Part 21 (1/2)
We could hear occasionally indications of the buffaloes' slow advance, and anted to gain a good aed
We found it in the shape of a small conical hillock perched on the side hill itself, and covered with long grass It coh the scattered trees in all directions And the thicket itself ended not fifty yards away No buffalo could possibly coood half hour of clear daylight before us
It really seeed at last
We settled ourselves, unliot our breath The buffaloes ca a hundred yards ae could catch reat black bodies I thrust forward the safety catch and waited Finally a half dozen of the huge beasts were feeding not six feet inside the circle of brush, and only thirty-odd yards from where we lay
And they ca half hour of suspense than that in which little by little the daylight and our hopes faded, while those confounded buffaloes e of the thicket, turned, and ain At times they came actually into view We could see their sleek black bodies rolling lazily into sight and back again, like seals on the surface of water, but never could we ood shots, but I could not even guess what I would be shooting at And the daylight drained away and the minutes ticked by!
Finally, as I could see no end to this perforly accustoether we glided like shadows into the thicket
There it was already dusk We sneaked breathlessly through the ss, desperately in a hurry, almost painfully on the alert In the dark shadow sixty yards ahead stood a half dozenour way They suspected the presence of so unusual, but in the darkness and the stillness they could neither identify it nor locate it exactly I dropped on one knee and snatched nification enabled roup carried the sharply inturned points to the horns: they were all cows!
An instant after I had made out this fact, they stampeded across our face The whole band thundered and crashed away
Desperately we sprang after theuns atrail, our bodies stooped low to keep down in the shadow of the earth And suddenly, without the slightest warning we plumped around a bush square on top of the entire herd It had stopped and was staring back in our direction I could see nothing but the wild toss of a hundred pair of horns silhouetted against such of the irregular saffron afterglow as had not been blocked off by the twigs and branches of the thicket All beloas indistinguishable blackness
They stood in a long compact semicircular line thirty yards away, quite still, evidently staring intently into the dusk to find out what had alarmed them At any moment they were likely to make another rush; and if they did so in the direction they were facing, they would most certainly run over us and traht it likely that the unexpected vivid flash of the gun ot started Therefore I raised the big double Holland, aier when ht the silhouette of a pair of horns whose tips spread out instead of turning in This was a bull, and I iun in his direction At the heavy double report, the herd broke wildly to right and left and thundered away I confess I was quite relieved
A lowbellow told us that our bull was down The last few days'
experience at being out late had taught us wisdoht of this, we discovered our bull down, and all but dead To make sure, I put a Winchester bullet into his backbone
We felt ourselves legitiratulations, for we had killed this bull from a practically nocturnal herd, in the face of considerable danger and more than considerable difficulty Therefore we shook hands andanybody to make them for us
By noas pitch dark in the thicket, and just about so outside We had to do a little planning I took the Holland gun, gave Memba Sasa the Winchester, and started him for camp after help As he carried off the lantern, it was now up to me to make a fire and to make it quickly
For the past hour a fine drizzle had been falling; and the whole country et froed in all the dead wood I could find near, collected what ought to be good kindling, and started in to light a fire Now, although I am no Boy Scout, I have lit several fires in my time But never when I was at the same time in such a desperate need and hurry; and in possession of such poor s sputtered and s tension of the buffalo hunt had so inefficiency If I had taken time to do a proper job once instead of a halfway job a dozen times, as I should have done and usually would have done, I would have had a fire in no tiine I was so cub had s around I could hear therunts However, at last the flaun nextFor two hours this was not so bad I smoked, and rested up, and dried out before an to run low I arose and tore down all the reht These were not many, so I stepped out into the darkness for rowl!
The next hour was not one of such solid coet parsi to use it in such a manner as to keep up an adequate blaze, and at the same time to make it last until Meot down to charred ends before I was through The old lioness hung around within a hundred yards or so below, and the buffalo herd, returning, filed by above, pausing to stamp and snort at the fire Finally, about nine o'clock, I h the trees
The last incident to be selected from many experiences with buffaloes took place in quite an unvisited district over the mountains froed far in this lovely upland country of groves and valleys and wide grass bottoreater kudu One day we all set out froe of low ood speci else especially desirable that entle slope froroith low brush This brush was so scanty as to afford but indifferent cover for anything larger than one of the srass antelopes All the ravines led down athe mountains Some water stood in the pools here; and the cover was a little er” no wider than a city street Flanking the stringer were scattered high bushes for a few yards; and then the open country
Altogether as unlikely a place for the shade-loving buffalo as could be i hunt; and just at noon, when the heat of the day began to come on, andered down to the water for lunch Here we found a good clear pool and drank The boys began to e; C went to superintend the disposal of Billy's mule Billy had sat down beneath the shade of the most hospitable of the bushes a hundred feet or so away, and was taking off her veil and gloves I was carrying to her the lunch box
When I was about halfway froe to where she sat, a buffalo bull thrust his head from the bushes just the other side of her His head was thrust up and forward, as he reached after soher tender leaves on the bushes So close was he that I could see plainly the drops glistening on hisveil, she seemed fairly under the beast
I had no weapon, and anysome word or some noise that would catch the animal's attention Fortunately, for the mosilence If the buffalo should look down, he could not fail to see Billy; and if he saw her, he would indubitably kill her
As has been explained, snapping the fingers does not seem to reach the attention of wild aniorously as I kne Billy heard, looked toward aze, and slowly sank prone against the ground Some of the boys heardup in interest fronals to lie loere understood: the heads dropped back Mavrouki, a rifle in each hand, carass with incredible quickness and agility A moment later he thrust the 405 Winchester into my hand
This weapon, powerful and accurate as it is, the best of the lot for lions, was altogether too small for the tremendous brute before lad in the circuet this The buffalo had browsed slowly forward into the clear, and was now taking the top off a s half away froest buffalo I had ever seen, though I should have been willing to have acknowledged at thatto do with the estimate However, later we found that the iiant of his kind His height at the shoulder was five feet ten inches; and his build was even chunkier than the usual solid robust pattern of buffaloes For exaht inches thick! He weighed not far from three thousand pounds
Once the rifle was in an to plan the best way out of the situation As yet the beast was totally unconscious of our presence; but that could not continue long There were too many men about A chance current of air froive his It was exceedingly desirable to deliver the first careful blow of the engagement while he was unaware