476 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



really important to get good groups for the National Mu- 

 seum in Washington and the American Museum in New 

 York, and a head for the National Collection of Heads and 

 Horns which was started by Mr. Hornaday, the director of 

 the Bronx Zoological Park. Moreover Kermit and Loring 

 desired to get some photos of the animals while they were 

 alive. 



Things did not go well this time, however. The rhinos 

 saw us before either Kermit or Loring could get a good 

 picture. As they wheeled I fired hastily into the chest of 

 one, but not quite in the middle, and away they dashed 

 for they do not seem as truculent as the common rhino. 

 We followed them. After an hour the trails separated; 

 Cuninghame went on one, but failed to overtake the ani- 

 mal, and we did not see him until we reached camp late 

 that afternoon. 



Meanwhile our own gun-bearers followed the bloody 

 spoor of the rhino I had hit, Kermit and I close behind, 

 and Loring with us. The rhino had gone straight off at a 

 gallop, and the trail offered little difficulty, so we walked 

 fast. A couple of hours passed. The sun was now high 

 and the heat intense as we walked over the burned ground. 

 The scattered trees bore such scanty foliage as to cast 

 hardly any shade. The rhino galloped strongly and with- 

 out faltering; but there was a good deal of blood on the 

 trail. At last, after we had gone seven or eight miles, 

 Kiboko the skinner, who was acting as my gun-bearer, 

 pointed toward a small thorn-tree; and beside it I saw 

 the rhino standing with drooping head. It had been 

 fatally hit, and if undisturbed would probably never have 

 moved from where it was standing; and we finished it 

 off forthwith. It was a cow, and before dying it ran 

 round and round in a circle, in the manner of the common 

 rhino. 



Loring stayed to superintend the skinning and bring- 

 ing in of the head and feet, and slabs of hide. Mean- 

 while Kermit and I, with our gun-bearers, went off with a 



