204 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



leisurely style, and with scant regard to the animal itself. 

 Moreover we did not intend to kill any rhino unless its 

 horns were out of the common. I first stalked and shot a 

 buck Roberts' gazelle with a good head. Then we off-sad- 

 dled the horses and sat down to lunch under a huge thorn- 

 tree, which stood by itself, lonely and beautiful, and offered 

 a shelter from the blazing sun. The game was grazing 

 on every side; and I kept thinking of all the life of the 

 wilderness, and of its many tragedies, which the great tree 

 must have witnessed during the centuries since it was a 

 seedling. 



Lunch over, I looked to the loading of the heavy rifle, 

 and we started toward the rhinos, well to leeward. But 

 the wind shifted every which way; and suddenly my gun- 

 bearers called my attention to the rhinos, a quarter of a 

 mile off, saying, "He charging, he charging." Sure enough, 

 they had caught our wind, and were rushing toward us. I 

 jumped off the horse and studied the oncoming beasts 

 through my field-glass; but head on it was hard to tell 

 about the horns. However, the wind shifted again, and 

 when two hundred yards off they lost our scent, and turned 

 to one side, tails in the air, heads tossing, evidently much 

 wrought up. They were a large cow and a young heifer, 

 nearly two-thirds grown. As they trotted sideways I could 

 see the cow's horns, and her doom was sealed; for they were 

 of good length, and the hind one (it proved to be two feet 

 long) was slightly longer than the stouter front one; it was 

 a specimen which the museum needed. 



So after them we trudged over the brown plain. But 

 they were uneasy, and kept trotting and walking. They 

 never saw us with their dull eyes; but a herd of wildebeest 



