tampeding. Mr. Hume dashed down the game-
path, and before the boys could see what manner of beast it was, he
had fired and bowled it over with a bullet behind the ear.

"A bit of luck," he said, as they reached him.

"What is it?" asked Venning, glancing around with bright eyes.

"A buffalo, over there."

The two boys saw a dark form on the ground, half hidden by a bush,
and were running forward.

"Quietly," said the hunter. "Always approach dangerous game
cautiously when they are down--especially buffalo;" and with his
finger on the trigger he went up slow-footed.

But the buffalo was stone-dead--a great bull with an immense boss
between the bend of his sharp horns.

"It's the luck of hunting," said Mr. Hume, as the boys walked round
the great beast. "Some days you never get a shot, and other times
you find game at your back door, so to speak. One of you boys will
stay with Muata to skin and cut up. It will be a good lesson."

The two looked at each other, and then away over the plain. Skinning
and cutting up was not exactly amusing.

"All right; I'll stay," said Venning.

"Each in his turn," said the hunter. "Come along, Compton;" and they
went off, as Venning turned up his shirt-sleeves.

It was hard work, this cutting up, but Muata was a master at the
job, and Venning learnt his lesson thoroughly.

The great hide was taken off in one piece without a slit; then long
strips of meat were cut off and hung over the branches of a tree.
When the rest of the meat had been stripped off, they packed it all
away in the hide, slung the bundle to a sapling, and, with each end
of the pole on a shoulder, they slowly carried the whole to the
camp. Venning hoped that his labours were over; but they had only
completed one task. They had now to build a scaffolding on which to
hang the strips, after each had been well peppered to keep off the
flies, for the drying and smoking. This took another slice out of
the day; and when Venning had washed in the river, and cooked and
eaten his buffalo-steak, he resigned himself to the study of insects
in place of the pursuit of game, while Muata, who had melted down
the fat from the kidneys, sat and rubbed the oil into his limbs till
his skin shone.

"Have you seen many buffalo?" asked Venning, with a keen eye on a
bit of crooked stick that had seemed to move.

"Many."

"And you understand their ways?"

"I have watched as you watch the stick that is not a stick."

Venning