y had first
caught sight of the stags--a much more wild and sombre landscape was
this, with precipitous black crags overhanging a sullen and solitary
loch that had not a bush or a tree along its lifeless shores. As for
Lionel, he fought along without repining. His arms were soaking wet up
to the elbows; his legs were in a like condition from the knee downward.
Then he was damp with perspiration; while ever and anon, when he had to
lie prone in the moist grass, or crouch like a frog behind a rock, the
cold wind from the hills sent a shiver down his spine or seemed to
strike like an icy dagger through his chest. But he took it all as part
of the day's work. There was in his possession a little silver token
that afforded him much content. He would acquit himself like a man--if
he could; at any rate, he would not grumble.

After what seemed ages of this inconceivable torture, Lionel was
immensely relieved to find the keeper, after a careful survey from the
top of a mound to which he had crawled, motion with his hand to him to
come up to his side. This he did with the greatest circumspection,
scarcely raising his head above the grass and heather; and then, when he
had joined Roderick, he began to peer through the waving stalks and
twigs just before his eyes. Suddenly his gaze was arrested by certain
brown tips--tips that were moving; were these the stags' horns, he asked
himself, in a kind of bewilderment of fear? There could be no doubt of
it. The beasts were now lying down--he could not see their bodies--but
clearly enough he could make out their branching antlers, as they lazily
moved their heads, or perhaps turned to flick a fly away.

"They're too far off, aren't they?" Lionel whispered--and, despite all
his sworn resolves to keep calm, he felt his heart going as if it would
choke him.

"They're lying down now," Roderick said, with professional coolness,
"and they're right out in the open; it is no use at all trying to get
near them until they get up in the afternoon and begin to feed again,
and then maybe they will feed over the shoulder yonder. No use at all,"
said he; but just at this moment his quick eye caught sight of something
else that had just appeared on the edge of one of the lower slopes, and
the expression of his face instantly changed--into something like alarm.
"Bless me, look at that now!"

Lionel slowly and cautiously turned his head; and then, quite clearly,
he could see a small company of seven or