8 LARGE GAME. chap. i. 



it 's got ; where was it ? where were you ? where 's it 

 gone ? Wau ! " 



As I knew perfectly well that no silence could be 

 hoped for until I told him all about it, I did so amid his 

 astonished ejaculations of " Wau I" and then, after satis- 

 fying himself by examining the spoor as to where the 

 charge had taken place, and with his sharp eyes detecting 

 a splinter of horn on the ground where the bull had been 

 standing when I fired at it, and after casting a wondering 

 look or two at the tree I had climbed, he turned to me 

 and asked, " Shall we follow it ?" and on receiving an 

 affirmative reply, he at once took my gun from me, struck 

 the spoor, and went along it at a rapid walk. 



For the first hour no word was uttered, the native, his 

 curiosity once satisfied, completely absorbed in the work 

 of tracking. The buffalo had galloped steadily up the 

 river, avoiding the thickets, and in the long grass his trail 

 was quite plain. At last he reduced his pace to a walk, 

 and entered a small thorn jungle, through which, taking 

 my gun, I followed him in person, until he left it and 

 again struck across an open, where the shorter grass and 

 sun-baked soil, combined with the faint impression he 

 made when walking, taxed the united powers of both of 

 us to keep the spoor. It was mid-day before we reached 

 the next cover, into which he went ; it was a large one, 

 with cactus for underwood, and heavy timber at intervals, 

 and we had no doubt but that he would He down in some 

 part of it. 



Up and down we followed the spoor of the restless 

 brute, finding many spots where he had stood, sometimes 

 in gloomy caves formed by the cactus, where the sunlight 



