Soon it led us into other spoor, that of a whole herd of thirty or forty beasts indeed, which made our task quite easy, at least till we came to harder ground, for the animals had gone a long way.  An hour or more later, when we were about seven miles from the river, I perceived ahead of us, for we were now almost at the foot of the hills, a cool and densely-wooded kloof.

“That is where they will be,” I said.  “Now come on carefully and make no noise.”

We rode to the wide mouth of the kloof where the signs of the buffalo were numerous and fresh, dismounted and tied our horses to a thorn, so as to approach them silently on foot.  We had not gone two hundred yards through the bush when suddenly about fifty paces away, standing broadside on in the shadow between two trees, I saw a splendid old bull with a tremendous pair of horns.

“Shoot,” I whispered to Anscombe, “you will never get a better chance.  It is the sentinel of the herd.”

He knelt down, his face quite white with excitement, and covered the bull with his Express.

“Keep cool,” I whispered again, “and aim behind the shoulder, half-way down.”

I don’t think he understood me, for at that moment off went the rifle.  He hit the beast somewhere, as I heard the bullet clap, but not fatally, for it turned and lumbered off up the kloof, apparently unhurt, whereon he sent the second barrel after it, a clean miss this time.  Then of a sudden all about us appeared buffaloes that had, I suppose, been sleeping invisible to us.  These, with snorts and bellows, rushed off towards the river, for having their senses about them, they had no mind to be trapped in the kloof.  I could only manage a shot at one of them, a large and long-horned cow which I knocked over quite dead.  If I had fired again it would have been but to wound, a thing I hate.  The whole business was over in a minute.  We went and looked at my dead cow which I had caught through the heart.

“It’s cruel to kill these things,” I said, “for I don’t know what use we are going to make of them, and they must love life as much as we do.”

“We’ll cut the horns off,” said Anscombe.

“You may if you like,” I answered, “but you will find it a tough job with a sheath knife.”

“Yes, I think that shall be the task of the worthy Footsack to-morrow,” he replied.  “Meanwhile let us go and finish off my bull, as Footsack & Co. may as well bring home two pair of horns as one.”

I looked at the dense bush, and knowing something of the habits of wounded buffaloes, reflected that it would be a nasty job.  Still I said nothing, because if I hesitated, I knew he would want to go alone.  So we started.  Evidently the beast had been badly hit, for the blood spoor was easy to follow.  Yet it had been able to retreat up to the end of the kloof that terminated in a cliff over which trickled a stream of water.  Here it was not more than a hundred paces wide, and on either side of it were other precipitous cliffs.  As we went from one of these a war-horn, such as the Basutos use, was blown.  Although I heard it, oddly enough, I paid no attention to it at the time, being utterly intent upon the business in hand.