HUNTING IN THE SOTIK 
195 
Springfield I shot a steinbuck and a lesser bustard. Then 
we came out on the vast rolling brown plains. With the 
Winchester I shot two zebra stallions, missing each stand¬ 
ing, at long range, and then killing them as they ran; one 
after a two-miles hard gallop, on my brown pony, which 
had a good turn of speed. I killed a third zebra stallion 
with my Springfield, again missing it standing and killing 
it running. In mid-afternoon we spied our rhino, and 
getting near saw that it had good horns. It was in the 
middle of the absolutely bare plain, and we walked straight 
up to the dull-sighted, dull-witted beast; Kermit with his 
camera, I with the Holland double-barrel. The tick-birds 
warned it, but it did not make us out until we were well 
within a hundred yards, when it trotted toward us, head 
and tail up. At sixty yards I put the heavy bullet straight 
into its chest, and knocked it flat with the blow; as it tried 
to struggle to its feet I again knocked it flat, with the left- 
hand barrel; but it needed two more bullets before it died, 
screaming like an engine whistle. Before I fired my last 
shot I had walked up directly beside the rhino; and just 
then Tarlton pointed me out a greater bustard, stalking 
along with unmoved composure at a distance of a hun¬ 
dred and fifty yards; I took the Springfield, and kneeling 
down beside the rhino’s hind quarters I knocked over 
the bustard, and then killed the rhino. We rode into camp 
by moonlight. Both these rhinos had their stomachs filled 
with the closely chewed leaves and twig tips of short brush 
mixed with grass—rather thick-stemmed grass—and in 
one case with the pulpy, spiny leaves of a low, ground- 
creeping euphorbia. 
At this camp we killed five poisonous snakes: a light- 
