You give it up? Admittedly these are no lines of least resistance, but we will cut the unpopular part as short as may be and merely add that it was high noon ere, after three hours' work--puzzling out problems and paradoxes, now following a false clue, anon recovering the true one--that at last the big spoor on dry land once more rejoiced our sight. More than that, it now bears evidence--to eyes that can read--that our stag is approaching his selected stronghold. He goes slowly. Here he has stopped to survey his rear--there he has lingered to nibble a genista, and the spoor zigzags to and fro. Now it turns at sharp angle, following a cheek-wind, and a suggestive grove of cork-oaks embedded in heavy bush lies ahead. One hunter opines the stag lies up here: the other doubts. No half-measures suffice. We turn down-wind, detouring to reach the main outlet (_salida_) to leeward; here I remain hidden, while my companions, separating on right and left, proceed to encircle the _mancha_. Two hinds break hard by, and presently Juan returns with word that the stag has passed through the covert--better still, that a second big beast has joined the first, and that the double spoor, moving dead-slow and three-quarters up wind, proceeds due north. Another mile and then right ahead lies heavy covert, but long and straggling, and the halting trail indicates this as a certain find.
The strategic position is simple, but tactics, for a single gun, leave endless scope for decision. Our first rule in all such cases is to get _close in_, risk what it may. Hence, while my companions separated, as before, to encircle the covert from right and left, the writer crept forward yard by yard till a fairly broad and convenient open suggested the final stand.
Not ten minutes had elapsed, nor had a sound reached my ears, when as by magic the figure of a majestic stag filled a glade on the left--what a picture, as with head erect he daintily picked his unconscious way! Clearly he suspected nothing _here_; but, having got sense, sight, or scent of Juan far beyond, was astutely moving away, with intelligent anticipation, to safer retreat. The shot was of the simplest, and merely black antlers crowned with triple ivory tips marked the fatal point among deep green rushes.