resulted in some poor animal being left sprawling on the ground, whereon
the sportsmen would remount and continue the chase.

Presently the buck were within range of some of the guns in the carts,
and a regular fusillade began. About twenty blesbuck turned and came
straight past John, at a distance of forty yards. Springing to the
ground he fired both barrels of his "Express" at them as they tore
along--alas and alas! without touching them. The first bullet struck
under their bellies, the second must have shaved their backs. Reloading
rapidly, he fired again at about two hundred yards' range, and this time
one fell to his second barrel. But he knew that it was a chance shot: he
had fired at the last buck, and he had killed one ten paces in front
of it. In fact this sort of shooting is extremely difficult till the
sportsman understands it. The inexperienced hand firing across a line of
buck will not kill once in twenty shots, as an infinitesimal difference
in elevation, or the slightest error in judging distance--in itself
no easy art on those great plains--will spoil his aim. A Boer almost
invariably gets immediately behind a herd of running buck, and fires
at one about half-way down the line. Consequently if his elevation is a
little wrong, or if he has misjudged his sighting, the odds are that he
will hit one either in front of or behind the particular animal fired
at. All that is necessary is that the line of fire should be good. This
John soon learnt, and when he had mastered the fact he became as good a
game shot as the majority of Boers, but it being his first attempt, much
to his vexation, he did not particularly distinguish himself that day,
with the result that his friends the Dutchmen went home firmly convinced
that the English _rooibaatje_ shot as indifferently as he lied.

Jumping into the cart again, and leaving the dead blesbuck to look after
itself for the present--not a very safe thing to do in a country where
there are so many vultures--John, or rather Jantje, put the horses into
a gallop, and away they went at full tear. It was a most exciting mode
of progression, bumping along furiously with a loaded rifle in his hands
over a plain on which antheaps as large as an armchair were scattered
like burnt almonds on a cake. Then there were the antbear holes to
reckon with, and the little swamps in the hollows, and other agreeable
surprises. But the rush and exhilaration of the thing were too great to
allow h