CH. v] A WOUNDED RHIXO 115 



head a long way off on the other side of the pool, and 

 we again drew back and started cautiously forward to 

 reach the point opposite which he had seen the head. 



But we were not destined to get that hippo. Just as 

 we had about reached tlie point at which we had 

 intended to turn in toward the pool, tliere w^as a 

 succession of snorts in our front, and the sound of the 

 trampling of heavy feet and of a big body being shoved 

 through a dense mass of tropical bush. My companions 

 called to me in loud whispers that it was a rhinoceros 

 comhig at us, and to " Shoot, shoot !" In another 

 moment the rhinoceros appeared, twitching its tail and 

 tossing and twisting its head from side to side as it 

 came toward us. It did not seem to have very good 

 horns, and I would much rather not have killed it, but 

 there hardly seemed any alternative, for it certainly 

 showed every symptom of being bent on mischief. My 

 first shot, at under forty yards, produced no effect what- 

 ever, except to hasten its approach. I was using the 

 Winchester, with full-jacketed bullets ; my second 

 bullet went in between the neck and shoulder, bringing 

 it to a halt. I fired into the shoulder again, and as it 

 turned toward the bush I fired into its flank both the 

 bullets still remaining in my magazine. 



For a moment or two after it disappeared we heard 

 the branches crash, and then there was silence. In such 

 cover a wounded rhino requires cautious handling, and 

 as quietly as possible we walked through the open forest 

 along the edge of the dense thicket into which the 

 animal had returned. The thicket was a tangle of thorn 

 bushes, reeds, and small, low-branching trees ; it was 

 impossible to see ten feet through it, and a man could 

 only penetrate it with the utmost slowness and difficulty, 

 whereas the movements of the rhino were very little 



