It is instructive, though rarely possible, watch wild game thus, when danger threatens, and to observe the wiles by which they seek escape--doubling back on their own tracks till nearly face to face with the baying _podencos_, and then, by a smart flank-movement, skirting round behind the pack, till actually between the latter and the following huntsmen; then lying flat, awaiting till perchance the latter has gone by! That is our stag's plan--bold and comprehensive--yet it fails when that huntsman, biding his time, perceives that his pack have overrun the scent and recalls them to make quite sure of that intervening bit of bush--poor staggie! Rarely indeed, even in mountain-lands, do such chances of watching the whole play (and bye-play) occur as those we enjoyed to-day on the Llanos del Peco. Shots are apt to be quite difficult, as all bushes and many trees are in full leaf (January) and the _rayas_, or rides cut out along the shooting-line, barely twenty yards broad. To-day, moreover, the wind shifting from north to east operated greatly to our disadvantage--practically, in effect, ruined the plan. [Illustration: WILD-BOAR--WEIGHT 200 LBS., CLEAN.] [Illustration: THE RECORD HEAD--43 INCHES--LUGAR NUEVO, NOV. 14, 1909. SIERRA MORÉNA.] The first stag that came my way had already touched the tainted breeze ere I saw him--being slightly deaf (the effects of quinine) I had not heard his approach. Instantly he crossed the _raya_, 100 yards away, in two enormous bounds. There was just time to see glorious antlers with many-forked tops ere he dived from sight, plunging into ten-foot scrub. I had fired both barrels, necessarily with but an apology for an aim and the second purely "at a venture." Three minutes later resounded the tinkling _cencerros_ (bells) of the _podencos_, and when two of these hounds had followed the spoor ahead, all _mute_, then I knew that both bullets had spent their force on useless scrub. [Illustration: AZURE-WINGED MAGPIE] Fortune favoured. Half an hour afterwards, a second stag followed. This time a gentle rustle in the bush, and one clink of a hoof on rock had caught my faulty ear. Then coroneted antlers showed up from the depths below, and so soon as the great brown body came in view, a bullet on the shoulder at short range dropped him dead. This was an average stag, weighing 255 lbs. clean, but although "royal," carried a smaller head than that first seen. Later, two other big stags descended together into the unseen depths on my front, but whither they subsequently took their course--_quien sabe?_ I saw them no more.