208 IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA 
took it I heard that roar again—thirty feet away, 
almost directly above. One plunge and down we 
would all go three hundred feet to the bottom. With- 
out the support of the sapling at my back it would 
not be humanly possible to fire the big gun upward 
from that trail. There was a deal of comfort in the 
feel of that old gun even though theoretically I did 
not fear gorillas; it had stood by me in more than 
one close place. After the roar there was silence 
for an instant—not a branch stirred—then a crashing 
rush along at a level, above and past me—another 
roar—back again to where he had been. I had seen 
nothing but a swaying of the mass of vegetation right 
down to our feet. He stopped where he had been 
at first. Silence. Through the green against the sky 
I seemed to make out a denser mass—the outline of 
his head. J aimed just below and his fourth roar 
was broken by the roar of the .475. Ai terrific crash- 
ing plunge of three or four hundred pounds of beast, 
he struck the trail eight feet from me. The gun was 
on him. There was a soft nose in the left barrel ready 
for him, but it was unnecessary. The slight ledge 
of trail did not stop him in the least. He crashed 
on down over and over, almost straight downward 
toward the edge of the chasm. 
My heart sank for I realized that if he went to 
the bottom I would stand little chance of being 
able to recover him and my first gorilla would have 
been killed in vain. Overhanging the edge of the 
chasm there was a lone tree, two feet in diameter, 
and the gorilla in his plunge struck this tree, rolled 
