These positions extend for over a league in length (there are twelve guns), occupying the crests and “passes” of a lofty ridge whence one enjoys a bird’s-eye view of a world of wild mountain-land.
My own post commanded a panorama of almost the whole day’s operation, excepting only that on my immediate front there yawned a deep ravine (cañada) into the full depth of which I could not see.
Already within a few minutes one had become aware, by a far-distant shot, and by the echoing note of the bugle faintly borne on a gentle northerly breeze, that the beat had begun. At dawn that morning the four huntsmen, each with his pack, had left the lodge, and are now encircling some seven or eight miles of covert on our front, two-thirds of which lay beneath my gaze.
For five hours I occupied that puesto sitting between convenient rocks, and hardly a measurable spell of the five hours but I was held alert, either by the actual sight of game afoot—far distant, it is true—or by the shots and bugle-calls of the hunters and the music of their packs—all signs of game on the move.
It is instructive, though rarely possible, watch wild game thus, when danger threatens, and to observe the wiles by which they seek escape—doubling back on their own tracks till nearly face to face with the baying podencos, and then, by a smart flank-movement, skirting round behind the pack, till actually between the latter and the following huntsmen; then lying flat, awaiting till perchance the latter has gone by! That is our stag’s plan—bold and comprehensive—yet it fails when that huntsman, biding his time, perceives that his pack have overrun the scent and recalls them to make quite sure of that intervening bit of bush—poor staggie! Rarely indeed, even in mountain-lands, do such chances of watching the whole play (and bye-play) occur as those we enjoyed to-day on the Llanos del Peco. Shots are apt to be quite difficult, as all bushes and many trees are in full leaf (January) and the rayas, or rides cut out along the shooting-line, barely twenty yards broad. To-day, moreover, the wind shifting from north to east operated greatly to our disadvantage—practically, in effect, ruined the plan.
The first stag that came my way had already touched the tainted breeze ere I saw him—being slightly deaf (the effects of quinine) I had not heard his approach. Instantly he crossed the raya, 100 yards away, in two enormous bounds. There was just time to see glorious antlers with many-forked tops ere he dived from sight, plunging into ten-foot scrub.
I had fired both barrels, necessarily with but an apology for an aim and the second purely “at a venture.” Three minutes later resounded the tinkling cencerros (bells) of the podencos, and when two of these hounds had followed the spoor ahead, all mute, then I knew that both bullets had spent their force on useless scrub.