et circle to leeward in
order to avoid disturbing them, and were forced to a very minute search
in order to pick up the buffalo tracks again on the other side. This was
at once an anxiety and a delay, and we did not love those rhino.

Finally, at the very edge of the Yatta Plains we overtook the herd,
resting for noon in a scattered thicket. Leaving Fundi, I, with Memba
Sasa, stalked down to them. We crawled and crept by inches flat to the
ground, which was so hot that it fairly burned the hand. The sun beat
down on us fiercely, and the air was close and heavy even among the
scanty grass tufts in which we were trying to get cover. It was very
hard work indeed, but after a half hour of it we gained a thin bush not
over thirty yards from a half dozen dark and indeterminate bodies dozing
in the very centre of a brush patch. Cautiously I wiped the sweat
from my eyes and raised my glasses. It was slow work and patient work,
picking out and examining each individual beast from the mass. Finally
the job was done. I let fall my glasses.

"Monumookee y'otey-all cows," I whispered to Memba Sasa.

We backed out of there inch by inch, with intention of circling a short
distance to the leeward, and then trying the herd again lower down. But
some awkward slight movement, probably on my part, caught the eye of
one of those blessed cows. She threw up her head; instantly the whole
thicket seemed alive with beasts. We could hear them crashing and
stamping, breaking the brush, rushing headlong and stopping again; we
could even catch momentary glimpses of dark bodies. After a few minutes
we saw the mass of the herd emerge from the thicket five hundred yards
away and flow up over the hill. There were probably a hundred and fifty
of them, and, looking through my glasses, I saw among them two fine old
bulls. They were of course not much alarmed, as only the one cow knew
what it was all about anyway, and I suspected they would stop at the
next thicket.

We had only one small canteen of water with us, but we divided that. It
probably did us good, but the quantity was not sufficient to touch our
thirst. For the remainder of the day we suffered rather severely, as the
sun was fierce.

After a short interval we followed on after the buffaloes. Within a half
mile beyond the crest of the hill over which they had disappeared
was another thicket. At the very edge of the thicket, asleep under an
outlying bush, stood one of the big bulls!

Luck s