My eyes were strained and burning from the intensity of the effort to see; but except the calf I could not make out a living thing: the glare of the yellow grass in which we stood, and the sun-splotched darkness beyond it beat me.
At last, in the corner of my eye, I saw Francis’s rifle rise, as slowly—almost—as the mercury in a warmed thermometer. There was a long pause, and then came the shot and wild snorts of alarm and rage. A dozen huge black forms started into life for a second and as quickly vanished—scattering and crashing through the jungle. The first clear impression was that of Jock, who after one swift run forward for a few yards stood ready to spring off in pursuit, looking back at me and waiting for the word to go; but at the sign of my raised hand, opened with palm towards him, he subsided slowly and lay down flat with his head resting on his paws.
“Did you see?” asked Francis. “Not till you fired. I heard it strike. What was it?”
“Hanged if I know! I heard it too. It was one of the big uns; but bull or cow I don’t know.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Well, I couldn’t make out more than a black patch in the bush. It moved once, but I couldn’t see how it was standing—end on or across. It may be hit anywhere. I took for the middle of the patch and let drive. Bit risky, eh?”
“Seems like taking chances.”
“Well, it was no use waiting: we came for this!” and then he added with a careless laugh, “They always clear from the first shot if you get ’em at close quarters, but the fun’ll begin now. Expect he’ll lay for us in the track somewhere.”
That is the way of the wounded buffalo—we all knew that; and old Rocky’s advice came to mind with a good deal of point: “Keep cool and shoot straight—or stay right home;” and Jock’s expectant watchful look smote me with another memory—“It was my dawg!”
A few yards from where the buffalo had stood we picked up the blood spoor. There was not very much of it, but we saw from the marks on the bushes here and there, and more distinctly on some grass further on, that the wound was pretty high up and on the right side. Crossing a small stretch of more open bush we reached the dense growth along the banks of the stream, and as this continued up into the kloof it was clear we had a tough job before us.