100 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
At this very time, and utterly without our knowledge, 
there was another giraffe hunt going on. Sir Alfred had 
taken out Kermit and Medlicott, and they came across a 
herd of a dozen giraffes right out in the open plains. Med- 
licott’s horse was worn out and he could not keep up, but 
both the others were fairly well mounted. Both were light 
men and hard riders, and although the giraffes had three- 
quarters of a mile the start, it was not long before both 
were at the heels of the herd. They singled out the big bull, 
which by the way turned out to be an even bigger bull than 
mine, and fired at him as they galloped. In such a head¬ 
long helter-skelter chase, however, it is no easy matter to 
score a hit from horseback unless one is very close up; and 
Sir Alfred made up his mind to try to drive out the bull 
from the rest of the herd. He succeeded; but at this mo¬ 
ment his horse put a forefoot into a hole and turned a com¬ 
plete somersault, almost wrenching out his shoulder. Sir 
Alfred was hurled off head over heels, but even as he rolled 
over, clutching his rifle, he twisted himself round to his 
knees, and took one last shot at the flying giraffe. This 
left Kermit alone and he galloped hard on the giraffe’s 
heels, firing again and again with his Winchester. Finally 
his horse became completely done out and fell behind; 
whereupon Kermit jumped off, and being an excellent 
long-distance runner, ran after the giraffe on foot for more 
than a mile. But he did not need to shoot again. The 
great beast had been mortally wounded and it suddenly 
slowed down, halted, and fell over dead. As a matter of 
curiosity we kept the Winchester bullets both from Ker- 
mit’s giraffe and from mine. I made a point of keeping 
as many as possible of the bullets with which the different 
