Then Berog crept up, and they both moved on across the ridge, carefully screening their movements and taking cover behind the rocks and bushes of heather. When they came to the edge, they lay down again to spy. Then Tig’s eye picked out, far down below them, an object like a withered branch of a tree sticking up out of the heather. He called softly to Berog, who looked also, and they both agreed that three or four deer were lying down there in the hollow of the hill-side. Then Tig plucked some blades of grass as he lay, and threw them lightly into the air to see how the wind blew, so that he might keep it in his face in working round towards where the deer lay. If once he were to move where the wind might blow the scent of him towards the animals, they would be sure to take alarm and move away.
Then Tig turned and went down behind the ridge, moving at a quick trot, and worked his way round to a point, as nearly as he could guess it, close to the hollow where the deer were lying. Berog stayed behind on the hill-top to watch the deer and see if they should move.
When Tig reached the bottom, he crept on all fours for some distance through the heather, and then lay down to spy. He raised his head gently. There was the stag lying with its back towards him about a hundred yards away. Tig studied the ground and noted every boulder and every tuft of rushes between him and the stag, and then, lying flat on the ground, he began to crawl towards the nearest stone. High up on the far hill-top Berog was watching the stag; but he could not see Tig. So Tig crept on and on, holding his breath when he moved, until he reached the point where he could see the stag quite plainly. It was lying in an open green space, wide awake, and it kept turning its head from side to side as if it were on the watch for its enemies; but it did not see Tig. When Tig saw its antlers moving, he knew that it was looking around, and he lay still. But every now and then the stag turned back its head to scratch its back with its antlers and brush away the flies that kept teasing it, and then Tig crept up a little nearer and got an arrow ready in his bow.
All at once the wary stag took alarm. It heard or smelled that an enemy was near, and got up on its feet. Then, as the stag stood for a second sniffing the air, Tig leaped up and took aim and shot at it with all his might. The stag gave a leap forward and bounded away down the slope; but the arrow had pierced it deep behind the shoulder, and Tig knew that if only he could follow, he was sure of his game. He waved a signal to Berog, and set off at full speed in the blood-stained tracks of the stag.