Horns 



we had talked ' bison ' each night over dinner 

 and the post-prandial smoke, as it was one of the 

 objects of his trip to bag one. I had related 

 several experiences of my own and friends on 

 stalking these animals on foot. How that it 

 often meant a terrible long day's work in the 

 cruel hot sun of the hot weather, starting too at 

 crow's , dawn, and that more often than not 

 one only came up with one's quarry late in the 

 afternoon, probably nearly hidden in a bamboo 

 brake. That one often lost one's bison by striving 

 to circle about to get a shoulder-shot, which in 

 my and other men's experience so often ended 

 in the bison spotting one and bolting, giving 

 either a very difficult shot or none at all. It 

 had also to be borne in mind that after many 

 hours' tramp in the hot-weather Indian sun, even 

 the hardest and fittest of us would be in a droopy 

 condition. Yarns on end could be told of men 

 who, when brought up to their bison late in the 

 afternoon, were so done that they could scarce 

 lift the rifle steadily on their quarry, and often 

 through sheer lassitude got an attack of ' jerks ' 

 and missed. 



This, and the fact that once the sun has got 

 up to any height, one so often finds one's bison 

 in the midst of some dense bamboo brake filling 

 the bottom of a little valley, or the riverain-terraces 

 of a nullah through which a stream tinkles and 

 purls in miniature waterfalls, makes it extremely 



171 



