“I never thought he would be such a moron as to sit fooling around here in that rain for us three mutts to shoot him. I guess that stag was wise to us before we ever started crawling across that flat stretch about ten o’clock. It’s half-past three now. That stag’s curled up comfortably somewhere two or three miles from here as dry and warm as I wish I were. Well, what do we do now, Ben Nevis?”

“What do you say, Duncan?” the Chieftain asked.

“I don’t know what to say, Ben Nevis, and that’s the truth,” Duncan replied disconsolately. “It’s very disappointing right enough. We might go round behind the Ard Dubh and get to the westerly shoulder of Ben Booey where you’ll often find them feeding about four o’clock. I’d like Mr Royde to have a chance at a good stag after his disappointment. If we don’t find one there, I’m afraid we’ll have to give up for to-day. We’ll be a good two hours, and maybe a little more, maybe more like three before we can get to where the car is waiting, and the rain’s coming on hard again.”

“What do you say, Royde? Shall we go round behind Ardoo?”

“Well, I’d hate to have you call me no sportsman, Ben Nevis, but I think I’m going to say ‘Ah, don’t.’”

“Well, then we’d better make for the car,” said Ben Nevis regretfully.

“We don’t have to crawl on our bellies after that?” Royde asked.

“Ha-ha,” Ben Nevis guffawed. “I’m afraid you’re rather irreverent about the greatest sport in the world. Well, we’d better foot it. And you can light up your cigar now without fear of the consequences.”

“If it will keep alight in this rain. But I don’t believe Popocatepetl would keep alight in rain like this,” said Chester Royde.

Even the sanguine spirit of Ben Nevis was damped by the double effect of the disappointment over the stag and this tremendous downpour. He found nothing to say to counteract the moroseness of his guest who, soaked to the skin and with a face that if they had been invented at this date could well have been compared to a barrage balloon, trudged across the dreary flat known as Achnacallach, across which he had crawled that morning accompanied by a cortege of flies, gnats and midges.

Then suddenly he plucked from his mouth the Larrañaga Corona that was contending with the rain and flung it away, unable to stand the reek of it any longer, so much more now did it resemble a damp leaf from a November bonfire than a Larrañaga Corona.

“You know, I don’t believe that guy ever did shoot that witch,” he said to Duncan.