selected his own particular enemy, occupying his
attention so fully that the remaining members of the herd were afforded
every facility for escape.

It was a nervous moment for the hunters, who, never having faced such a
creature before, had not the most remote idea of its fighting tactics;
moreover, the aspect of the monsters, with their towering stature of
fully fifteen feet, their thick shaggy coats of rusty brown hair, their
enormous spirally curving tusks, and their small eyes blazing with fury
as they rushed forward to the attack, all combined to produce such a
hideous _tout ensemble_ as might well strike terror to the boldest
heart. But neither Sir Reginald nor the colonel were the men to shrink
from an encounter when game was before them; Mildmay possessed all the
cool daring and recklessness of the British seaman; and as for the
professor, he would willingly have faced a thousand deaths to secure so
new and rare a specimen of natural history as the creature before him.

The four sportsmen pulled trigger almost simultaneously. The baronet
and the colonel had each selected the same spot, the eye, as the object
of their aim, and both had been equally successful, the shell in each
case passing upward through the eyeball into the brain, exploding there
and causing instant death. The professor's fascinated gaze being
riveted upon the wide-open mouth of his own particular adversary, he
seemed to think that the yawning cavern thus revealed would be as good a
place as any to empty his rifle into; and he did so--just in bare time
to bring down his game and save himself from being trampled to a jelly.
Mildmay, however, was not so fortunate. He seemed to think that it
mattered very little where he directed his aim, so long as he made sure
of hitting the brute _somewhere_, and he therefore fired point-blank at
the chest of the mammoth which was menacing him. The shell sped true,
but, encountering the thick shaggy coat and the enormously tough hide of
the creature, failed to penetrate the body, and, exploding outside, only
inflicted such wounds as further excited the already angry monster to a
perfect frenzy of rage. Even at this critical moment there was time for
another shot; but Mildmay most unfortunately forgot that he had nine
loaded chambers still available, and instead of firing again he flung
away his piece and ran for his life. The race was a disastrously short
one, however; he had not run more than twenty y