eemed with us at last. The wind was right, and between us and the
bull lay only four hundred yards of knee-high grass. All we had to
do was to get down on our hands and knees, and, without further
precautions, crawl up within range and pot him. That meant only a bit of
hard, hot work.

When we were about halfway a rhinoceros suddenly arose from the grass
between us and the buffalo, and about one hundred yards away.

What had aroused him, at that distance and upwind, I do not know. It
hardly seemed possible that he could have heard us, for we were moving
very quietly, and, as I say, we were downwind. However, there he was
on his feet, sniffing now this way, now that, in search for what had
alarmed him. We sank out of sight and lay low, fully expecting that the
brute would make off.

For just twenty-five minutes by the watch that rhinoceros looked and
looked deliberately in all directions while we lay hidden waiting for
him to get over it. Sometimes he would start off quite confidently for
fifty or sixty yards, so that we thought at last we were rid of him, but
always he returned to the exact spot where we had first seen him,
there to stamp, and blow. The buffalo paid no attention to these
manifestations. I suppose everybody in jungleland is accustomed to
rhinoceros bad temper over nothing. Twice he came in our direction, but
both times gave it up after advancing twenty-five yards or so. We lay
flat on our faces, the vertical sun slowly roasting us, and cursed that
rhino.

Now the significance of this incident is twofold: first, the fact that,
instead of rushing off at the first intimation of our presence, as would
the average rhino, he went methodically to work to find us; second, that
he displayed such remarkable perseverance as to keep at it nearly a
half hour. This was a spirit quite at variance with that finding its
expression in the blind rush or in the sudden passionate attack. From
that point of view it seems to me that the interest and significance of
the incident can hardly be overstated.

Four or five times we thought ourselves freed of the nuisance, but
always, just as we were about to move on, back he came, as eager as ever
to nose us out. Finally he gave it up, and, at a slow trot, started to
go away from there. And out of the three hundred and sixty degrees of
the circle where he might have gone he selected just our direction. Note
that this was downwind for him, and that rhinoceroses usually escape
u