38 TALES OF A NOMAD, 



good fellow, and knew how to take bad as well as good 

 luck. As a rule he bagged about five head to every two 

 head that I managed to bag. It only shows how luck 

 varies on particular days. 



However, as we saw this last troop escaping untouched, 

 a light expression of impatience broke from his lips ; 

 " Bless the brutes, I wish they would all drop down dead". 

 When our men returned to the plain, they reported that 

 they had, when on the hillside, seen two troops of 

 buffaloes about a couple of miles behind us on the plain, 

 so we set off at once in that direction. 



We cut the spoor of one troop and began to follow it 

 up, but had not proceeded far when we saw human foot- 

 marks. As it was evident that another hunter was 

 before us on the spoor we saw it was no use and gave it 

 up. 



We proceeded in the direction of the remaining troop, 

 found their spoor and followed until we sighted them 

 scattered about on a small conical hill which was very 

 slightly raised above the level of the plain. They were 

 on the feed. 



It was a nasty place for a stalk. There was hardly 

 any cover, and the grass had been lately burned off, so 

 that as we crawled forward, the stubs of grass ran into 

 the palms of our hands and our knees. I experienced 

 particular inconvenience from this, as I always hunted 

 without trousers, so after crawling for about 100 yards 



in this fashion, I touched C and said, "You go on, 



I have had enough of it," and sat down to watch the 

 result. 



C stalked on and had got within about 170 yards 



when a bull that was feeding on the slope raised its 

 head and spotted him. C remained perfectly still 



