The annexed drawing shows a 14-pointer, which was killed here the following year by our host, Sr. Don Juan Calvo de León of Mezquitillas. In mere inches the measurements may be surpassed by others, but no head that we have seen excels this in extraordinary boldness of curve and symmetry of form. This stag was shot on the Puntales del Peco, January 17, 1908, and in the same beat Sr. Juan Calvo, Junr., secured another fine 14-pointer, as below:-- +-----+-------+-------+------------+--------------+----------------+ | |Points.|Length.|Widest Tips.|Widest Inside.|Circ. above Bez.| +-----+-------+-------+------------+--------------+----------------+ |No. 1| 14 |38-3/4"| 39-1/4" | 33-1/4" | 6-1/4" | |No. 2| 14 |36-1/4"| ... | 25-3/4" | ... | +-----+-------+-------+------------+--------------+----------------+ Less rosy on that occasion was the writer's own luck. My post in Los Puntales was in a narrow neck or "pass" in the knife-edged ridge of a mountain-spur, the rock-strewn ground, overgrown with cistus shoulder-high, falling sharply away both before and behind. In front I looked into a chasm probably 1500 feet in depth, the hither slope being invisible, so sharp was the drop; the opposite side, however (probably 2000 feet high), lay spread out as it were a perpendicular map. From leagues away beyond its apex the beaters were now approaching. From early in the day great fleecy cloud-masses had rolled by, and these gradually grew denser till the whole sierra was enveloped in viewless fog. Hark! some animal is escalading my fortress; one cannot see fifteen yards--tantalizing indeed. Yet so well has the _puesto_ been chosen that presently the intruder gallops almost over my toes--a yearling pig or _lechon_, not worth a bullet. [Illustration: PICKING HIS WAY UP A ROCK STAIRCASE (A 40-inch head.)] [Illustration] Later, during a clearer interval, I descried a stag picking a slow and deliberate course down the opposite escarpment. In the abyss below he was long lost to sight but presently reappeared, coming fairly straight in. Seldom have I felt greater confidence in the alignment than when I then fired. Yet the result was a clean miss. While pressing trigger, another shot rang out half-a-mile beyond and the stag swerved sharply; still I had another barrel, and the second bullet "told" loudly enough as the hart bounced, full-broadside, over the pass. Then he swerved to take the rising ground beyond and, crossing the skyline, displayed the grandest pair of antlers I have seen alive--the great yard-long horns with their branching tops seemed too big even for that massive body. On examination blood was found at once, and on both sides--that is, the bullet had passed right through.