P.'S BULL. 261 



ing the wind well in our favour. Our elephant was a young pad female 

 (Soondargowry), only six and a half feet high (scarcely higher than the bulls), 

 hut steady under fire, and plucky ; we had no mahout, managing her our- 

 selves, and we used no concealment beyond having dark-coloured shooting- 

 coats. Our guns deserve some mention : these were a couple of double- 

 barrelled C.F. breech-loaders for spherical ball by W. W. Greener — one a 

 No. 4, the other a No. 8 bore, weighing 19| and 17 lb. respectively, and 

 firing 12 drams each. 



When within sixty yards the bison observed us, but evinced no alarm 

 till we got nearer, when they seemed to notice something strange, and both 

 came forward a few steps. We were now only thirty-five yards away, the 

 bulls being on our right face, and as they were beginning to get fidgety, we 

 turned the elephant partly round to bring them on to our near side for 

 easier shooting. This movement was taken by one bull as the signal for 

 decamping, and away he went, though P., to whom he had been assigned for 

 slaughter, called a halt from him with the 8 -bore ; this, however, only 

 hastened his retreat, the ball entering too high and far back, as the shot 

 was a difficult one from P.'s position. Almost simultaneously with the 

 crash of P.'s rifle the 4-bore opened upon the other bull, raking him from 

 stem to stern, and dropping him on the spot. 



The first bull had, after a desperate flounder, disappeared into the bam- 

 boos. Our stanch little elephant, who had never had such heavy firing off • 

 her back before, stood well through it all, and walked up to the fallen bull 

 with perfect nonchalance. We jumped off, hobbled her, and leaving her to 

 be brought on by our men, started with the trackers after the wounded bull. 

 Blood was plentiful, and we had not gone more than half a mile when we 

 sighted him entering some thick bamboo-cover ahead. We had to use some 

 caution in following him into this, as it was just the place for him to pull 

 up in ; but he held on through it, and we lost a good deal of ground. In 

 the forest on the far side we made the pace hot again : a short distance 

 ahead was another bamboo-cover ; and before we had got far into it, cau- 

 tiously as before, the trackers pointed to the bull lying down. His head 

 and shoulders were hidden by a bamboo-clump, but his huge dorsal ridge 

 and heaving flanks could be seen pretty clearly. P. sent another 8 -bore 

 through him as far forward as he could, in acknowledgment of which the 

 bull jumped up with unexpected agility and plunged off through the cover. 

 We followed him fast now, as the noise he made insured us against stum- 

 bling upon him unexpectedly ; but the two trackers outstripped us far, and 

 in their eagerness not to lose sight of the bull, kept up with him into the 

 open forest on the far side. When we emerged from the cover a fine piece 



