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
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.
In the fog I had under-estimated the distance and the hit was low and too far back. With two trackers I followed the spoor while daylight served and through places that any words of mine must fail to describe; but from the first the head-keeper had foretold the result: "Eso no se cobra--va léjos"--"that stag you will not recover; he goes far, but wherever he stops, he dies. See here! the dogs have run his spoor all along, but have not yet brought him to bay."