IN SEARCH OF BIG GAME. 
15 
spotted the bull, for bull I knew it was now, seeing quite 
distinctly his great dorsal ridge which stood up at least four 
inches above the line of his back. 1 saw his shoulder, I saw 
his J lose, in fact I saw everything that I wanted to see except 
hid horns which were hidden by a small tree, and I waa 
hungry for a sight of his horns. I could have killed him 
easily enough, his entire vitals were exposed to the most 
deadly of shots, the shot that rakes forward from behind the 
shoulder, but still I poked my head here and there to try and 
get a sight of those delusive horns. Yasin and I w atched him 
for quite half a minute when suddenly he disappeared. I 
should have taken the sign given to me, that was the size of 
the dorsal ridge, which is a certain test of an old bull; only 
old, bulls have a well defined rise from ihe back snch as this 
one had. But he was destined to die anvway, for we came up 
to him again within ten minutes, in fact nearly ran into him. 
He had followed a game track and as I was hurrying along it, 
never thinking for a moment that he would have stopped 
again so soon, I came on hirrj round a tree standing broadside 
on about twelve paces away. I was so taken by surprise that 
I sprang back and nearly cannoned into Yasin who was 
directly behind me. The seladang was staring over his 
shoulder at us and almost immediately I got a good view of 
his horns which I realised at once were a fine pair, of that 
dark olive tint so beloved by the hunter but so difficult to see 
in the thickness of the jungle, I wasted no time now in 
firing at his shoulder. He gave a great botmd forward, turned 
half round, going away from us all the time and quite invisible 
after the shot, and then fell crashing to the ground to rise no 
more. His death-groan was the signal for us to close up, and 
his throat was cut with the usual ceremony by Y'asin, but low 
down on the neck to enable the skin to be utilised for setting 
up at some future date. He had a magnificent head one of 
the finest that I have ever obtained. The horns had an out- 
side span of 39"; but he had a disappointing shoulder 
measurement, only jtist touching 17 hands. We were fairly 
close to the river, although some way down -stream from the 
place where we had left the boat, but it was early in the day, 
so I sent Sahat back to camp for another boat, the men who 
I had left in camp, and my c;miera. He followed a track 
back which took him throu<^h a kampong railed Ulu 
Memgkuang. and there passed the word that seladang meat 
was to be had for the asking and described the locality of the 
kill. About 10 a.m. a large collection of Malavs, men, 
women, and children, arrived with an expectant look on their 
faces and with many an ejaculation of astonishment at the 
