He could hardly speak for want of breath, having run
the whole way to my rescue, but I could understand that he had only one
barrel loaded, and no bullets left.
I dared not turn my face from the
buffalo, but I cautioned B. to reserve his fire till the bull should be
close into me, and then to aim at the head.
The words were hardly uttered, when, with the concentrated rage of the
last twenty minutes, he rushed straight at me! It was the work of an
instant. B. fired without effect. The horns were lowered, their points
were on either side of me, and the muzzle of the gun barely touched his
forehead when I pulled the trigger, and three shillings' worth of small
change rattled into his hard head. Down he went, and rolled over with
the suddenly checked momentum of his charge. Away went B. and I as fast
as our heels would carry us, through the water and over the plain,
knowing that he was not dead but only stunned. There was a large fallen
tree about half a mile from us, whose whitened branches, rising high
above the ground, offered a tempting asylum. To this we directed our
flying steps, and, after a run of a hundred yards, we turned and looked
behind us. He had regained his feet and was following us slowly. We now
experienced the difference of feeling between hunting and being hunted,
and fine sport we must have afforded him.
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