110 HUNTING WITH THE KARENS 



utterly impossible to go ahead, and I was making 

 noise. I feared I could get no closer in that 

 thicket, yet the effort had to be made ; so keeping 

 the animal's tail in my eye, I forced forward. The 

 noise was startling: the tail stopped switching; it 

 seemed to me I could see the outline of the hocks 

 stiffen as the buffalo prepared to jump. It was a 

 case of sheer desperation ; making a rough guess as 

 to where its shoulder might be, I fired, realizing that 

 only by an extraordinarily lucky chance could I 

 score. Instantly there was a tremendous racket. 

 When we got to where the buffalo had stood we 

 saw a little blood on the bushes— about rump high. 



We followed the buffalo for the rest of the day— 

 for half of the moonlight night— uselessly, for the 

 tracks grew dim and the shifting clouds and heavy 

 foliage made it quite impossible to see. It was a 

 mad chase, and Wan was indulgent enough to 

 remain with me uncomplainingly. 



We lay down in the jungle to rest until daylight 

 without going to camp, which was far away, and 

 then again— the tracks ; but we never saw that buf- 

 falo, and I hope no other hunter ever did; for I 

 should like now to think that my bullet made only 

 a flesh wound which never embarrassed the buf- 

 falo's progress, rather than that the beast wan- 

 dered, at the mercy of the jungle great cats, to 

 fall finally an easy victim, or to die the lingering 

 death of the seriously wounded. 





