HE SAW ME AND CHARGED. [Page 29.] Frontispiece.
HUNTERS THREE
SPORT AND ADVENTURE IN SOUTH AFRICA
BY
THOMAS W. KNOX
AUTHOR OF "THE BOY TRAVELLERS," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY WILLIAM M. CARY
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET
1895
Copyright, 1895,
BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY.
INTRODUCTION
For the last fifty years or more South Africa has been an attractive field for the hunter in search of large game. Along in the middle of the century it was the paradise of the sportsman, as the readers of hunting-stories of that time can well understand; as time has gone on the game has steadily diminished, and the hunter of to-day makes but a poor record in comparison with Cumming, Andersson, and other men of the early times. But even at present South Africa is not without attractions for the hunter, though he can never hope for successes like those which have been mentioned.
The customary methods of hunting in South Africa were, and still are, for the hunter to outfit in one of the principal towns along the coast or in the interior, equipping himself with wagons, oxen, and horses, and hiring the necessary number of people to accompany him in a journey up-country. The lading of the wagons consists of provisions and ammunition for the hunter's use, together with various kinds of goods to be used as presents or for trading-purposes among the natives. As fast as the provisions are consumed and the goods are used up, the wagons are loaded with the ivory of elephants and the skins of other beasts, such as can be sold in the outfitting market. The party will be absent from the point of outfitting all the way from four months to a year or more, depending upon the luck of the hunter in the slaughter of game, and also upon the preservation of his oxen and horses. Not infrequently he meets with disaster, his animals dying in the wilderness and leaving him without motive power for his wagons. In such an event he must act according to his judgment; sometimes he may leave his property in the care of a friendly chief, but if no such personage can be found he must destroy the fruits of his expedition. It is a rule all through Africa never to abandon goods and allow them to fall into the hands of the natives. If goods must be left behind, the true African traveler always sets fire to them, or in some other way renders them worthless.
Down to quite recently it was the custom for hunting-parties of from two to five or six men to club together, buy an outfit, and go up-country on a hunting-expedition. If they are fairly successful the sale of the ivory and skins obtained on the expedition will cover all the expenses of it, and frequently leave a liberal profit to be divided at the end of the tour. It was an expedition of this sort which brought together the heroes of our story, "Hunters Three," and we will leave the reader to ascertain by perusal of the narrative the various adventures through which these young men passed.
And it was a similar expedition, though made with less expectation of profit, that went out from Walvisch Bay to give two British women a chance at the big game of South Africa. Somehow the steps of these two expeditions trended in the same direction, and led to their meeting as detailed in the opening chapters of the narrative. That somebody should fall in love with somebody else as a result of the meeting was naturally to be expected. Love exists in South Africa quite as much as in more civilized lands, and love-making can be pursued in the haunts of the elephant and buffalo just as readily as in the gilded parlors of fashionable life. In justification of this assertion this narrative of sport and love in South Africa is submitted to the reader for his instruction and amusement.
T.W.K.
CONTENTS.
Breakfast Interrupted—Chasing a Big Tusker
Surprised—A Woman Hunting Elephants—Jack's Hippopotamus
A Question of Etiquette—The Fair Hunter Discussed—Lions Visit Us at Night
Narrow Escape from a Buffalo—A Divergent Excursion
After Buffaloes and Elands—A Fortunate Snap-shot—Another Hunter's Game
A Disputed Prize—Rule of African Hunting—Mrs. Roberts
Stalking a Koodoo—Harry and Jack among Elands—Caught in a Pitfall
African Horse-sickness—Two Narrow Escapes in Elephant-hunting—Jack and his Horse
A Morning Call in South Africa—Ladies at Home—How Miss Boland Killed a Lion
An Invitation Accepted—Another Buffalo—Preparing Luncheon in Style
Ice-Making in Africa—A Hunters' Luncheon—After Gemsbok Again
Another Elephant—A Misfortune—Harry's Luck
Harry's Shot—His Tracker's Predicament—After Hippopotami—Elephants Again
Hunting Giraffes—Novel Mode of Capture—A Big Snake
How the Serpent was Captured—Hospitable Reception—Mystery of a Donkey
Snake Cutlets and Stews—Miss Boland Stalks a Giraffe—Oxen for Hunting-purposes
Mrs. Roberts Kills a Giraffe—Hunting the Rhinoceros—Miss Boland Secures a Pet
Transporting a Young Rhinoceros—Harry and Jack in Love—Animal Intelligence—Jack's Boat
Two Narrow Escapes from Crocodiles—Stalking Elands with Lions in Company—Good Record for an Afternoon
An Alarm—The Ladies Missing—What Happened to Them—The Rescue
Rescuing the Ladies from Lions—On the Way to Camp—Fight with a Rogue Elephant
Hunting Hippos and Crocodiles—The Ladies Missing Again—Conjectures as to their Fate
The Rescuing-party—A Startling Discovery—Caught in a Cloudburst
Unpleasant Company—Rescuing the Castaways—Shooting Lions at Night—Miss Boland's Menagerie
Ladies Hunting Hippos—Miss Boland Overboard among the Crocodiles—Discussing a Change of Base
Change Of Base—Crossing the River—Runaway Oxen—New Hunting-ground
The Ladies Chased by a Herd of Buffaloes—How their Lives were Saved—In Camp Again—Stories of Buffalo Adventure
Miscellaneous Hunting—Sudden Call for Help—The Ladies Besieged by an African Chief—Foreigners' Magic
How We Deceived the King—Solving a Matrimonial Puzzle—Inspan and Move South—Overtaken
The Last Hunt—Three Proposals—"Still Waters Run Deep"—The End
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
[He Saw Me and Charged] ... Frontispiece
[Round and Round the Tree We Went]
[The Boar was Followed by a Spring]
[How the Serpent was Captured]
[Miss Boland Shoots Two Giraffes]
[My Escape from the Crocodiles]
[The Escape of the Ladies from the Lions]
[Turning the Charge of the Buffaloes]
HUNTERS THREE.
CHAPTER I.
BREAKFAST INTERRUPTED—CHASING A BIG TUSKER.
We were just going inside the tent, Harry, Jack, and I, to eat our frugal breakfast, when we saw one of our natives coming at a rapid run. He waved his hand as he approached, and shouted:
"Tembo, Bwana!"
Rendered into English, this means, "Elephants, master!" and the announcement of elephants put the thought of breakfast out of our heads.
The man came to a halt in front of us, and explained, in a mixture of English, Cape Dutch, and two or three native languages, that he had discovered a troop of elephants a little more than a mile from our camp. There were ten or twelve of them, he thought, and among them were at least three or four large tuskers.
"All right," said I. "Let's go to breakfast, boys, and then go after the elephants. They'll keep, and the breakfast won't, nor will we keep, either, without it."
So we went to the tent and speedily made way with what the cook had prepared. It was a modest repast, consisting of coffee, with plenty of sugar and no milk, and some steaks of hartbeest broiled over the coals of a thorn-bush fire. For bread we had what the English colonist calls damper—dough made of flour and water, and baked in a Dutch oven. Very good bread can be made in this way, but not by the ordinary Hottentot cook, such as one engages for an African hunting-expedition.
We disposed of our breakfast with a rapidity that would have done honor to a railway-station where the train halts ten minutes for refreshments. In considerably less than ten minutes we had finished breakfast and were getting our rifles ready for business.
We took our heaviest rifles, as the game was of a kind to require a liberal amount of lead to bring it down. My elephant-gun carried six bullets to the pound; it was a breech-loader of the Remington pattern, and of a weight proportioned to its caliber. A trusty negro boy carried it for me, and his instructions were to keep close at my heels wherever I went, whenever we were out on a hunting-expedition.
Jack and Harry had a similar equipment, except that their rifles carried eight bullets to the pound, and consequently had a little less penetrating power than my own. Each of us had a supply of explosive bullets, in addition to the solid ones, and in the course of this narrative the reader will learn how these explosive bullets were used.
When a party goes out on a hunting-expedition there is always a risk that somebody will shoot somebody else; elephant and buffalo hunting is nearly always conducted among trees or bushes, very rarely in open ground, and where parties are within gunshot of one another it is impossible always to avoid accidents, even with the greatest care. For this reason it was our custom to scatter about a good deal, first ascertaining the position of the game, and the direction in which it would be likely to run when disturbed.
Mirogo, my native tracker, who had discovered the troop of elephants, said they were in a little piece of forest adjoining a swamp on the banks of the Luranga River. As he described the forest we made out that it was not more than forty or fifty acres in extent, while the swamp was much larger. After some discussion it was arranged that Harry should make a circuitous course to the farther side of the forest, Jack was to remain on the hither side, while Frank (that is my name) would penetrate the wooded ground and literally stir up the animals, getting the most effective shot that he could while so doing.
It was necessary to be very careful about giving the elephants our wind; if they once got scent of us they would be off in a hurry. Fortune favored us in this respect, as the wind blew directly across the forest toward the point where we reached it. Consequently the animals were not likely to scent us, provided neither Harry nor Jack proceeded too far along their respective sides of the lair of the elephants.
I sat down and waited while Harry and Jack were reaching their positions, and during my waiting spell I listened intently for a sound of the animals. Now and then the breeze brought to my ears the crashing of the limbs and trees, and the low trumpetings of the elephants as they called to one another while taking their morning feed. It was evident they had not been alarmed and were totally unaware of the danger that threatened them.
When I had allowed a sufficient time, as I thought, for my friends to reach their stations, I proceeded cautiously into the forest, preceded by Mirogo, the tracker, and closely followed by Kalil, my gun-bearer.
We advanced in the direction of the sound of the crashing of limbs, keeping carefully up the wind; and when within two or three hundred yards, as nearly as I could judge, of the elephants, I took possession of my gun and cartridge-belt, and told Kalil to stand by with more cartridges ready to give me in case I needed them.
The ground was difficult to march over, as it was covered with creeping vines that every moment threatened to trip me up, and would most certainly do so in case I were trying to run from an enraged elephant. The elephant can crash through these creepers and undergrowth with the greatest ease; at all events, they do not seem to impede him in the least when he is pursuing the man who has fired at him and failed to bring him down. Should the man fall under such circumstances his life is not worth the value of a pin; he is trampled out of all semblance to humanity, and sometimes the infuriated beast will stand over him for an hour or more, long after life is extinct, trumpeting and bellowing, and renewing his assaults upon the shapeless remains of his adversary.
Lest the reader might suppose that this statement is a flight of fancy let me tell what happened to my friend M——, only a few months before the time of which I am writing. M—— and I were hunting on one of the tributaries of the Zambesi, and had bagged a goodly quantity of large game. I was one ahead of M—— on the score of elephants, and the time was approaching for us to break camp and return to the Boer country, whence we had started on our expedition.
One morning two elephants were reported not very far from our camp, and I suggested to M—— that he had better go out and shoot one in order to bring his account even with mine, and I added, jocularly, "If you can shoot them both I'll divide with you and keep our scores just equal. I don't want you to beat me and be able to boast about it after we get back to civilization."
"Oh, I'll take care of both of them," M—— answered, "and bring in a buffalo or two in addition."
Off he started with his tracker and gun-bearer, while I went out on the plain to the south of us, in the hope of bagging a koodoo or a gemsbok. I was gone until noon, or a little later.
When I came back to camp there was no one there but the cook, and two of the men, who were guarding the oxen. The cook told me that something terrible had happened to Mr. M——, and the rest of the men had gone out to where he had been hunting elephants.
I followed immediately, and found that poor M—— had shot at an elephant, but did not succeed in hitting him vitally. The animal fell to the ground, but was up again in a moment, so the tracker said. He wheeled about with wonderful quickness, considering his size and apparent awkwardness, and made straight for his assailant. M—— started to run and reach the shelter of the nearest tree; his foot caught in a creeping vine, and he fell prostrate. In a moment the elephant was upon him, pounding the unfortunate man with his trunk, trampling him underfoot, and impaling him with his tusks. The tracker watched him from the nearest shelter, but could do nothing. The elephant remained by the side of his victim for at least half an hour, when, hearing a trumpet-call from his companion, he moved away into the forest.
We brought M——'s body to the camp, and buried it with all the ceremony which our situation permitted. I at once gave orders for inspanning the oxen and starting on our homeward journey, and a sad journey it was, you may well believe.
But I am wandering from the thread of my story. I took the gun from the hands of Kalil, and crept cautiously along in the direction of the elephants. I must have been sixty yards away when I spied the back of one rising among the bushes; an enormous back it was, fully nine feet from the ground, but it was no use shooting at that part of the animal, and I withheld my fire. There are only a few places where you can hit an elephant and kill him at the first shot: one is directly in the center of the forehead, where the skull is a little thinner than elsewhere; another is between the eye and ear; and the third is in the vicinity of the heart, just back of the foreshoulder. If you hit him anywhere else he may travel some time carrying your lead, even though the body is penetrated from side to side; and if you hit him on the skull or any other bony place where your bullet glances off, the principal result of your shot is to enrage him. Mindful of all this, I watched and waited for a suitable chance, and in a little while I had it.
The elephant fed slowly along, and, fortunately for me, though not for him, he fed in my direction. He broke through the clump of bushes where he was feeding, and gave me a full view of his head, broadside on. I took aim between his eye and ear, and I took careful aim, you may be sure. Then I fired, and heard plainly the thud of the bullet as it reached its mark.
The smoke hung about me, and for half a minute or so I could not see in any direction. That is a nuisance in shooting in an African forest, and especially in a swampy one. The air is so damp that the smoke does not quickly clear away, and the hunter is often left in doubt at a very critical moment.
And it was a critical moment in this case: the elephant fell to the ground as the result of my shot, and I felt that my prize was secure; but as the smoke cleared away he rose to his feet again, and charged directly toward where I stood. I do not think I was over fifty yards from him when I fired, and therefore he had but a short distance to come. He ran and I ran; but in the meantime I had got a fresh cartridge from my belt and shoved it into the gun. I kept my eye on a large tree a little to the right of my position, and made for that tree with the greatest speed of which I was capable, taking care to avoid catching my feet in any of the creeping vines. A man can easily dodge an elephant around a large tree; the animal is so bulky and unwieldy that he cannot turn and twist as rapidly as a man can, and in this respect the biped has the advantage over the quadruped.
I was almost paralyzed with astonishment—of course I will not say fear—when I saw the bulk of the creature I had shot at, and his immense tusks. I knew it was a case of life and death, and he was not likely to give up his pursuit of me in a hurry. At the same time I felt that I had planted the bullet in an effective spot, and could not altogether understand why he was up again after having fallen. But there was no chance for theorizing; he was up, certainly, and after me, and that is all there was about it.
ROUND AND ROUND THE TREE WE WENT.
Round and round the tree we went, perhaps half a dozen times. He had his mouth open and trunk uplifted, and I watched for a chance to give him another shot. Shooting was difficult under the circumstances; a man on a dead run around a tree is unable to aim a gun with any accuracy, and, furthermore, there are not many vulnerable points about an elephant, as I have already shown. The only thing I could do was to fire into his mouth, but that was not likely to do any good.
The French have a saying that it is the unexpected which always happens; so it was with me and the elephant.
Suddenly there came the sound of the trumpet-call of another elephant. My pursuer stopped an instant to listen, turning his head to one side. As he did so I gave him another bullet, directly in the spot where I sent the first one. He quivered, staggered for a moment, and fell, dead!
CHAPTER II.
SURPRISED—A WOMAN HUNTING ELEPHANTS—JACK'S HIPPOPOTAMUS.
Following my shot, with an interval of not more than two seconds, came the sound of another rifle, three or four hundred yards away. Then several elephants—I cannot say whether there were two or three, or twice that number—crashed away through the forest in different directions, and simultaneously with the crashing I heard the sound of other shots in the same direction as the first one.
"Surely Harry and Jack can't have turned back and got here as quickly as this?" I said to myself. "That must be some other hunter; but I don't know of any one in this neighborhood."
I shouted and blew my whistle, but received no audible response, except the firing of a rifle, which seemed to be discharged directly toward the sky. Then I went in the direction of the shot, occasionally blowing my whistle to indicate my whereabouts. Of course Mirogo and Kalil accompanied me.
When we had gone about three hundred yards we met a native tracker who was unknown to me, and also to both my servants. He had a few words with Mirogo, and it was evident that they understood each other. Mirogo turned to me and said there was another hunter who had shot an elephant, and was back in the forest a short distance.
"Very well," I said to Mirogo; "show me where he is and I'll make his acquaintance."
"He isn't a man," said Mirogo; "he's a woman!"
"What!" I exclaimed, "a woman hunting elephants?"
"That's what his tracker say," replied Mirogo; "his tracker say he's woman."
Well, here was romance with a vengeance: a woman shooting elephants in Africa, and we three men had not heard of her presence in the neighborhood! All the more reason why I should become acquainted with our rival. We certainly did not want to be in each other's way, and, moreover, if she was from any civilized land it would be a satisfaction to see and talk with her. The female society that one encounters in an African hunting-expedition is not usually of a kind to be enamoured of, as it consists almost entirely of native negroes, whose accomplishments in literature and the arts are not very marked. Furthermore, their style of beauty and habits of life do not render them at all attractive.
It did not occur to me that however much I might desire to make the acquaintance of this amazon she might not care for mine; but that is a good deal like a man, anyhow. The majority of the male sex always seem to think that their society is in demand, and you cannot make them understand that their room is sometimes better than their company.
So I followed Mirogo, who was following the strange tracker, and in a very few minutes I stood with my hat off in presence of the fair one, the sound of whose rifle had attracted my attention.
I bowed and smiled, and apologized for the intrusion, adding that I was quite unaware that any party but my own was in that region. "Don't understand me as objecting to your presence," I added, "as there is abundance of game for ten times the number of hunters that are likely to assemble in this neighborhood."
"Quite natural," said the stranger, "that you were not aware of our being in this vicinity, as we only arrived here last evening. We heard of a party of hunters who had come in from the southeast; we came in here from the southwest, from Walvisch Bay, and only encamped at sunset yesterday. This morning I heard of elephants in this forest, and came out in the hope of shooting one."
"And evidently you have succeeded," I replied, pointing in the direction of the fallen beast that lay a short distance away. "Allow me to extend my congratulations."
She accepted the compliment, and said it was not her first elephant by any means. "We have been out several weeks," she continued, "and have been hunting whenever the opportunity offered."
"One does not carry a card-case in his pocket on an elephant-hunt," I remarked, "so please allow me to introduce myself verbally. I am Frank Manson, at your service, and belong to a hunting-party that came out from Durban and has been working up in this direction. We are encamped about two miles east of here."
The fair huntress bowed slightly in acknowledgment, and then said: "I am Miss Boland, and am with my friend, Mrs. Roberts. We are both English, and are independent enough to travel by ourselves. The only men in our party are the native assistants, the fore-looper, after-rider, and manager; the latter is a Dutchman who has general charge of the wagons and outfit, subject to our orders."
I thanked her for the information, and asked if I or my friends could be of any assistance to her. It is so like a man to think that a woman always wants assistance that the suggestion came from me as naturally as does the phrase "Good-morning" whenever I meet a friend at the beginning of the day.
She smiled, saying as she did so, with an air of independence:
"Thank you, sir, but I do not know that we need any assistance whatever; you are very kind to tender it, but really we manage to get along very comfortably. Should I think of anything in which you can aid us I will not hesitate to send word to your camp. Do you remain long in this neighborhood?"
"As to that I cannot say positively," I replied; "we have formed no very definite plans. Shall stay where we are as long as the hunting is good, and when it falls off we'll go elsewhere. I presume that is very much the case with yourselves?"
"Yes," she replied; "we stay in a place as long as we like it, and then move on."
With that she bowed, as if to intimate that I had better be moving on in my own direction. I took the hint and bade her good-day, with the suggestion that I had been greatly pleased at meeting her; and she amiably returned the suggestion almost word for word. I went back in the direction of my fallen elephant, and she turned the other way in the forest.
The reader will naturally want to know how this amazon of the African woods was dressed.
Her costume was decidedly mannish, and less unlike mine than might at first be supposed. She wore loose, baggy trousers that were thrust into hunting-boots, thus enabling her to get around the forest far easier than if she had been encumbered with any kind of skirts, even short ones. The upper part of her figure was clad in a tunic that was buttoned from the neck down the whole length of the front, and terminated just at the knee, not below it. The tunic was evidently made for hunting-purposes, as it abounded in pockets and had a cartridge-case firmly sewed to it. On her head she wore a sola topee, or sun-helmet, and in general her dress was not at all unlike that of a man. While we were conversing she stood behind a fallen log, so that I could not take in the entire outline of her figure. Her manner was pleasing enough, and altogether I felt myself a little touched in the region of the heart. Her independence had piqued me somewhat, and I felt that I wanted to see her again, but exactly how to go about it I did not know. She had not invited me to visit their camp or indicated the slightest desire that any one of our party should come near her or her friend. While she had not said they wished to be left alone, she certainly did not say that she wanted any of our company.
I got back to where my fallen elephant lay, and then sent Mirogo to camp to bring men and an ax for cutting out the animal's tusks. I told him to be particular and not make any mistake, as the men might stumble on the carcass of the elephant which Miss Boland had killed. I remarked that it would be very discourteous to take the tusks of her elephant instead of ours, and, furthermore, that ours were much larger than hers.
Then, accompanied by Kalil, I made my way back to camp, reaching there an hour or more before Harry and Jack returned from their unprofitable wait at the edge of the forest. We took lunch, and then went down the river to shoot hippopotami. We met with fairly good luck, as we killed three or four of the big brutes, though we secured only one, the others sinking out of our reach in the river. It is proper to say that I had no actual part in the affair, as I turned away before reaching the river to stalk a gemsbok.
"We made a good-sized raft of reeds," said Harry—"one that would hold both of us and a couple of men to paddle the craft. In this raft we floated out into the river and down a half-mile or so, where it expands into a narrow lake. When we started we couldn't see a hippo, not one, as they'd all taken the alarm at the noise we made building and launching the raft. By the time we got down to the broad portion of the river we were beyond the point of disturbance, and then we saw their snouts sticking out of the water in various directions. The proper thing to do is to shoot the hippo in shallow water, and then throw a harpoon into him just as quickly as you can. If you can manage to kill him instantly with your first shot, and the water is not too deep, you can get him and drag him ashore; but unless your first shot is instantly fatal he gets away.
"And that was the case with us," Harry continued; "there was only one that we got fine work into, and that we did with an explosive bullet. Jack was the lucky fellow. He put the bullet straight into the hippo's ear, and that, you know, is the best shot to make. It didn't explode until it got well into his head, and I don't believe there was ever a more astonished creature in the river than that beast was when the explosion came. He went to the bottom like a shot; that is, he went down about four feet. We had a harpoon along, one of the regular style that the natives hunt with, and we prodded that into the fellow just as soon as we could. Then we paddled the raft off to the shore, and dragged him along by means of the harpoon-line."
"And you've got him all right, have you?" I said.
"Oh yes," replied Harry, "he's secure; but the others are at the bottom of the river. The men will be along in a little while with the skin of the beast, and we'll have all the jambok we want in the camp."
I should explain that the jambok is a whip made of hippopotamus-hide, just like the koorbash in Egypt. It is the most cruel whip ever made; the nearest approach to it known in the civilized world is the green hide, or rawhide, such as was formerly used in the Southern States in the days of slavery, and occasionally by New England schoolmasters of the olden time on very unruly pupils.
Our native attendants had a royal feast off the flesh of the hippopotamus, and we came in for a share of it, or as much as we wanted. Hippo is very good eating when you cannot get anything better; it has a strong, rather musky flavor which I do not like, and I find that most other white men have tastes similar to mine in this respect. But a Kafir, or any other black-skinned native of Africa, is not at all particular, and you might empty a bottleful of musk over his dinner without interfering with his appetite.
I did not say a word to Harry and Jack until dinner about the hunter I met in the forest. I told them briefly about my elephant-hunt, but we all were too busy for anything else until we got seated at the table; fact is, we were pretty busy then, as all were hungry, but there are intervals at table when even a very hungry man can put in a few words now and then between the mouthfuls.
"By the way, fellows, I didn't tell you about the new hunting-party here, did I?" I remarked, soon after we had taken our seats.
"No!" said both the others, in a breath; "who are they?"
"I don't know their whole pedigree," I replied. "I have only seen one of them."
"Well, what can you tell us about him?" said Harry. "Who is he? Where is he from? What kind of an outfit has he?"
"There are several questions all in one," I answered, "and some of them I haven't yet learned about. In the first place, it isn't a 'him' at all; it's a 'her'!"
CHAPTER III.
A QUESTION OF ETIQUETTE—THE FAIR HUNTER
DISCUSSED—LIONS VISIT US AT NIGHT.
"What!" exclaimed Harry and Jack simultaneously.
"Yes, it's a woman, and she shot an elephant this afternoon."
Another exclamation of astonishment followed my assertion, and then Harry asked:
"Who is she?"
"Her name is Miss Boland," I answered; "at least that's what she told me, and she said her companion was Mrs. Roberts. They came from Walvisch Bay, and that's pretty much all I know about them."
Then I explained the circumstances under which we met, and detailed the conversation, word for word, as nearly as I could remember it.
The information almost broke up the dinner of my companions. That a woman, or two women, should take to hunting big game in South Africa was enough to take away any man's breath, and with his breath gone there was not much chance for him to need an appetite. Both of them stopped eating long enough to allow me to take the choicest cuts of the hippopotamus, and if I had managed the affair shrewdly, and maintained a good deal of mystery about the matter, I think I might have stolen the entire dinner. But when I said that was all I knew about it, their appetites returned, and they fell to eating again with their accustomed vigor.
"We must go and call on them to-morrow morning," said Harry. "Pity we haven't a barber and a tailor and a fashionable bootmaker here on the borders of the Luranga River."
"Oh, nonsense," said Jack. "What business have we to go calling on them? We've never been introduced." Then, turning to me, Jack inquired if the fair one I met had requested a visit from me or my friends.
I told him what the reader already knows, and then Jack remarked:
"That settles it; if those women want us they'll send for us, or if they want us and don't send for us they'll manage to hunt around in this direction and stumble upon our camp by the merest accident, first finding out exactly where it is, so that there won't be any mistake about their accident. My idea is, that we had better stick to our business; mind our own affairs, in fact, and let them politely alone. We may run across them hunting some day, and they'll be far more likely to respect us if we hold aloof than if we go running after them."
"Oh, that's all rubbish," said Harry; "we'll ride over to their camp; that is, we'll get within half a mile or so of it, and send along the most intelligent of our servants. He can go to their camp, and through their principal servant let the women know that it would give us pleasure to call on them if entirely agreeable."
"Yes," said Jack, "and thereby compel them to receive us, or appear rude in declining our call. We push ourselves forward and put them in an awkward position. We are just like the man whom you know, but don't care a straw about, who comes to you with a plausible yarn, with the object of borrowing five dollars. He forces you to do one of two things, either of which is disagreeable: part with your money—with a prospect of never seeing it again—or affront him by a refusal. I tell you flatly I will not go. Understand me, I would like to meet the ladies, for such I presume they are, but I don't want to force myself on their acquaintance."
Harry did not admit the force of Jack's argument, at least not audibly. Before committing himself he turned to me and asked my opinion. I coincided with Jack, but made a suggestion that it would do no harm for us to hunt in that direction, and possibly we might meet one or both the amazons in field or forest.
Harry and Jack assented to this view, and the discussion as to the propriety of calling upon the women was dropped.
"The one you saw must have been an accomplished huntress," Harry remarked, after a pause.
"Oh, call her a hunter," said Jack; "don't bother about that straining word 'huntress.' In sport, as in science, there's no distinction of sex. When women first began to study medicine one who obtained her degree was called 'doctress.' Now that nonsense is dropped, and she's called doctor, like any other medical practitioner. Hunting big game in South Africa is entitled to be called a science; anyhow, it requires a lot of science to succeed in it. She's a hunter just as much as you or I."
"All right," said Harry; "I won't dispute with you, especially because I think you are right; and I don't think Frank will, either."
I assented to the adoption of the term as Jack proposed, at which the latter remarked that we seemed to be settling a good many important questions over our hippopotamus-steak.
Then they asked me as to the appearance, dress, and manner of Miss Boland, and I answered them to the best of my ability. After our dinner was over we had our smoke, and soon after went to bed. Before we retired our wagonmaster reported that lions were about the kraal the previous night, as he had heard them growling several times, and found their spoor close up to the fence. He thought we might have another visit that night, and wished to know if he should call us.
"By all means," I answered; "when you're entirely sure they're outside, let us know."
When we camped on that spot we made a kraal of thorn-bushes, which surrounded everything, including our tent and wagons. The cattle were driven into the kraal at night, and were carefully watched during the day by the men who had them in charge. We had about fifty oxen altogether, and five horses, and the horses were secured in the same way as the cattle. The kraal was built high and strong; it is necessary to make it high, otherwise the lions might attempt to jump it. On the outside of the kraal thorn-bushes were scattered all over the ground, at least ten or fifteen feet from the fence, the object being to prevent the lions approaching close to the kraal, where they could get a favorable opportunity for a jump.
We got our guns ready for work in case the lions showed themselves, and then turned in.
About one o'clock in the morning my Kafir came to wake me, and said the lions were outside the kraal. I was up on the instant, and so were Harry and Jack; fact is, we had not undressed at all, as we felt it reasonably certain that we would be called, and wanted to have as little delay as possible in getting at work.
At least one half of our people were out and about when we made our appearance. That there were lions around was evident by the actions of the horses and oxen. The horses were in a little kraal by themselves, each one tethered to a stake, and on a quiet night all would be lying down and at rest; now every horse was up, dancing around uneasily, and straining at his halter. My favorite, Brickdust—as I called him on account of his color—was snorting and stamping in a condition of excitement. When I spoke to him he quieted down instantly, but not altogether. He felt a good deal reassured by my presence, but at the same time believed himself in danger. It was the same with the other horses; and as for the oxen, they were likewise on the alert, and aware of the presence of their natural enemy.
The Kafirs were jabbering away at a great rate when we appeared. We enjoined silence, but it was not easy to quiet them; in fact, it was necessary to threaten them with the jambok before we succeeded in hushing their voices. When they were hushed we could distinctly hear the lions, now in one quarter, and now in another. They were evidently prowling around the outside of the kraal looking for a spot where they could penetrate to the interior.
Harry suggested that we go outside and find them; to this proposition I demurred most emphatically, and so did Jack. I presume Harry really did not intend to do anything so foolish, but made the suggestion out of bravado. It would have been folly for us to do what he suggested, as the lions would have seen us far easier than we could have seen them. They had come in search of food, and were, therefore, hungry. We should run a very good chance of becoming their victims instead of their becoming ours.
The Kafirs had erected their huts of grass and bushes inside the kraal, close up to the fence. I suggested that we climb to the top of these huts, which would give us a view over the fence; and my friends acted upon the suggestion. We scattered so that the three of us commanded three sides of the kraal with our weapons, and from this point of vantage we peered out as well as we could into the darkness.
There was a small moon, which was nearly set, so that we had not much light to help us. I was favored in my position by having the moon almost directly in front of me, while the ground outside the kraal sloped off gradually at that point. It was understood that we were to act independently of one another, and also not to waste our bullets. No one was to fire except when he felt certain that he saw a good mark to fire at.
The uneasiness of the oxen and horses continued; our dogs were also running around, and manifesting a desire to take part in whatever fighting was about to occur. Now and then they indicated their feelings by growling; they would have barked outright had they not been ordered most emphatically to emulate the example of the oyster and "shut up."
We had been ten or fifteen minutes on the top of the huts when I made out the forms of three lions that were half walking and half crawling along the ridge betwixt me and the sky. They seemed to be a lion and two lionesses, or possibly an old lion with two younger ones. At any rate, I could make out a heavy mane on the foremost of the brutes, and little or none at all on the others.
I brought my rifle to the shoulder, and let fly at the leader and largest of the trio. I aimed to take him in the shoulder-blade, and either kill or disable him at the first shot.
My rifle rang out on the still night air, and immediately following it there was a terrific roar, which told that my bullet had hit its mark. Following the roar was a rush toward my position; the victim of my shot desired revenge, and in order to obtain it made for the direction of the flash.
His companions followed him; and the whole three came dashing on through the outlying mass of thorn-bushes and up to the very front of the kraal. But an African lion is not proof; against the wait-a-bit thorn. The only animals that can successfully defy this product of the African soil are the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and alligator. Well, yes, I do not think the buffalo minds the wait-a-bit, at least when he is old, and his skin has acquired the proper toughness; but the young buffalo treats it with respect after he has become experienced in its qualities.
The lion came no farther than the fence, just outside the hut on which I stood; another leap and he would have reached me.
This reminds me of one night when I was in camp in the Impanyi country and had not made a strong kraal. The lions came around the kraal at night, and I was waked up suddenly by hearing one of the oxen bellowing and the dogs barking. The night was pretty dark, and it was not easy for me to perceive objects more than fifteen or twenty feet away. My tent was pitched close to the rear of the wagon; when I got outside I saw the driver standing on the top of a grass-hut about six feet high, which was near the front wheels of the wagon. The ox was bellowing and the lion was growling; they were not more than twenty yards from me, but it was so dark that I could not see them. I climbed to the top of the hut by the side of the driver, and after fixing my eyes steadily on the spot for some minutes I thought I could make out the lion's form. At any rate, I fired in that belief, and the growl and roar which immediately followed told me I had made a hit. The ox was evidently dead by this time, as all sound from him had ceased.
I put in another cartridge and fired again, this time a few inches lower than before. My shot was followed by a loud roar, far more terrific than the one which had preceded it, and the roar was followed by a spring. How many bounds the lion made I do not know, but he struck me full in the chest with his head, and sent me tumbling off the hut to the ground on which it stood. In my fall I brought with me the wagon-driver, and at first I thought it was the lion that was mixed up with me on the ground, instead of the harmless Kafir. The driver scrambled to the top of the wagon, and I followed and got on the box. I do not understand how the driver managed to get there so quickly, as the whole thing passed in a very short time.
THE ROAR WAS FOLLOWED BY A SPRING.
Not only was the driver there, but all the Kafirs from the kraal; some were inside the wagon, some on top, and others standing on the wheels, or in any place where they could find clinging-room.
My driver got his gun out from the inside of the wagon, and then took a shot from the top of it; the recoil knocked him over and landed him on the top of my tent. It would have been a pretty serious fall for him had it not been for the tent, which broke the force of his tumble, and was badly broken up as the result.
As near as we could make out by the growling there was a family of lions, and they did not at all relish being disturbed at their meal. We all stayed in and around the wagon until daylight; the lions made off just before it came, and we ventured to descend.
I stayed in camp that day repairing damages and making ready for the lions in case they returned the next night, which I felt they were pretty sure to do. I had the men drag the remains of the ox to the best spot for getting a shot, right on the crest of a ridge a little higher up than the wagon, and about twenty-five yards from it. I had the carcass fastened down with stakes, so that they could not drag it away; then I dug a hole in the ground just under the rear of the wagon, so as to screen me and at the same time give me the horizon to shoot against.
Well, I had my revenge. The lions were there not later than an hour after dark; I heard them before seeing them, but I saw them very soon. The head of the family made his appearance first, and he stood up against the sky so that his whole figure was outlined, and I could determine just where to shoot. My greatest difficulty was to make out the front sight of my rifle; any sportsman will tell you that you cannot do any accurate shooting when the front sight is obscured. The best thing at night is to cover it with white paper, and this I did.
I gave Master Leo a shot just back of the shoulder that brought him to the ground instanter. Mrs. Leo next put in an appearance; she did not give me as fair a shot, but, under the circumstances, I do not think I ought to complain. The ball entered her body just a little forward of the tail, and to one side, and plowed along until near the foreshoulder, where it stopped. My driver fired just after me, and his shot was followed by a loud roar on the part of the lioness. After a few moments the sound subsided, or rather it came from farther and farther away. We waited awhile longer, and then, as everything was quiet, we went to bed.
Daylight the next morning repealed the lion, dead, close to the remains of the ox, my shot having killed him. The lioness was half a mile away with a broken foreleg, and the bullet in her skin as I have described. With her were two cub-lions, which I wanted ever so much to keep and take to the coast; but I saw that it would be impossible to do so, and so allowed my men to finish them off.
We removed the skins of all four lions, and I took them back with me as trophies. That will do for that story. Now I will come back to where we were.
Harry got a shot at another of our disturbers, and then the growling died away in the distance and finally ceased altogether. We went back to our beds and were not called again. When we rose in the morning we found that our shots had told, as a lion and lioness, both severely wounded, were on the ground half a mile or so from camp. Jack went out with his rifle and finished them in short order, and the Kaffirs removed their skins.
CHAPTER IV.
NARROW ESCAPE FROM A BUFFALO—A DIVERGENT EXCURSION.
At breakfast we had a difference of opinion as to what we should do during the day. I wanted to hunt elephants, in case any could be found; Harry thought we ought to take the horses and try for elands, gemsbok, hartbeest, or some others of the antelope family that abounds in the open country; Jack suggested that a turn at buffalo would suit him best, and he had learned from his tracker that there was a herd of buffalo off to the westward.
"Whereabout to the westward?" queried Harry.
"As near as I can make out," replied Jack, "it is somewhere in the direction where those women are encamped."
Harry gave a low whistle, and said he thought it might be just as well to make an effort for those buffaloes; in fact, he preferred buffalo-hunting to anything else, provided the game was in that direction. I was of the same opinion, and so it was decided that after breakfast we should start on a buffalo-hunt.
Hunting the buffalo is pretty nearly as dangerous sport as hunting the elephant. The African buffalo is a large and vicious beast, and has great strength and endurance. He is an ugly-looking brute at his best, and his disposition is quite in keeping with his personal beauty. One of my first adventures with a bull-buffalo nearly cost me my life.
It was one afternoon near sunset, when I was camped with a party in the Amaswazi country. I was taking a stroll a mile or so away from camp, and had a dog with me, and also my tracker and gun-bearer. I saw plenty of birds and small game, but nothing that I cared to shoot, and was about to turn back when Mirogo, the tracker, suddenly made a motion of silence, and pointed with his spear to a little thicket of wait-a-bit thorns. I could not see anything at first, but in a minute or so discovered the outline of a large buffalo about sixty yards distant. I suppose he had gone into the thorn-thicket for the pleasure of titillating his hide, and the African wait-a-bits ought to be just the thing for that purpose. The hide of the African buffalo is fully as thick as that of an American one; it is a saying of old plainsmen in America that there is nothing in the world which gives so much pleasure to a healthy old Bos Americanus of the bull sort as a scratch with a brad-awl, and a good-sized brad-awl is about the equivalent of a wait-a-bit thorn.
Well, I stalked along quietly, until I got within about thirty yards of that buffalo, and took a shot at his shoulder. He ran away, with the dog after him, and I followed up as fast as I could. The dog brought him to bay in a place which was not at all agreeable; I was inexperienced in buffalo-hunting, and went into the clump of bushes where he was, much nearer than was prudent. He saw me and charged; I did not have time to bring the rifle to my shoulder, and just fired a snap-shot, which glanced off his forehead like a hailstone off the roof of a house.
The shot did not seem to disturb him in the least, as he continued to charge. I jumped to one side, and must have made a tremendous jump. He was going at such a speed that the momentum of his body carried him past me; but he was so near that I certainly felt the wind which he created in his rush. The dog stuck to him like a leech, and very soon brought him to bay in a place that was about as bad as the previous one. I went after him once more, and he came out after me, and I did not see him until he appeared through a bush not ten feet from me. He came at full speed, too, and I had no chance to fire.
There was a little path at one side, and I jumped into it. He did not go by me this time, but swung around to follow me, and the tips of his horns were very near me when I reached a small tree.
There was not time for me to climb the tree and get out of his way. Luckily there were some branches growing out from the root of it, just about parallel to the ground, and about two feet above it. I dived under the tree and lay down as flat as I could, sticking close to the roots.
The buffalo could not get at me because the branches were too stout and too close together to enable him to get his horns under them, and for the same reason he could not get near enough to trample me with his hoofs. He walked round and round that tree, evidently trying to figure out some way of extracting me from that hole. Horns and hoofs were of no use, but he managed to insert his nose among the branches, and pounded me pretty hard with it. I tried to seize him by the tongue, and if I had had a hunting-knife with me I think I could have sent him away.
The fellow pounded me so hard with his nose that it really seemed as though he were knocking the life out of me. I found myself growing weak and misty; by and by everything faded away, and the next I knew my tracker and gun-bearer were pouring water over my face to revive me. I owed my life to those two men, and acknowledged my obligation by making them, the next day, some handsome presents, of which they were very proud. The way they saved me was this:
When they came up to where the buffalo was, after I had gone into the thicket, they looked cautiously through the bushes and saw him standing watch near me. I was lying perfectly still, and he walked off a little way, probably thinking I might try to get out of my predicament and give him a chance to impale me on his horns. The men took in the situation, and Mirogo crept up near enough to hurl his spear at the buffalo. The beast then dropped me out of his consideration, and went for Mirogo.
Mirogo ran, and at a very lively pace too. He ran for a small tree with a projecting bough, and as he came under the tree he seized the bough and swung himself up among the limbs with the agility of a monkey. The buffalo made a vicious dig at the tree, and then went off into the bush at full speed. As soon as he considered it safe to do so Mirogo came down, called my gun-bearer, and found me as I have already stated.
It did not take us long to get ready for our buffalo-hunt on the morning in question, and we started off at a very moderate pace on our horses, partly in order not to tire the beasts unnecessarily, and partly to enable our Kafirs to keep up with us. Each of us was accompanied by two Kafirs, a tracker and a gun-bearer, and there were generally from two to half a dozen others who went along in order to see the sport and be of general usefulness.
One thing they were always useful for was to eat up any spare food that might come in their way. The quantity that a Kafir will consume is something astonishing. I dare not pretend to say how many pounds of meat one of them can get away with in a sitting, lest I might be supposed to be romancing. We generally engaged our Kafirs at so much for the trip, making no mention of time. Time is of no consequence to them as long as they are fed; and as they eat pretty nearly everything that lives and moves, a hunter with any experience and any sort of decent luck can manage to subsist them.
Our horses had not been exercised for some days, and were at first inclined to be frisky. They soon toned down, however, evidently realizing that they might have hard work before the day was over, and would stand in need of all their strength. Occasionally we took a little spurt over the open country, just to shake out their limbs a little, and then settled down for a walk, during which the Kafirs came up with us. We passed the borders of the forest where we had our adventure with the elephants, and entered the valley of the river where it was fairly well wooded, with open spaces here and there.
We kept a careful lookout for the camp of the amazons, but did not see it up to the time we reached the river, nor did we see any trace of either of the fair hunters.
We halted under the shade of a large tree, and candor compels me to say that we discussed the whereabouts of Miss Boland and her companion much more than we did the locality of the other game which we came to seek. Harry said he thought they had taken alarm and moved, while Jack felt sure that nothing of the kind had happened.
"We haven't come in the right direction," said he, "and that's where the trouble is. I'll wager three to one they haven't moved at all, unless they found it judicious to move their camp and bring it nearer to ours."
I did not express any opinion either way on the subject, as I did not want to appear particularly interested in it.
In a little while, perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes, one of our trackers came in and said there were buffaloes farther along the valley toward the west. There was quite a bunch of them, he said, some twenty or more, making an assorted lot of bulls, cows, and young buffaloes. They were in a patch of thin bushes, which were sufficiently low to enable the tracker to see the backs of the beasts without difficulty.
CHAPTER V.
AFTER BUFFALOES AND ELANDS—A FORTUNATE
SNAP-SHOT—ANOTHER HUNTER'S GAME.
The question now was whether we should continue our hunting on horseback or go on on foot. It is a very two-sided question, this one of hunting buffaloes on horseback or leaving the horses behind you. The horse gives you the advantage of making a rapid pursuit of your game when it is trying to run away, and with a good horse you can easily overtake a buffalo, if you have wounded him at all severely.
On the other hand, it is difficult, yes, practically impossible, to shoot from a horse's back with any sort of accuracy. You must dismount to shoot, and when you do so you necessarily lose a little time; and quite likely your horse is restive, and will jerk your arm just as you raise the rifle to your shoulder. Then, when you try to mount again, he will make it difficult for you to do so by pulling back on the bridle and acting ugly. Horses that are perfect hunters are very hard to find in Africa, and I do not believe the rest of the world is oversupplied with them. I have heard of a great many horses that would enter into the spirit of the chase, stand like rocks when their riders wished to fire, follow closely, always be ready to be mounted, and do everything else that the hunter might desire. I say I have heard of those horses, but they were always a long way off from where I was.
We decided that we would leave the horses under the tree, which was a conspicuous landmark, with two of the Kafirs to take care of them while we went on foot after the buffaloes.
Just as we were about starting, however, one of the natives reported a herd of elands about a mile to the south; whereupon Harry and Jack concluded to go after the elands, leaving the buffaloes to me. "It will diminish the chance of our hitting one another," said Harry, "which we might very likely do in the bushes where the buffaloes are; but there's less danger of that sort of trouble in the open country."
I assented to this suggestion, in which there was good sense, and remarked that it might make a variety in our stock of provisions for the next few days.
"Don't give all your attention to shooting bull-buffaloes," said Jack; "fetch down a yearling cow if you have the chance, as it will be better eating than the patriarchs of the herd."
"All right," I replied; "I'll endeavor to bring you in an assortment." And with that I started off, while they were getting their horses ready. I saw to it that I had plenty of ammunition, and Kalil was carrying my six-to-the-pound Remington, which I had cleaned up that morning.
When we reached the neighborhood of the buffaloes I filled my cartridge-belt and took my rifle from Kalil. Mirogo led the way, creeping along as cautiously as a cat—an animal which he resembled in more ways than one. I could hear the buffaloes tramping about in the bushes; they seemed to be considerably scattered, but evidently had not been disturbed recently.
The first of the buffaloes to come into my range of vision was a magnificent bull, who towered considerably above the bushes. Mirogo, who was a little distance ahead, called my attention to the animal and then dropped back behind me. I crept along until I had a good chance at the creature's shoulder, about twenty yards away. I fired, and my bullet told, as the buffalo gave a loud roar and then looked around in my direction. Immediately on firing I slipped behind a tree, and he did not, at first, perceive me. Mirogo and Kalil had also sought the protection of trees, and the animal was evidently puzzled to know where the shot came from. He threw his head in the air, snorted, and then started forward, coming straight to the tree where I was concealed.
When a buffalo's head is elevated in the way he usually carries it when on a trot, it affords slight chance for a shot. A bullet on the forehead is pretty sure to glance off, and if aimed at any other part of the head the result will be the same. About the only thing to do, provided no broadside is presented, is to crouch low to the ground and then aim at the animal's chest. If well planted, a chest-shot is a fatal, or, at any rate, a demoralizing one.
I had shoved a fresh cartridge into the rifle, and was ready for the beast when he came on. I crouched almost to the ground behind the tree, and when he was within about fifteen paces I let him have it in the chest. He fell forward with a plunge that brought him directly against the tree. I wiped the perspiration from my forehead, and did not venture to step out from my place of concealment for at least a minute. The buffalo has his tricks, as the reader already knows, and I wanted to be sure he was dead before I came within his reach.
I blew my whistle to summon my tracker and gun-bearer, and when they came—which was very quickly, as they were concealed close by—I had them pull the tail of the buffalo and otherwise test him. Then we marked the spot and went in pursuit of the rest of the herd.
Of course the shot had alarmed the other buffaloes, and they scattered about considerably. They were difficult to find, and for nearly half an hour we were uncertain in what direction to go. Mirogo and I held two or three consultations, and decided to push on toward the west, where the spoor showed that the animals had gone.
We worked our way along, and in a little while I had the pleasure of bringing down one of the yearling buffaloes of the kind that Jack suggested would be desirable. A single bullet sufficed for his case, as he gave me a good shot at short distance, and, besides, a yearling does not possess the strength and endurance of one of those old veterans such as I had first obtained.
During the excitement that immediately followed the shooting of this second buffalo I thought I heard the report of a gun a mile or so away to the westward. It was only a surmise, as we were just then tramping around in the bushes, and paying no attention to anything except what immediately surrounded us. I gave the subject not a moment's thought, and speedily forgot all about it, until a sudden and very unexpected circumstance brought it to my mind again.
One of the dangers of shooting in company, in addition to hitting one another, is that of coming unexpectedly upon an infuriated beast that has been wounded by somebody else than yourself. If you are following an animal wounded by yourself you will exercise proper caution, but no skill in the art of hunting, and no amount of caution, can protect you from the charge of an ugly animal that has been wounded by some other hunter. This has happened to me on several occasions, and it happened on the buffalo-hunt which I have just been describing.
We were going along through the forest peaceably enough, Mirogo leading the way and I following, with Kalil, carrying my gun, close at my heels. No buffaloes were in sight, and there was no occasion for me to be burdened with my rifle just at that moment.
Suddenly we heard a great crashing in the bushes twenty or thirty yards away, and out of them sprang an infuriated bull, who made directly at us.
Mirogo had just time to shout "Look out, sir!" when he sprang into a small tree; but there was no tree for me to spring into. I jumped to one side of the path, and at the same time brought my rifle around, which Kalil, with great presence of mind, had shoved into my hands the moment he heard the crash. I gave the buffalo a snap-shot just behind the left shoulder as he passed me, not having time to bring the weapon to an aim. It was one of the luckiest shots I ever planted, as it brought him, dead, to the ground.
The manner of this buffalo indicated that he had been wounded, and I was sure that he had not been wounded by me. It naturally occurred to me that our amazon neighbors had been trying their skill, and had been unsuccessful in bringing down their game, at least in this instance.
I told Mirogo to examine the buffalo for bullet-marks other than my own. He examined the body of the brute, and it turned out as I expected: the animal had been wounded, having received a bullet in the right shoulder.
It is a rule of the chase in Africa that, when several people are hunting together, the first shot is the counting one. If I fire at an animal and wound it, and it runs off in your direction, and you shoot and bring it down, the prize is mine, not yours. In some cases such a decision seems to be very unjust, but on a moment's reflection the reader will see that it is founded on justice. The first one who hits a creature disables it more or less, and through the disability that he creates the subsequent hunter or hunters are enabled to kill it.
I told Mirogo to mark the spot by attaching a rag to the tallest bush in the vicinity, and then continue in the same general direction we had been traveling. He acted accordingly, and we proceeded with our hunting, the impression being very strong on my mind that before we saw any more buffaloes we would pretty certainly meet the hunter who had planted the initial shot in the animal I had recently finished.
We went on for a mile or more without seeing or hearing anything. Then we came to a little mound, perhaps twenty feet in height, whose top gave us a view over the bushes for quite a distance. We ascended the mound and took a careful survey, knowing that if any buffaloes were in range of the spot we could not easily miss them.
Not a buffalo was in sight, but there was visible, two or three hundred yards away, a hunter with tracker and gun-bearer. I looked very carefully at the hunter, and speedily saw that it was none of our party. As the stranger came nearer I perceived that it was not the fair one whom I met the day before, but was dressed in precisely the same manner, and the movements and general appearance told me it was a woman.
"Aha!" I said to myself, "I think I am about to meet Mrs. Roberts. Miss Boland is at the camp with a headache—no, let me think! Africa is no place for headaches such as women complain of in civilized lands. Perhaps the two are hunting together, and are working the buffalo-herd from opposite sides. She continues to come this way, so I presume she has no objection to meeting me. Miss Boland evidently gave me a good character when she got back to camp. Perhaps she didn't mention me at all; may have considered the incident, and the man, too trivial to refer to. However, I'll descend from the mound and meet the lady, who quite likely will ask if I've seen any buffaloes belonging to her."
I descended from the mound and moved in the direction of the stranger. I saluted respectfully, raising my hat as I did so, and remarking that it was a fine day for hunting. What a blessing the weather is for breaking the ice in a conversation!
"Yes," was the response of the stranger, "it is a fine day for hunting, or for a promenade, and what more agreeable promenade can there be than in the forest at this time?"
"I certainly know of nothing to surpass it," I replied, "and it is my fondness for the sport that brought me to this part of the world. But let me come from generalities to particulars: have you wounded a buffalo this morning?"
"Yes," was the reply, "I have killed one and wounded another. I'm afraid I'm not a first-class shot, as I ought to have brought down the last buffalo I fired at; he was not more than twenty yards away, and I had an excellent chance at him."
"What did you aim for?"
"I tried to aim just back of the right foreshoulder, but from the way he went off I don't think I hit him there; perhaps did not hit him at all."
"It is my pleasure to inform you," said I, "that your game is secure. I heard your shot, and a little while afterward a buffalo came in my direction. He came crashing through the bushes, and charged directly at me. I was fortunate enough to be able to bring him down—fortunate in more ways than one, as he would have brought me down with a vengeance if I had not done so."
CHAPTER VI.
A DISPUTED PRIZE—RULE OF AFRICAN HUNTING—MRS. ROBERTS.
"I congratulate you," said the fair stranger; "but how are you certain that it was the buffalo I fired at?"
I explained that my tracker had examined the animal and found the wound in the shoulder, as already described. I then mentioned the rule of the chase, of which the reader knows, and told the lady that I surrendered all claim to the prize. As I did so I said, again raising my hat, "I presume I have the honor of addressing Mrs. Roberts?"
"I am Mrs. Roberts," she replied, with a smile; "but how did you know me?"
I explained briefly about my meeting with Miss Boland, and that she informed me of the name of her hunting-companion and the location of their camp, or, at least, its general direction. The lady appeared somewhat surprised, though not altogether so, and I was unable to make out from her manner whether Miss Boland had told her about encountering me in the forest, or had failed to mention the matter in any way.
I then told her my name and where our party was encamped. I offered to conduct her to the spot where her buffalo had met his death, and she assented to the proposition. Her gun-bearer was close at her heels, just as Kalil was close to mine. I told Mirogo to lead the way, and he and the other tracker showed the direction, keeping a short distance in our front. I was in no hurry to reach the spot, but thought my companion was quite willing to have the interview come to an end as soon as convenient. We conversed on hunting-topics, and altogether the conversation was an agreeable one, at least to me.
In all her talk the lady bore herself very modestly, and seemed inclined to give the credit of superior hunting-ability to Miss Boland. She magnified the exploits of her companion and depreciated those of herself.
"Miss Boland," said she, "is a fine hunter in the saddle, which I am not. It is about as much as I can do to attend to the horse and keep on his back, to say nothing of loading a rifle while going at full speed, or dismounting to take a shot. A few days ago," said she, "we chased a herd of elands. Miss Boland brought down the leader of the herd; she had a hard ride for it, and I thought she would have to give it up; but she stuck to it until she got right alongside the eland, and shot him from the saddle. I brought up the rear a good distance away, and did not get near enough for a shot with the longest-range rifle that ever was made. It is proper to say, though, that Miss Boland had a much better horse than I had; it isn't possible to get the speed out of my animal that she can out of hers. We started out on our expedition with three horses apiece, but we've lost one of them, and two others are not in serviceable condition."
"You haven't been in the tsetse-fly country, have you?" I asked.
"No, we haven't as yet," she answered, "and we're deliberating whether to go there or not. We have been told that there's some fine buffalo-hunting up in the fly country, and want to go there; but of course if we do we must leave our horses behind, or be put to the pain of seeing them die."
I may as well explain to the reader that the tsetse-fly is one of the scourges of certain parts of Africa. It is about the size of the common house-fly, or a little larger, and is harmless to horned cattle and donkeys, and also harmless to the human race; but, to use a slang expression, it is "death on horses." The bite of a tsetse-fly causes the death of a horse in a very short time; the skin swells enormously, great festering sores follow, and no remedy has yet been found for the bite. The valleys of certain rivers and lakes are infested with these flies, while other parts of the country are entirely free from them. Sometimes they are found on one side of a river but not on the other, and the alternations of heat and cold do not seem to have any effect in driving them away.
We had quite a talk about the flies, and speculated as to the reason why some animals were attacked and others exempt. Other travelers have speculated on the same subject before and since, but I presume their investigations had no more practical result than ours did.
"Our foreman told us," said Mrs. Roberts, "that up in the fly country there were great herds of buffaloes—thousands of animals in a herd—and that this was about the time for attacking them. I don't think we are quite equal to one of the large herds, but after the other hunters have gone in and broken them up we might attack some of the stragglers."
I was able to tell the lady something about that style of hunting, as I had been engaged in it the previous year. "A party of us formed a camp on a little stream called the Gumban; then we sent out native hunters in all directions to visit the drinking-places of the buffaloes, find the large troops of the animals, and break them up. The buffaloes form into these troops in the summer and get broken up in the winter by the hunters. We were lucky enough to find one of the largest troops, which was known to the natives as the 'dust-raiser.' It was several days before we struck the herd, but when we did we had lively work. My first experience with one of that herd was something to remember."
"I would like very much to hear about it," said Mrs. Roberts, "if you have no objection to telling me."
"Oh, not at all," I replied; "on the contrary, it will give me great pleasure. It was a very brief affair, as I came suddenly upon the animal when he was standing under a tree. I was not aware that any buffalo was about, and was carrying a rifle loaded for koodoo. My gun-bearer was behind me with my large rifle, and I quickly exchanged one for the other. I took a shot at the buffalo, but it was not sufficient to bring him down. He turned and charged upon me; I dodged behind a tree, and as he went past and was turning to come back at me I gave him a second shot which laid him low.
"Half an hour after that," said I, "I met my friend Harry, who was of our hunting-party, and when he caught sight of me he came forward on a run. He said he had wounded a buffalo and it had retreated into a very disagreeable place—into a thorn-thicket, where it was not easy to follow. He proposed that we should get on opposite sides of the thicket—which was not very large—and then send our trackers in to drive the animal out.
"I had a quiet laugh to myself," I continued, "because I saw a very large defect in his scheme. The thicket was not far off, and we went to it; but when Harry suggested that the trackers should go inside they demurred emphatically. There was a tall tree at the side of the thicket, and I proposed that Harry should climb that tree with the aid of his tracker, and from that point he would be able to see his game; I would stand at the foot of a tree at the opposite side of the thicket, and be prepared to meet the animal in case it came out at that point.
"Harry acted according to my suggestion, and after reaching an elevation of about thirty feet he called out that he could see the buffalo distinctly. Then he gave it a shot, and it looked around very much surprised, not knowing whence it was assaulted. Another shot followed, and then the beast made a break outside the thicket close to my position. I managed to lay it low, and then I shouted to Harry that he could descend from his perch."