116 SHIKAR SKETCHES. 



direction he had gone, with no hopes of seeing 

 him again, till, on gaining the summit of the 

 ridge where he had disappeared, I saw, some three 

 hundred yards below me on the plain, a dark 

 object, apparently motionless. 



Could this be my buck? My hopes revived. 

 But, alas ! they were soon dashed to the ground : 

 for, even if it was, I had nothing wherewith to 

 administer the coup-de-grace. Knife I had not 

 with me ; my bullets were all expended. There 

 was not even a stone that I could load my gun 

 with, as a substitute for a bullet ! Vainly I felt in 

 all my pockets for a missile of some sort. Vain 

 and bloodthirsty visions of strangling my victim, 

 if I could only get hold of him, arose in my mind ! 

 Again I turned out my pockets. c Hurrah ! Eureka !' 

 I mentally ejaculated. 



Now, at the depot it had been instilled into my 

 mind, by means of the adjutant and a study of 

 the c Red Book,' that, in cases of emergency, 

 'numerous expedients will suggest themselves to 

 the intelligent officer.' Here was a chance to 

 prove, if even only for my own personal satisfac- 

 tion, that I was c intelligent ' from a sporting, even 

 were I not so from a military point of view. 



My search was rewarded by finding, in the 

 lining of my waistcoat-pocket, a four-anna bit (a 

 small silver coin about the size of an English 



