A NIGHT VIGIL A^7 



growth, and it was gone. Rather less than two hours 

 later, another creature approached our right rear. Roll- 

 ing half over, and getting the rifle to bear, I waited till 

 it should be quite close, when suddenly it sprang back- 

 wards ten or twelve feet, raised itself on high like a huge 

 lizard, and then, as I fired, blundered away as though 

 it had been hit. Two hours later the original ant-bear 

 began to move again, but at the same moment Hyde, 

 who had gone to sleep, rolled over noisily, and another 

 long hour dragged on before the beast very slowly and 

 cautiously crawled out. Waiting this time till it was 

 almost clear of the hole, I fired, when there was a 

 hurried scramble, followed by an irregular, thumping 

 noise, as it made off. The lantern showed a heavy 

 blood-trail, and one bit of bone. After following the 

 spoor for a little way we turned back to camp, which 

 we reached at two a.m., I feeling rewarded for the 

 seven hours which I had spent lying in a cramped 

 position. 



Next morning, after following the other two tracks 

 for a little way without result, we took up that of the 

 wounded ant-bear and found it had gone to ground, in 

 an old tunnel close by. At first it was easy work enough, 

 digging in the earth softened by the rain, but as the 

 tunnel got deeper we found the hard clay very difficult 

 to manage with our inefficient implements. After follow- 

 ing it for a length of ii feet, during. which it kept 

 sinking deeper, we found that the burrow made a 

 sharp turn back on itself. Here a stick thrust down 

 was seized and nearly bitten through, which rather 

 surprised me, as I thought the ant-bear's teeth were 



