I glimpsed her, as it seemed vertically beneath me, striving to rise to her feet. She was half covered with stones and shingle. I could not see to shoot her in the heart. Again I let myself down, zigzagging round vertical rocks and lying on my belly across boulders which I could not circumvent, slithering and bracing myself down gravel-slides. The hind, when I saw her next, seemed motionless. I should have known the fall would kill her even if my bullets failed, but I was too excited for such calm thoughts as would have restrained me from descending the side of the Durc at its steepest part. I was carrying my rifle in my hand. I now slung it across my shoulder and continued my descent with my heart in my mouth at each step, for my frenzied excitement had spent itself and the height above me seemed unscalable; the fall beneath was sheer, and I crouched between heaven and earth on the brink of a precipice. When I was only thirty feet above the hind, but still a good deal higher from the floor of the cañon—for she had been checked in her fall by boulders—I reached a descent which I could not escape by going round it; nor could I go back; I could scarcely believe that I had come from that overhanging lip I saw above me, black against the sky. I drew back in panic from the verge of the cliff with my feet on a ledge which seemed more inadequate and slippery every moment. At first I stood there with my hands idle. Soon I grew dizzy and clutched tufts of heather to keep myself from falling. All at once I saw the hind make a desperate effort. She flung herself clear of the stones which lay on her. It was her death-struggle but that idea never entered my head. I grew excited again and dragged the rifle from my shoulder. As I got it free my feet slipped. I felt myself plunging over the abyss. I saw the hind sinking on her side; then I struck the ground; instead of the horrid jarring of broken bones I felt an equally horrible soft squelching shock. Before I could gather my wits or realize where I had fallen I was waist deep in a green bog beside the stream which drains the Durc. The rifle flew out of my grasp and lodged between two boulders close to the burn.