CHAP. III. ELAND. 141 



up, I ran forward to try and get a chance at the others. 

 They, however, were not in sight, only the cow I had 

 fired at being so, and she, after a minute or so, pulled 

 up, hung down her head, trembled a little, and then 

 swaying her body slightly from side to side, she knelt 

 down, and in a few seconds was dead. I did not, how- 

 ever, wait any longer than to see that she was down, 

 being bent upon keeping, or rather getting, the others in 

 sight, and went tearing on at full speed in the direction 

 they had taken. 



Luckily my somnolent charge des chasseurs had 

 been wakened by the shot, and as the elands went 

 towards him, he was able to shout directions which 

 enabled me, when they saw him, and sheered off from 

 the report of his gun, to so gain on them that, as they 

 emerged into the comparative open, I was barely twenty 

 yards behind. Several times I half pulled up and tried 

 to get a shot, but the numerous clumps of bush and groups 

 of trees through which they were running rendered it 

 very difficult, and as every time I made the attempt I 

 lost a great deal of ground, I gave it up, and settled 

 down to running steadily at about a hundred and fifty 

 yards behind them. There were only three, two bulls 

 and a cow, and I at once selected a great blue bull, old 

 and fat, and nearly twice the size of the cow, as the one 

 I should try and run mto. He was leading, more as a 

 matter of duty than pleasure I fancy, with the cow next 

 him, and their ground-covering trot was keeping me 

 doing all I could, and not gaining a yard, but rather, 

 if anything, losing. I was, however, in very good con- 

 dition, and as soon as I got steadied after a mile or so. 



