The Houma courier. (Houma, La.) 1878-1939, 1897-06-26
a SAD BOY GOT THE GRAY STAG.

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He shot Down the Prize which Lone
don spOrtsmen Had Sought in Vain.
The gray stag which had roaned all
over the northwest of Ross county, in
Scotland, passing from one deer forest
into the rest. puzzling still hunters by
its devious course and crafty ways, and
giving buck fever to everybody that
shot at it came to be regarded as a
charmed beast, was killed at last by q
boy.
Corrievear deer park is not very
large, but a considerable number OF
deer are killed there, and it is a neat lit
tie place for coy hunts. The owners
live in London and are kept informed
of what goes on there by Colin Mac
Donald, the head gamekeeper, who
knows the uplands better than most
people know books. One day early in
July Percy Stephens, one of the own
ers, got a letter saying the celebrated
gray stag had come over the fence into
iCorrievear land, from I~nveroniag, a
neighboring forest, where the beast had
escaped a number of bullets. Once a
week thereafter letters cam telling
N40H SAAC SAay SbuS AhBo OCOh oCCn I'll JtlA1
moor and in that wood. On August 10
the gray stag, covered with mire,
hoped out of a mudhole and stared at
the men and dogs that were looking
over the lay of the land. Stalking be-
gan the next day, and in a week Steph-
ems got a shot at a little over 100 yards,
but missed. A running shot at $50
yards was equally unsuccessful. Others
got trials, but the big brute waved its
tail at them. Every effort was made to
drive the stag to the hunters, but it
usually took up it's position on the hills
behind the hunters and looked at their
backs.
A boy whose mother feared he would
get the measles in the city arrived at the
hunting lodge one day and turned
things topsy turvy in a way that got
him heartily disliked by everyone. One
day the shooters gave a little rowing
party and left the boy at home to
muse himself by shooting rabbits. The
boy, when the party was out of sight,
got a rabbit gun" in the shooting
lodge. He had been expected to take
a 22-caliber weapon, but instead he took
a 3S-caliber, because it was bigger.
There was a nearby evergreen tree
patch in which the boy was expected
to hunt, but instead he travelled three
hours into the upland looking for a o e
buck he had seen. Being we'll tired out,
he lay down in the sunlight and went
to sleep. He slept for several hours,
and when he awoke the great gray buck,
with several other deer, was before him,
so yards off.
Without realizing that the gun in his
hand was fit to kill so mighty a beast,
the boy resolved to "prick him up to
see the beggar jump" He fired, and the
deer threw up it's head, and for a mo-
ment stood looking toward him. He
began to fear the brute was about to at
tack him. Then away the deer plunged,
around a hill and out of sight. The boy
climbed to the hill, arriving there just
in time to see the deer go plunging hoofs
over head. He fired another bullet into
it to make sure of it's death.
A rainstorm came up, the boy got
lost, and was found weeping and wet
through by the gamekeeper, MacDon-
aid. At the lodge the boy told his story.
The Englishmen grew angrier and an
grier, until he came to the bucks death;
then they could not contain themselves.
81 must draw a veil over the scene
that followed his confession" Mr.,
Stephens says, ''for my humble pen is
totally inadequate to do justice to it,
but suffice to say that it was a
very dispirited boy that started for the
south at. the earliest hour next morn
ing. During the day the stag was
brought down. It weighed 10 stone,
and had IA points. "-Badminton Maya
zine.
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