"'Spose I did shoot the brute," thought Colin; "or I wonder if Tiny's bullet did the trick? There's no telling which, as far as I can see."
He recovered the rifle, apparently undamaged, although the muzzle was choked with mud. The ejected cartridge took a considerable amount of finding, but, after a lengthy search, Sinclair discovered it under the gnarled stem of a thorn bush.
Colonel Narfield took the rifle eagerly. The fact that it had "let him down" seemed to be of far greater importance than the death of the elephant.
"Quite all right," he decided. "Then it must be the ammunition."
Holding the two miss-fires in the moonlight, the Colonel critically examined the copper caps set in the brass bases of the cartridges.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "The caps aren't even dented. Come back all I said about the ammunition."
He deftly extracted the bolt of the rifle. The end of the striker was missing. An eighth of an inch or so had been snapped off, and that fraction made all the difference between a serviceable weapon and a useless incumbrance.
"Wonder how that happened?" he remarked. "It was all right before we left home, and the rifle never left my hands. Hullo! Here's Van der Wyck."
The old farmer was approaching, escorted by three or four wildly excited natives.
"You are in luck, too, I see, Colonel Narfield," exclaimed Van der Wyck.