CHAPTER IV.. Narrow Escape From a Buffalo--a Divergent Excursion.

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.