the long grass. It was lurking where they did not expect it and with a sudden charge it was upon them before they had a chance to shoot. The buffalo knocked down the man who told me the story and then rushed after his companion. The first victim managed to climb a tree although without his gun. By that time the other man was dead. But the buffalo was not satisfied. For two hours he stamped and tossed the remains while the wounded man in the tree sat helplessly watching. When the buffalo left, my informant told me, the only evidence of his friend was the trampled place on the ground where the tragedy had taken place. There is nothing in Africa more vindictive than this.
There was another case of an old elephant hunter in Uganda who shot a buffalo for meat. The bullet did not kill the animal and it retreated into the thick bush where there were even some good-sized trees. The old hunter followed along a path. Suddenly the buffalo caught him and tossed him. As he went into the air he grasped some branches overhanging the trail. There he hung unable to get up and afraid to drop down while the wild bull beneath him charged back and forth with his long horns ripping at the hunter's legs. Happily the gun boy came up in time to save his master by killing the beast. This hunter was an extraordinary character. He was very successful and yet he was almost stone deaf. How he dared hunt elephants or any other big game without the aid of his hearing I have never been able to conceive, yet he did it and did it well.
