THE TEAK EEGION 209 



extreme point of the ridge. It was really a most ticklisli 

 situation. Had lie charged, and our shots failed to stop 

 him, T. might have escaped with a few broken bones by- 

 rolling down on his side of the hill ; but on mine there was 

 a sheer descent of a hundred feet, and the ridge itself 

 offered not the shghtest shelter. But we each had a 

 double-barrelled, breech-loading, twelve-bore rifle — a 

 battery against which few animals can stand. I saw T. 

 sighting him, and heard the bull emit a low tremulous 

 moan that soimded like mischief. His vitals were pro- 

 tected from me by the salei stems, so I kept my double 

 shot in reserve in case of accidents. The ball thudded 

 against something, as it turned out, probably a salei tree ; 

 and the bull at once disappeared over the edge. We now 

 ran to the spot, and saw him below thundering down the 

 steep hill-side at a tremendous pace. Utterly winded by 

 ruiming, and half dead with heat and thirst, the remaining 

 three shots had no effect ; and then we sat down, perfectly 

 exhausted, to watch the bull as he gained the valley and 

 crossed the stream-bed, halting for a few seconds under a 

 shady tree to look back ere he set himself to mount the 

 further slope, which he did in the line taken by the other 

 bison. He, too, was fairly ofi for Dhowtea — and, as it 

 seemed and we hoped, seeing that we could not have him, 

 without a woimd. 



Life was now a blank. The Shrimp had lingered far 

 behind, and there was no one to show us the way, while 

 the Skunk was goodness knows where with the ponies 

 and water. So we slowly and sadly descended the hill to 

 our own valley, and walked on in the probable direction 

 of camp, chewing grass in our speechless mouths. About 

 a mile further on we were joined by the villainous Shrimp, 

 who had taken a line of his own for home when he saw us 

 bent on pushing the big bull to extremities. There was 

 no water in all this valley, he said, excepting one pool 

 miles ahead where our camp should be. After getting the 

 direction, we started him ofi to find the ponies and water 

 and bring them to meet us. It was now midday, and the 

 sun was blazing hot — a quivering haze that made the eyes 

 twinkle playing along the surface of the earth. After 



