‘Well, “spied,” if you like, spied for a long time without seeing anything; and we had just walked on again a few yards, when the silence was suddenly broken by a cry from Jens of “Reins,” and there, 300 yards in front of us, was a noble buck which had evidently been concealed from our view by some rocks, and had now smelt us and was departing at a stately trot, apparently despising undignified hurry.
‘I fancy his intention was to trot away at that long swinging pace, and get into Asiatic Russia in time for tea; so I grabbed the rifle from Jens, as of course, now that he was alarmed, a long shot was our only chance; sat down on a stone, and with the faintest hopes of hitting him, fired twice, and, of course, missed.
‘Now here was where my luck came in. If that buck had not been so proud, he could have run straight away from us to the glacier beyond the lake, but we were “betwixt the wind and his nobility,” and he wanted to get a clean breeze, and run against it instead of down it. Consequently, when he was about 350 yards away he turned to the right, apparently intending to make a circle round us, and so get the wind in his face.
‘Directly he turned broadside to us Jens gave a shrill whistle, and the buck stopped short for a moment, so that I had just time to make a careful shot, and the bullet hit him in the ribs. At the shot he stumbled, but recovered himself instantly, and made off a good deal faster than before, evidently perceiving that things were getting serious, and that “this here warn’t no child’s play.” Before I could fire again he got into the ravine which runs down towards Rus Lake, and was out of our sight.
‘We thought there was just a chance of cutting him off in that extremely rough ground, though, of course, we could not tell whether he was much hurt or not; so we ran as hard as we could for about a quarter of a mile, loading as we ran. Suddenly I caught sight of him going very slowly, but luckily he did not see us, so we dodged into a little gully, and after another short run came in sight of him standing still, no doubt owing to his wound, and about 250 yards away.
‘This time he saw us, and darted off as fleetly as ever, no longer with his side to us, but straight away. I was dead beat, and Jens had thrown himself down, and was panting like—like——’
‘A concertina?’ suggested the Skipper.
DEATH OF THE ‘STOR BOCK’ AT THE ICEBERG LAKE, TYKNINGS HÖ.
‘Yes, just so. Anyhow, we could not run another yard; you know what it is on those stones, so I sat down again, and with the rifle going like a pump-handle, fired, and, by the greatest luck, hit him close to the tail, and the bullet went clean through his body and smashed his shoulder. Down he went, and we raised a yell of triumph, whereupon he jumped up again and went off at a slapping pace in a most extraordinary manner. I believe if he could have reached the snow he would have done us even now, but we were between him and the glacier, and he had nothing but rocks to go on, bad enough for a deer with the proper complement of legs and ribs, and very trying indeed to one crippled like this, I’m sure.