THE LAST STALK OF THE SEASON 173 
fired, and the stag bounded forward a few paces, 
and then fell dead. He had a fine, regular head 
of ten points, certainly the best head I had 
obtained this season, although I had been fortunate 
in shooting a good many stags. It was by this 
time just twelve o'clock. Macdougall said we 
had better have lunch in order to allow the deer 
to settle down, and added that he did not think 
they would go very far. He said he was quite 
sure that there were at least other two very fine 
stags amongst the deer that had gone forward. 
The stag was soon gralloched, and the gillie 
was sent back for the pony. We did not take 
long over lunch, and then set off in the direction 
in which the deer had gone, being guided by 
the perpetual roaring of the stags. After going 
some little distance we located the deer on the 
face of a hill rather less than two miles from us. 
Though there was still a drizzle and the light was 
bad, the wind had risen, and the mist had to some 
extent cleared from the lower ground. 
After walking and crawling along the bed of 
a burn for about half a mile we got into a position 
from which we were able to spy the deer, as it 
had ceased raining and the light was better. We 
made out that there were two lots of hinds on 
