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AFRICAN HUNTING. 
until about 1 A.M., when they got on spoor only a few 
hours old; the scent freshened wonderfully, and the 
Bushmen hunted to perfection, their captain taking 
the lead throughout, and being infinitely the best 
man I ever saw. At last, the pace increased to a run, 
and we took our guns from the hands of the carriers, 
the spoor leading us out of the bush to the open veldt. 
Here we had a short check. At length, the captain 
took up the running again at a killing pace, stopped 
suddenly, and pointed the elephants out to us. They 
almost immediately took the alarm, five cows and two 
calves, and crashed away. We rode between them 
and the bush to keep them in the open, and my horse 
and boys being much alarmed; we came alongside 
and fired, Boy first, from a long way behind, at the 
largest cow, which he missed. I waited long for a 
favourable opportunity, and at about forty yards off, as 
they stopped and turned, wanting to make the bush, 
I bagged a brace of cows right and left, both falling 
to the shot like rabbits. One fell stone dead ; the 
other, with her shoulder smashed, got up, went about 
fifty yards, and died. Seeing she was mine, I left her, 
and dropped a third dead with the first bullet. 
Alington shot one dead also between the ear and eye, 
and they lay touching one another; the last, a small 
worthless cow, took half a dozen bullets to give her 
her quietus. Seeing spoor of much larger elephants, 
Boy and Baffeta followed it, and I soon heard firing 
in their direction. I galloped off, heard a crack in 
the mapani trees, and saw two cows and a large bull, 
