102 
THE NEW AFRICA 
paw, then with a low grunting moan he broke into a slow trot 
in our direction, increasing his speed as he came along. Hastily 
thrusting the four-ouncer in my hands, Chiki and the other 
two sprang for the trees, shouting to me to do likewise. Assur¬ 
ing myself, however, by a rapid glance that my other two 
antagonists had really gone, I waited till the bull was about 
seven yards from Chiki, who was frantically swarming up two 
of the small trees in the clump, just strong enough to bear his 
weight without bending, and then let go the four-ouncer at 
a moment when the buffalo’s head was slightly on one side, 
exposing his throat and clavicle, for he was coming in a line 
nearly directly towards me, with Chiki between us. The bullet 
smashed his shoulder, raking him between the ribs and skin 
to the rump, where we afterwards cut it out. This brought my 
gentleman on to his nose, and before the smoke had cleared, 
throwing the big gun away, I grasped the Swinburne-Henry 
and rapidly crawled behind an ant-heap some five yards away ; 
but, alas ! the pouch at my belt, containing the cartridges, was 
open, and when I felt for one to reload I found they were 
strewed along the line of 'crawl,’ so I lay still behind the 
ant-heap, with feet and head projecting into the buffalo’s line 
of sight. He rose dazed from the shot and made for Chiki, who 
meanwhile was perched in his trees about six feet from the 
ground. Failing to reach Chiki, the bull looked round in my direc¬ 
tion ; but before he could quite make me out, the faithful Chiki, 
who was watching proceedings like a cat, lowered his foot and 
stamped on the buffalo’s head to attract his attention, whereat 
the buffalo viciously struck at him with his horns; but by this 
time the alert Chiki had his foot out of the way, repeating the 
operation each time the buffalo looked in the direction where 
I lay, as still as a corpse, with empty gun and eyes half closed 
to avoid the buffalo’s meeting my glance, watching with keen 
interest the development of the situation, not without a creepy 
sensation down my back that my friend No. 1 might return 
to take part in the proceedings. And still I dared not move or 
even wink; for had the buffalo realised that I was more than a 
