They still came ahead, delicately skirting the marsh at the end of the loch. A big yellow-coated stag led them. He had lost one horn and he carried the other with the utmost care. When he came amongst the birches above the loch I could see him sidestepping branches and nursing his lone horn through the thicket. Light began to dawn more clearly. Three smaller stags and a hind and a three-quarter-grown calf followed him. I thought how admirably the calf would have suited our needs. Again I cursed the grouse which dinned incessantly; to my astonishment the deer paid no heed either to the grouse’s warning or my wind which ought by now to have reached them. They climbed sedately towards me. Now one, now another bent his head to crop a tempting morsel of grass. The calf lolloped in the rear, skipping and dancing aside from imaginary obstacles. I thought he must be in good heart and fat to caper so. The brutes continued uphill against all the laws of their kind, straight into my wind. When they were some three hundred yards distant I loaded the rifle and got out my glasses and trained them on the birch trees out of which the calf was emerging. The miracle might continue and bring them within range. Then the motion of the wind in the trees told me the reason why the deer kept their course. The branches could be seen waving uphill, against the west. I realized I was lying on the edge of dead wind, and the breeze behind me was met by other currents sweeping round the hill from the gullies above. When the stags were a hundred yards beneath me some instinct, or a whiff of my scent, arrested them. They halted in a bunch round their leader, all except the calf who came forward with youthful impatience and stared directly at me. He lifted a hind leg and turned his head to lick himself, presenting his neck and shoulders to my view. I aimed carefully at the juncture of his head and neck, for as he stood his heart was a doubtful target, and the neck if properly struck is as fatal as the heart. I heard the bullet strike, and saw him wince. Somehow that moment seemed tremendously important, as if success in this first venture symbolized prosperity for the future. When I saw him run a few yards downhill I knew I had made no mistake. He fell in a heap. His eyes were glazed before I reached him.