100 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



At this very time, and utterly without our knowledge, 

 there was another giraffe hunt going on. Sir Alfred had 

 taken out Kermit and Medlicott, and they came across a 

 herd of a dozen giraffes right out in the open plains. Med- 

 licott's horse was worn out and he could not keep up, but 

 both the others were fairly well mounted. Both were light 

 men and hard riders, and although the giraffes had three- 

 quarters of a mile the start, it was not long before both 

 were at the heels of the herd. They singled out the big bull, 

 which by the way turned out to be an even bigger bull than 

 mine, and fired at him as they galloped. In such a head- 

 long helter-skelter chase, however, it is no easy matter to 

 score a hit from horseback unless one is very close up; and 

 Sir Alfred made up his mind to try to drive out the bull 

 from the rest of the herd. He succeeded; but at this mo- 

 ment his horse put a forefoot into a hole and turned a com- 

 plete somersault, almost wrenching out his shoulder. Sir 

 Alfred was hurled off head over heels, but even as he rolled 

 over, clutching his rifle, he twisted himself round to his 

 knees, and took one last shot at the flying giraffe. This 

 left Kermit alone and he galloped hard on the giraffe's 

 heels, firing again and again with his Winchester. Finally 

 his horse became completely done out and fell behind; 

 whereupon Kermit jumped off, and being an excellent 

 long-distance runner, ran after the giraffe on foot for more 

 than a mile. But he did not need to shoot again. The 

 great beast had been mortally wounded and it suddenly 

 slowed down, halted, and fell over dead. As a matter of 

 curiosity we kept the Winchester bullets both from Ker- 

 mit's giraffe and from mine. I made a point of keeping 

 as many as possible of the bullets with which the different 



