“Bless my—­” began Mr. Damon, but he did not finish, for, in starting to run his foot caught in the grass, and he went down heavily.

Tom leaped to one side, holding his camera so as not to damage it.  But he stumbled over Mr. Damon, and went down.

With a “wuff” of rage the clumsy beast, came on, moving more rapidly than Tom had any idea he was capable of.  Hampered by his camera our hero could not arise.  The rhinoceros was almost upon him, and Ned, catching up a club, was just going to make a rush to the rescue, when the brute seemed suddenly to crumple up.  It fell down in a heap, not five feet from where Tom and Mr. Damon lay.

“Good!” cried Ned.  “He’s dead.  Shot through the heart!  Who did it?”

“I did,” answered Koku quietly, stepping out of the bushes, with one of Tom’s Swift’s electric rifles in his hand.

CHAPTER XIV — IN A GREAT GALE

Tom Swift rose slowly to his feet, carefully setting his camera down, after making sure that it was not injured.  Then he looked at the huge beast which lay dead in front of him, and, going over to the giant he held out his hand to him.

“Koku, you saved my life,” spoke Tom.  “Probably the life of Mr. Damon also.  I can’t begin to thank you.  It isn’t the first time you’ve done it, either.  But I want to say that you can have anything you want, that I’ve got.”

“Me like this gun pretty much,” said the giant simply.

“Then it’s yours!” exclaimed Tom.  “And you’re the only one, except myself, who has ever owned one.”  Tom’s wonderful electric rifle, of which I have told you in the book bearing that name, was one of his most cherished inventions.

He guarded jealously the secret of how it worked, and never sold or gave one away, for fear that unscrupulous men might learn how to make them, and to cause fearful havoc.  For the rifle was a terrible weapon.  Koku seemed to appreciate the honor done him, as he handled the gun, and looked from it to the dead rhinoceros.

“Bless my blank cartridge!” exclaimed Mr. Damon, as he also got up and came to examine the dead beast.  It was the first thing he had said since the animal had rushed at him, and he had not moved after he fell down.  He had seemingly been in a daze, but when the others heard him use one of his favorite expressions they knew that he was all right again.  “Bless my hat!” went on the odd man.  “What happened, Tom?  Is that beast really dead?  How did Koku come to arrive in time?”

“I guess he’s dead all right,” said Tom, giving the rhinoceros a kick.  “But I don’t know how Koku happened to arrive in the nick of time, and with the gun, too.”

“I think maybe I see something to shoot when I come after you, like you tell me to do,” spoke the giant.  “I follow your trail, but I see nothing to shoot until I come here.  Then I see that animal run for you, and I shoot.”