extricate him; but after some minutes' hewing and hacking
with their hunting knives it is at last accomplished, and the victim is
laid tenderly on the smooth game-path.

Alas! his injuries are terrible. Several ribs are displaced and smashed
on the right side; there is a deep jagged hole beneath; and the sharp
horn, driven with the mighty strength of an old buffalo bull, has
penetrated far into the lung. So much is at once apparent, and it looks
sadly as if Bill's hours are numbered.

It is a shocking blow for Ralph. Who could have dreamed that that
strong, active man, not yet at his prime, full of pluck, enterprise, and
a perennial cheeriness--but ten short minutes before cracking some
half-whispered joke to his friend and servant--could now be lying, a
battered, senseless rag of humanity, in his comrade's arms?

As well as they can, the two sound men bind up the gaping wound, and
stanch the bleeding, and then, between them, tenderly they carry the
still senseless hunter back to camp.

It was but a twenty minutes' journey, slowly as they progressed, yet to
Ralph it seemed long hours.

At last they laid the wounded man gently upon his blankets, beneath the
shade of the big thorn tree, washed and carefully bound up his dreadful
hurt, poured brandy between his poor bloodstained lips, and then--there
was nothing else to be done--awaited the event. It was too far to
attempt to convey him across the river to the wagons; the slightest
movement greatly increased the bleeding from the mouth, and suffocation
seemed imminent. Ralph sent Tatenyan across in a canoe for more brandy;
for the rest of that weary, hot African day he could only watch and
wait.

Bill lay senseless far into the afternoon, breathing out, as it seemed,
slowly and very painfully his remaining stock of life. Towards sunset,
he opened his eyes feebly, looked about him, and whispered faintly to
Ralph, now bending over him with his eyes full of irrestrainable tears,
"Where's the bull?"

"He's dead, old chap. I settled him after he struck you. Don't talk
much; I'm afraid you're very badly hurt."

"Yes," went on Bill, "he's about finished me, I think. I was an idiot
to follow him into that bush. Cobus was right. Well, I've paid dearly
for him. Take his head home, old chap, and hang it up. I don't think I
shall see this through; and when you look at the horns, you will think
of me, and the good days we had together in the veldt."

"Don't, do