During these last few days he had been assuring himself that he would
enter upon this second stalking expedition without any great tremor. It
was only on the first occasion, when everything was strange and unknown
to him, that he was naturally nervous. Even the keepers had declared
that the shooting of the first stag was everything; that thereafter he
would have confidence; that he would take the whole matter as coolly as
themselves. And yet, when they now began to proceed more warily (old
Maggie having been hobbled some way back) and when every corrie and
slope and plateau had to be searched with the glass, he found himself
growing not a little anxious at the thought of drawing the trigger;
insomuch, indeed, that those sombre fancies of the imagination went out
of his head altogether and gave place to the apprehension that on such a
day it would be difficult to make a good shot. Their initial difficulty,
however, was to find any trace of the "beasts." The wild weather had
most likely driven them away from their usual haunts into some place of
shelter, the smaller companies joining the main herd; at all events, up
to lunch-time the stalkers had seen nothing.
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