I unloaded the rifle and handed it to the stalker, who began to put it into its cover, when suddenly the stag jumped up and galloped off. The bullet had no doubt grazed the spine, causing temporary unconsciousness. When a stag drops instantaneously, as this one did, he is often only stunned, and it is well to be on the alert and get up to him at once, ready if necessary to shoot again. This was no new experience to either of us. The old stalker had been over fifty years in the forest and had seen the same thing happen many a time; nor was it new to me. We watched the stag as he galloped away apparently none the worse for his narrow escape, and I certainly felt very foolish. The old stalker kindly began to make excuses for me. “The line was right, but you were just a little high,” he said. “Your pozeesyon was not good. You had been lying long, cold and shivering, in the wet. Yon cartridges are lighter than yer regular ones, and that is why you shot over him.” “No, no,” I replied, “I missed because I could not shoot straight; it is a bad business; anyhow, it is better than having wounded him badly and then lost him; it is a comfort to think he is really very little the worse--now we have got to get back as quickly as ever we can.” And then in the gloom and mist, running and walking and tumbling, away we went. The last mile was down a hill path filled with loose stones. At last we reached the end of the road, and saw the car coming up from a point about a mile lower down the road where Stuart had arranged to meet us. “Well,” I said, “I hope at any rate that Mr. Stuart has got a stag, if not two.” The stalker had been looking carefully at the road. “No,” he said, “Mr. Stuart has no stag the day.” I said, “How do you know that?” “Oh,” he said, pointing to the marks on the road, “his ponies have gone home trotting--look at the marks of their hoofs--and if Mr. Stuart had got a stag the pony would be walking.” As soon as the car arrived we found that the stalker was right, and that Stuart, who had only arrived at our meeting-place a few minutes before, had got no stag, never having had a shot. On reaching the lodge about 8.30 P.M. we found that our host had not yet returned from the river, where he had gone to try to get a salmon, and it was not until an hour later that he returned. He too had had bad luck, having hooked a large fish which it was impossible to follow, and which had taken out in its first rush at a terrific pace some fifty yards of line, and then, a strain being put on, broke the casting line, which, it subsequently turned out, had been used in the spring fishing and had not been properly tested before being used again. Thus closed the third chapter in a day which illustrated the truth of the proverb that “misfortunes never come singly.”