Mac, the Mohammedan, and Aro, the Masai warrior, took the apparatus from him, and he dismounted and went to work.
At the second attempt to rope the beast, Loveless caught him by one hind leg, and the rhino decided to shift his base of operations to an ant-hill in the neighboring clearing. His mode of progression was to walk on three legs and to drag the black horse after him with the other. He reached the ant-hill and demolished it and paused for a breathing spell.
The chase followed after, and Kearton went into action on the north and Gobbet on the south, near a small thorn tree, with a negro porter beside him. The rhino caught sight of Gobbet's camera and charged. The porter went up the tree like a flash. Gobbet was bent over, looking through his view-finder, which, of course, gave him no idea of how fast the beast was bearing down on him nor how close he had already come.
"Look out!" yelled the Colonel.
Gobbet glanced up over the top of the camera and made a jump for the tree. But the porter was already in the branches, and the tree was so small there was not room for two, and Gobbet had to run for it. The next second, with a powerful upward stroke of his horn, the rhino sent the apparatus flying. Then Means succeeded in attracting his attention and he charged the horseman instead. Gobbet picked up the debris, found that the tripod-head was split clean in two as with an axe, found the camera itself undamaged, found there was enough head left to support the camera, quickly mounted his machine again, and was just in time to catch the end of the rhino's chase after Means.
And all the while Kearton had his camera trained upon the scene in which his assistant was playing the conspicuous part.
"I hope I got that good," he said; "it'll make fine action—fine."
From one position to another, from ant-hill to thorn tree and back to ant-hill once more, the fight went on through the long, hot afternoon. Ropes were thrown and caught and broken, mended and thrown again. The horses were pulled, all standing, one way and another. Rolls of film were exposed and replaced by fresh ones. The rhino sulked and stormed and charged in turn.
At the end of the fourth hour Loveless had one short length of light line left. The rest of the ropes were dangling, broken, from the rhino's legs and neck as he stood at bay over the ruins of the ant-hill.
The sun was rapidly canting toward the west. The continual work in the intense heat, without food or water, was beginning to tell on both horses and men. The rhino was weakening faster. But only one hour of daylight remained, and if the beast could hold out till dark we should lose him.