A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



sun streamed down on the steaming bush, there remained noth- 

 ing to do but to start campward. 



In coming out into a small, grassy opening in the midst of 

 the thick bush we suddenly found ourselves within fifty yards 

 of a group of eight giraffes, including one enormous dark- 

 chestnut coated bull. I did not care to shoot any of these 

 animals, and before I could secure my camera from one of the 

 men the giraffes lumbered away into the bush. En route to 

 the tents, from the top of a grassy knoll I discovered among 

 the game in sight between us and camp a herd of about thirty 

 oryx, feeding on the plain half a mile distant. Instructing the 

 men to remain where they were sitting in the grass, I carelessly 

 strolled out in the open toward these antelopes. Immediately 

 every head in the herd went up in the air. When I was still 

 five hundred yards distant the oryx bunched together, and 

 when I was a hundred yards nearer they galloped across the 

 plain in a cloud of dust. 



I had noticed a solitary bull, which was acting as sentinel some 

 distance to one side of the herd, and judging that it would fol- 

 low in their wake, I ran forw'ard one hundred yards and threw 

 myself down behind a bleached white stump which rose out of 

 the yellow grass. The lone oryx, which was galloping by at 

 the time, stopped abruptly at my sudden disappearance, and 

 offered a tempting broadside shot at three hundred and twenty 

 yards' distance. At the report of the rifle it hesitated, stumbled, 

 and pitched forward on the plain, shot through the heart. It 

 proved to carry a set of horns each of which measured, approxi- 

 mately, thirty inches in length and six inches around the base, 

 with a spread of nine and a half inches between the tips. This 

 oryx, like all the game in this country, had a distinct reddish 

 tinge, due to the brilliant red color of the mud and dust, in 

 which they wallow to rid themselves of ticks and other tor- 

 menting insects. The zebras, whose skins are thinner and 

 much more sensitive than most of the game in the countr>', 



190 



