A WOUNDED RHINO 
115 
CH. V] 
head a long way off on the other side of the pool, and 
we again drew back and started cautiously forward to 
reach the point opposite which he had seen the head. 
But we were not destined to get that hippo. Just as 
we had about reached the point at which we had 
intended to turn in toward the pool, there was a 
succession of snorts in our front, and the sound of the 
trampling of heavy feet and of a big body being shoved 
through a dense mass of tropical bush. My companions 
called to me in loud whispers that it was a rhinoceros 
coming at us, and to “ Shoot, shoot!” In another 
moment the rhinoceros appeared, twitching its tail and 
tossing and twisting its head from side to side as it 
came toward us. It did not seem to have very good 
horns, and I would much rather not have killed it, but 
there hardly seemed any alternative, for it certainly 
showed every symptom of being bent on mischief. My 
first shot, at under forty yards, produced no effect what¬ 
ever, except to hasten its approach. I was using the 
Winchester, with full-jacketed bullets; my second 
bullet went in between the neck and shoulder, bringing 
it to a halt. I fired into the shoulder again, and as it 
turned toward the bush I fired into its flank both the 
bullets still remaining in my magazine. 
For a moment or two after it disappeared we heard 
the branches crash, and then there was silence. In such 
cover a wounded rhino requires cautious handling, and 
as quietly as possible we walked through the open forest 
along the edge of the dense thicket into which the 
animal had returned. The thicket was a tangle of thorn 
bushes, reeds, and small, low-branching trees; it was 
impossible to see ten feet through it, and a man could 
only penetrate it with the utmost slowness and difficulty, 
whereas the movements of the rhino were very little 
