THE LAST SEFARI 425 
As soon as the men had eaten I sent two or three parties 
out to look for sign. By evening all returned with unfavour- 
able reports. They had seen nothing. 
Next morning John roused me before five o’clock, and 
half an hour before full daylight we were working our way 
along the bases of the hills. There was plenty of game, 
and a few fresh rhino signs, but we tramped for two hours 
and a half before we saw any fresh buffalo spoor.' 
One of my Wakamba was the first to make out a very 
faint print on the flinty red soil. It turned upward into a 
mountain gorge, and as the earth on a bench we were 
crossing softened a little, showed up more plainly. The 
spoor was that of a single old bull, and was quite fresh. 
Our hopes rose accordingly. 
After almost two hours’ patient tracking I found myself 
on a green slope, not more than two hundred yards wide, 
that steeply fell away on my right hand and soon rose to a 
‘ precipice on my left. A sort of bench, it was cut by deep 
dongas every half mile or so, and these were most of them 
dry and filled up with dense brush. 
Crossing them took time and care. Here the rank 
grass of last season had somehow escaped the grass fire, 
and stood tough and high —impossible stuff to track in, 
almost impossible to shoot in. Things began to look 
hopeless. ‘The dew was gone, and we lost the trail utterly. 
As we topped a little ridge, I saw a rhino strolling along 
in the perfectly aimless way they have, on the other side 
of a deep donga that opened up a few yards beyond us. 
I looked him over, for the country owed me one more. 
The horn was not very large but it was not badly shaped, 
and was as long as any I was likely to see. I told Brownie 
I would have him, as our chance of a buffalo seemed now 
so slim. 
Just then the rhino decided to take a dry rub down, 
as there were no water holes near by, and tumbled 
