456 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
the custom of the common or Uganda kob. They were 
rather noisy; we heard them grunting continually, both 
when they were grazing and when they saw us. 
At last, from an ant-hill, I saw dim outlines of two or 
three animals moving past a little over a hundred yards 
ahead. There was nothing to shoot at; but a moment 
afterward I saw a pair of horns through the grass tops, in 
such a position that it was evident the owner was looking 
at me. I guessed that he had been moving in the direction 
in which the others had gone, and I guessed at the position 
of the shoulder, and fired. The horns disappeared. Then 
I caught a glimpse, first of a doe, next of a buck, in full 
flight, each occasionally appearing for an instant in a great 
bound over the grass tops. I had no idea whether or not 
I had hit my buck; so Cuninghame stayed on the ant- 
heap to guide us, while Kongoni and I plunged into the 
long grass, as high as our heads. Sure enough, there was 
the buck, a youngish one, about four years old; my bullet 
had gone true. While we were looking at him we sud¬ 
denly caught a momentary glimpse of two more of the 
herd rushing off to our right, and we heard another grunt¬ 
ing and sneaking away, invisible, thirty yards or so to our 
left. 
Half an hour afterward I shot another buck, at over 
a hundred and fifty yards, after much the same kind of 
experience. At this one I fired four times, hitting him with 
three bullets; three of the shots were taken when I could 
only see his horns and had to guess at the position of the 
body. This was a very big buck, with horns over twenty- 
nine inches long, but the saddle mark was yellow, with 
many whitish hairs, showing that he was about to assume 
