20 GUN, RIFLE, AND HOUND. 



to be getting on with my breakfast, as I should soon be 

 coming back. Another blank beat followed, and I 

 told the shikari it was no use going on any longer. 

 He was, as usual, quite ready to leave off. I then 

 asked him, although I had a pretty good idea myself, 

 whereabouts Sendra lay. He pointed down the hill 

 we were then standing on, up the reverse slope of 

 which the beaters had just come. 



" Well then," I said, " you can just beat it down to 

 the bottom and then we'll knock off." So saying, I 

 walked some way along the crest so as to skirt the 

 piece I wanted beaten, before descending to the 

 valley. Coming back along its sandy bottom, I faced 

 the beaters, who were sitting quietly against the sky 

 line. I held up my handkerchief and the beat 

 began. 



The hill I was facing was not of an even surface. 

 From the crest, where the beaters had been waiting, 

 three rocky spurs ran out towards me. Two little 

 valleys were thus formed, and to my right of the last 

 spur the hill ended in precipitous rocks. The little 

 valleys of which I have spoken were full of thorny 

 jungle, and at their lower ends some straggling thorn 

 bushes ran down towards the dry torrent bed. Quite 

 unbelieving as to the possibility of seeing anything 

 more exciting than a blue bull,"" I placed myself out in 

 the open between these two lots of bushes, which 

 doubtless owed their origin to the water-drainage of 

 the little valleys. 



The beaters advanced slowly, clambering over the 

 * The nylghau, a large antelope. 



