CHAPTER XXIV. THE BATTLE IN THE GROVE.
No one but the most enthusiastic hunter would be willing to pass through what Oscar did that day just for the sake of procuring a rare specimen of natural history. He was half an hour in getting over the brow of the first hill, and three hours more in coming within fair shooting distance of the koodoos.
For thirty long minutes he lay there in the broiling sun, scarcely daring to move a muscle, for the buck, whose suspicions had been aroused by the sudden disappearance of the hunters, was constantly moving about in a circle, as if he wanted to keep his head turned toward all points of the compass at once.
Oscar began to grow thirsty and dizzy. His rifle-barrel felt as though it had just come out of the fire, and his hands began to burn as if they were blistered.
Stalking game in Africa was very different from stalking game in the foot-hills when the snow was a foot deep on the ground, and more than once Oscar was on the point of giving up in despair; but knowing that one cannot be a successful hunter until he has learned to wait, and to wait patiently, and that if he ever succeeded in shooting a koodoo it would be by going through an ordeal just like the present, he endured the broiling with as much fortitude as he could; and when at last the sentinel turned his head away from him, and kept it turned away for a moment longer than usual, he wormed his way rapidly over the hill and threw himself, panting and almost exhausted, under the shade of a friendly boulder.
"My goodness!" exclaimed Oscar, pulling off his hat and fanning his flushed face vigorously; "this is more than I bargained for. My brains, if I have any, were never intended to stand such a baking. I'd give something now for a good drink from the brook that ran through the valley in which Big Thompson and I camped while we were among the foot-hills."
Oscar lay under the shade of the boulder for a quarter of an hour, and then, fearing that the koodoos might wander away out of sight, or become alarmed at something and run off, he picked up his rifle—which seemed to have increased wonderfully in weight since he first shouldered it that morning—and continued his weary stalk.
When he reached the top of the next hill he found the sentinel as alert and uneasy as ever, but his erratic movements did not embarrass Oscar now as they did a little while before, for he managed to place a big rock between himself and the buck, and under cover of it he made more rapid progress.