144 SAFARI 



and then back again. But every time she tried to 

 get it to drink it would shy off. 



Fascinated, we were watching it, and commenting 

 to each other in whispers about the timidity of rhino 

 young, which often stick by their mothers imtil as big 

 as they. And I had arisen from the ferns and was 

 cranking my camera — as the httle one ran off from the 

 pool, then, frightened by some leaf or bird, ran back 

 again — ^when Osa gave me a nudge. I turned quicker 

 than a shot and there, coming for me, was a big buck 

 rhino, his two horns straight in a line with the camera 

 • — and me. Osa already had her rifle — they were 

 always across our laps, by our bedside, somewhere 

 near at hand — at her shoulder, the .405 Winchester; 

 and I called to her to try and turn him with a shot 

 rather than shoot to kill, for I was making a good 

 film of him and I thought this might be one of his ever- 

 lasting false charges. Evidently Osa didn't think so, 

 for as he came within thirty feet, she shot for the 

 brain and he fell; the bullet, we later found, lodging 

 right by his horn. 



It is easy to imagine my anxiety when, after such 

 incidents as these, Osa disappeared one day. She 

 had ridden out a little way from camp on a mule; 

 with her was one of the gim-bearers who reported 

 that somehow or other he had got separated from her. 

 My fury at the man's being so casual was tempered 

 when I saw how really frightened he was. 



