186 
A BUFFALO HUNT 
[CH. VI 
we covered him with our rifles, his plan being to run 
right across our front if the bull charged. The bull was 
past charging, lying just within the reeds, but he was 
still able to do damage, for in another minute one of the 
dogs came out by us and ran straight back to the farm¬ 
house, where we found him dead on our return. He 
had been caught by the buffalo’s horns when he went in 
too close. Heatley, a daring fellow, with great confi¬ 
dence in both his horse and his rifle, pushed forward as 
we came up, and saw the bull lying on the ground 
while the two other dogs bit and worried it, and he put 
a bullet through its head. 
The remaining bull got off into the swamp, where a 
week later Heatley found his dead body. Fortunately 
the head proved to be in less good condition than any of 
the others, as one horn was broken off about halfway 
up ; so that if any of the four had to escape, it was well 
that this should have been the one. 
Our three bulls were fine trophies. The largest, with 
the largest horns, was the first killed, being the one that 
fell to my first bullet, yet it was the youngest of the 
three. The other two were old bulls. The second one 
killed had smaller horns than the other, but the bosses 
met in the middle of the forehead for a space of several 
inches, making a solid shield. I had just been reading 
a pamphlet by a German specialist who had divided the 
African buffalo into fifteen or twenty different species, 
based upon differences in various pairs of horns. The 
worth of such fine distinctions, when made on in¬ 
sufficient data, can be gathered from the fact that on the 
principles of specific division adopted in the pamphlet in 
question, the three bulls we had shot would have repre¬ 
sented certainly two, and possibly three, different 
species. 
