222 THE GAME OE BRIIISH EAST AFRICA. 



that not ten yards from him, though standing the other side of the hill and nearly 

 concealed by it, is the great beast he has been following all day. 



His position is hopeless ; he can neither retreat nor advance, nor can he leave 

 the path without breaking down the wall of grass on either side; so he must fire 

 from where he stands — not at all a favourable shot. The elephant is a quarter 

 facing him, and, with part of its head, shoulder, and one huge tusk showing, all 

 other parts are concealed from view. The shoulder-chest shot is the only shot to go 

 for, but unluckily this shot is partly masked by the huge tusk. However, something 

 must be done, so, aiming so as just to miss the tusk, he fires. The elephant 

 crosses his front, and in a moment is swallowed up in thick grass, affording only 

 time for a rapid second shot in the flank. He hears the elephant fall, and then 

 various other sounds. Rapidly reloading, he runs towards the spot, and finds that 

 the elephant has trodden on the side of an ant-hill, has fallen, and picked himself up 

 and proceeded. He hastens after it, and, after going for half an hour, reaches a 

 thinner bush-country, and just catches a glimpse of the hind view of his elephant 

 stalking along ahead of him. He hurriedly puts a couple of shots into this expanse, 

 and then, as the animal disappears, runs as hard as he can after it, trying to reload as 



he runs. 



Then the unexpected happens. There suddenly sounds a scream of rage, and 

 before he quite knows what is happening the huge elephant is bearing down on him 

 with ears outspread, offering about three yards of frontage and going at a ponderous 

 sort of gallop. It seems impossible to avoid or get round the great mass which is 

 but a few yards from him, so, taking his chance, he shrinks behind the insignificant 

 cover of a small thorn-busli. The elephant passes his thorn-bush within hand's 

 reach, and goes on for some fifteen yards before it halts and looks about for its 

 adversary. The hunter hurriedly reloads and takes a rapid shot, and then increases 

 the distance between himself and the elephant, which is unpleasantly little. 



The animal goes off before the hunter can find another clip and effect a reload, 

 so there is nothing left to do but to follow the spoor again. This he does for a 

 short time, and then, in a thunderstorm, returns to camp to make preparations for 

 what he realises will be a long business, and so ends the second day's hunting. 



The next phase is the slow and steady following up of the night's spoor, which 

 pans out to an immense walk occupying the whole day, and towards sunset he finds 

 that the spoor is older than when he started, showing that the distance between 

 himself and his quarry has increased instead of diminished. Presently, however, 

 fresh tracks, made within the last few minutes, cross the spoor he is following, 

 so changing on to these, he shortly comes up with a large herd of bull elephants. 



