CHAP. vii. HUNTING WITH DOGS. 355 



gully. I had only time to ram cartridges into my breech- 

 loader when they reached the crossing ; but whether they 

 smelt the powder, or whether they saw the dead bodies 

 of their comrades, they swerved at it and continued their 

 former course. This the heavy rush of their hoofs told 

 me, and again running to the bank with my guns, I fired 

 all four barrels at them from between sixty and a hundred 

 yards. One fell, and I heard the bullet tell on another, 

 but the other two must have been clean misses. In the 

 excitement of the moment I had not gone after the first 

 troop on horseback, as I had at first intended, but now I 

 rushed to my horse, jumped on to its back, and extricat- 

 ing it as rapidly as possible from the gully, galloped off in 

 pursuit of this one. They were then leading by about four 

 hundred yards with one of my dogs not far behind, while 

 its companions, having followed them since they were 

 started, were lagging some just before and some just 

 behind me, the Kaffir dogs having turned off to the one 

 that had dropped in its tracks, mortally wounded. 



My horse, stiff from standing, and impatient from 

 having had nothing to do for so long, was only too glad 

 to be allowed to go ; but after the first quarter of an hour 

 of hard galloping, during which I had rather improved my 

 position, I had to check him, as it was impossible that he 

 could keep that pace up for long, and I had been too often 

 beaten off not to know the staying powers of a harte- 

 beest, even when, as was the case with one of these, 

 it had a bullet somewhere in its body. No ground could 

 possibly have been more favourable for a trial of speed, 

 it being as level and clean as a race-course, and the short- 

 ness of the grass preventing any mistakes in the hyena 



