92 
IN AFRICA 
beasts. He had apparently abdicated. He had 
vanished so completely that I thought he had es¬ 
caped toward some low hills a mile farther on. The 
disappointment of seeing a lion and not getting 
it, or at least shooting at it, was keen to a degree 
that actually hurt. 
There was nothing left but to resume our chase 
after the wounded rhino. It was like going back 
to work after a pleasant two weeks’ vacation. We 
presently found him on a far distant hill, and after 
an hour’s tramp in the sun we came up to him in 
the middle of the rolling prairie. There was not a 
tree for a mile, nor a single avenue of escape in case 
he charged. Horticulture had never interested me 
especially, but just at this moment I think a tree, 
even a thorn tree, would have been a pleasant sub¬ 
ject for intimate study. However, to make a 
long story longer, I shot him at a hundred yards 
and felt certain that both shells struck. Yet he 
wheeled around and, stumbling occasionally, was 
off like a railway train. Again we followed, two 
miles of desperate tramping in that merciless sun, 
up hills and down hills, until finally we entirely lost 
all trace of him. It was now two o’clock. I had 
eaten nothing since five o’clock in the morning, my 
water bottle was so nearly empty that I dared take 
only a swallow at a time, my knees were sore from 
climbing hills and wading through the tall, dry 
prairie grass, and I decided to give up this endless 
pursuit of a rhino who wouldn’t die after being hit 
with four cordite shells. 
