Hunting at High Altitudes 



Anyhow they had worked out the range of a spear 

 so exactly that when started from a clump of bushes 

 or a patch of long grass, they would run for a 

 hundred yards, and then walk quietly away, giving 

 plenty of time to look at their horns through a 

 glass, as well as for a shot. Near the camp were 

 several small herds of puku, a kob or waterbuck, 

 about the size of a whitetail deer. Living on the 

 open plain without any cover, over which the wind 

 blew with great force, raising blinding clouds of 

 dust and ashes from the burnt grass, they were 

 wild and hard to approach. Each buck had a herd 

 of about thirty does with him, thus adding greatly 

 to the difficulty of getting a shot, as he was gen- 

 erally in their midst, and I must confess to a couple 

 of amazing flukes when I got a couple of good 

 heads with a shot each through the heart at over 

 three hundred yards in a gale of wind. I mention 

 this to show that sometimes the thousand-to-one 

 chance comes off. 



One evening a native came to camp with the 

 report that he could show us buffalo- within a long 

 day's march, and in a country where we could use 

 horses. This sounded too good to be true, and I 

 was careful to impress on him that we would ad- 

 here strictly to the agreement which we always 

 made in such cases, namely, a handsome present if 



358 



