“I had no idea that it would be so big.  Oh!  The beautiful clean limbs!  And what a head!  Those big flat horns in front that run down nearly to his muzzle are just wonderful!  It seems to me that I just saw him for a second and pulled the trigger, and there was a little report that I scarcely heard, just as if the gun was a little toy thing, and now he is lying there and I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry.”

“You should be glad,” he told me.  “You might hunt for many months without meeting with such a head as that.  Now that it is all over it may seem a bit tragic, but you must remember he was just a tremendous, handsome brute, ready at all times to fight others to the death, to kill them in his blind fury of jealousy.  And those who fall to the gun may perhaps have met the best end of all.  Think of the poor old stags dragging themselves to some tangle in order to escape the wolves or bears and lynxes, and whose last glances reveal things creeping towards them or great birds waiting to peck their eyes out.  Man is seldom as cruel as nature proves to be, for it is everywhere harsh and brutal.  Little dramas are constantly taking place under this very moss we tread, and those dear little black-headed birds, over there in the bushes, are killing all day long.  You and I realize that the killing is the least part of the sport, but we wanted meat and came out for it ourselves, instead of hiring butchers to do the slaughtering for us.  Moreover, you have a trophy which you will take back with you, and which will be one more souvenir of Sweetapple Cove.”

I felt that I was brightening up again.

“How beautiful it is!” I said again, quite consoled.  “Look at that long, white beard under his neck, and how deeply brown his cheeks are!”

“We must count the points,” he proposed.

He went over them several times, with the greatest care.

“There are thirty-nine good ones,” he said, “besides one or two little ones that will hardly come up to the mark.  It is a big beamy head with broad flat horns.  You will seldom see a better one, Miss Jelliffe.”

We sat there for a moment, and presently heard some one coming through the woods.  It was the two men who were hurrying towards us.

“Camp ain’t a quarter mile away,” shouted Sammy.  “Us heered the shot an’ come down.  My, but that be a shockin’ monstrous big stag.  He’s lucky, ma’am, doctor is.  I mistrust he don’t miss often.”

“Miss Jelliffe fired that shot, Sammy,” announced the doctor.

“Well, now!  It do beat all!  So yer done it yerself, did yer, ma’am?  I’ll fix him up now and bring th’ head in by an’ by.  Don’t yer be feared, I knows how ter take a scalp off fine fer stuffin’.  To-morrer we’ll take the meat.  He’s not long out of the velvet.  Go right over ter the camp an’ shift yer wet boots.  Frenchy he’ll show yer.  Kittle’s bilin’ an’ everything ready.  It do be a fine day’s work.”