204. IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA 
by the feet of the beast, enormous human-looking 
tracks showing the marks of a heel which no other 
living thing in the world but the gorilla and man has. 
I gave the boy back the Springfield and took the big 
.475 elephant gun. And although the next bit of 
going was hard and wearing, I carried the gun myself 
and trusted it to no gun boy. 
We followed the trail for two hours, and I think a 
full half hour was spent on all fours in true story- 
book fashion. 
It led us through a clearing where bamboo cutters 
had been at work, and we failed to pick it up again 
even though I offered the guides a king’s ransom (in 
their eyes) if they would show me the old boy before 
dark. They were lackadaisical about the whole 
affair. I had to give it up, and as I started for camp 
I realized that I was very tired. Then we spent an 
hour going straight up the steepest possible slope and 
down again following sounds that turned out to be 
made by a troop of monkeys. When we reached 
camp at three o’clock in the inevitable downpour 
of this season, I was “all in.” The rain stopped, and 
I called a conference of the guides with the result 
that I came to the conclusion that they were entirely 
useless. They did not want to goon atall. I broke 
camp immediately and started a two-and-a-half hour 
march to the Mission not knowing just what my next 
move would be—probably to hunt up some “bush- 
men” as guides. I reached the Mission before sun- 
down, in the usual rain, and went to bed. 
The next morning I came around to the southwest 
