142 IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA 
intently in an attempt to locate them. At first I 
thought they had gone out of hearing, when I sud- 
denly discovered the rear elevation of a bull not more 
than twenty feet from us. He was motionless. We 
had come in so quietly that he had not heard us, and 
then I did not dare move for fear of attracting his 
attention. I craned my neck in an effort to get a 
glimpse of his tusks, and in doing this I became 
conscious of a cow standing beside the bull and 
looking straight at us. Bill was about five feet back 
and to one side of me. I stood motionless, without 
swinging my gun in the cow’s direction, but waited 
for her to make the move. I doubt whether she saw 
us distinctly. The bull began to move away and the 
cow, in turning to follow, moved a pace more or less 
in my direction. I was perfectly certain that she was 
going to follow the bull, and to Bill there was no in- 
dication that I had seen her. Bill thought she was 
coming at me, raised his gun, and fired point blank 
into the cow’s face. The elephants bolted. I 
wheeled and slapped Bill, because he had broken one 
of the rules of the game, which is that a black boy 
must never shoot without orders unless his master is 
down and at the mercy of a beast. Of course it did 
not take long for me to come to a realization that 
Bill’s shooting was done in perfectly good faith be- 
cause he thought that I had not seen the cow, and he 
also thought that she was coming straight at me. 
Bill’s heart was broken and my apologies were forth- 
coming and were as humble as the dignity of a white 
man would permit. 
