BULLET AND SHOT 



the wretched beast often escapes to die a lingering 

 death. 



Very early in my antelope shooting days I had 

 an extraordinary experience of their vitality, for 

 which, to this day, I find it difficult to account. 

 I was out shooting near Kadakal, which is only 

 nine miles from the town of Mysore, and had 

 ascended a hill rising abruptly from the plain, from 

 which, with a telescope or binoculars, antelope can 

 often be seen a long way off. With the naked eye 

 we could see, far away in the plain, little clouds of dust 

 rising first in one place and then in another, and 

 the men said that these were due to bucks fighting, 

 while the glass showed that such was the case. 

 Descending the hill, I made a good stalk in, but 

 arrived, rather too much pumped for steady shoot- 

 ing, within easy shot of the pair of bucks who were 

 fighting most viciously and persistently. I fired at 

 one and missed ; they then bolted, and I fired again 

 as they ran and hit one of them. Greatly to my 

 surprise, the antelope ran only a short distance and 

 then pulled up, and once more set to fighting 

 furiously. So engrossed were they in their deadly 

 duel that they allowed me to walk in quite close, 

 and I then fired at and dropped one of them (I 

 subsequently found that this was the one first 

 wounded) ; and the other one, taking no notice 

 of the shot, delivered another thrust with his horns 

 at the fallen foe, whereupon I fired again and killed 

 him also. Imagine my surprise when I found that 

 both my bullets were most accurately placed upon 

 the shoulder of the first buck slain, and either 



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