but would pull him down or be 
killed by him. A further objection was that he 
would hunt by sight rather than by scent, it 
not being in his nature to put his nose to the 
ground, and it was therefore practically impossible 
to train him as a tracker. 
I heard no more of the wounded stag until 
the following season, when I once more found 
