CHAPTER XXV. MORE SPECIMENS.
"I am afraid I shall never win much of a reputation as an African hunter," was the first thought that passed through Oscar Preston's mind after he had recovered from his astonishment and alarm. "The longer I stay here the less I seem to know about things. I heard those hyenas laughing very plainly—as plainly as I did last night, when they found poor Major's body—and yet I was foolish enough to think that the noise was made by the koodoo."
The bushes were so thick and Oscar's approach had been accompanied by so little noise that the hyenas had neither seen nor heard him. They did not see or hear him now as he cocked both barrels of his rifle and raised it to his shoulder, for each one of them was too fully engrossed with a desire to obtain his full share of the antelope and to keep off the hound, which showed a disposition to bite any hind leg that was for a moment exposed to his attacks.
Covering the head of the largest hyena with the sight, Oscar sent a bullet crashing through his brain, whereupon the others incontinently took to their heels, and were out of sight before the young hunter could get a chance to put in the second barrel.
Have you ever noticed how great a commotion so small an animal as a squirrel can make among the dead leaves when he has been brought down from his lofty perch by a bullet through the head? If so you can have a very faint idea of the rumpus that hyena kicked up in that thicket of thorn bushes. He was all over the ground in two seconds' time, and the way he threw the dirt, leaves, and twigs about made Oscar wonder. His head hung down as though he had lost all control over it, but his legs seemed to retain all their strength, and when he landed fairly on his feet, as he did two or three times during his convulsive struggles, he bounded into the air as if he were made of india-rubber.
After trying in vain to call off the hound, which ran about, watching for an opportunity to lay hold of the wounded animal, Oscar sent the contents of his second barrel into his body, and that ended the matter. Having reloaded his rifle, the young hunter stepped out of his place of concealment to take a nearer view of the battle-field. The koodoo was worthless as a specimen, but the head was uninjured, and that Oscar resolved should be preserved and taken to Yarmouth with him. It would afford him great pleasure, he thought, to call the attention of those who visited the museum to the long spiral horns, and then to show them the savage beast which the buck that once carried those horns had killed while battling for his life.
The hyenas had doubtless attacked the antelope when he first entered the grove; and when the hounds came up and interfered with them the fierce animals resented their impertinence by killing the first one that came within reach of their claws.
Oscar had become very much attached to his hounds and he felt Rover's loss very keenly. Although he had never had much opportunity to hunt with them, he had placed great confidence in them, on the strength of Mr. Lawrence's recommendation, and now he felt as if he had lost one of his main props.
He had often thought that when he went back to Eaton, after setting up in the museum all the specimens he had shot in Africa, and settled down under his own vine and fig tree to take a well-earned rest after his arduous labors, it would be very pleasant to have some of the four-footed friends who had shared his perils by his side to enjoy that rest with him. But Major and Rover were dead, and there was only one decent member of his party left. That was Ralph, and his turn might come any day.