he wrist caused by the gallop.

The surface of the plain was level enough, but frightfully bad going;
the sun had baked the black soil till great gaping cracks, a couple of
feet wide and ten feet deep, were opened in the ground. The buffaloes
had wallowed in the wet season and made round well-like holes that were
now hard, dry pitfalls. Here and there a treacherous, slimy watercourse
wound its slinking way along, making a bog in which a horse would sink
to his shoulders; and over all these traps and pitfalls the long waving
jungle-grass drew a veil. Every now and then belts of small bamboo were
crossed, into which the horses dashed blindly, forcing their way through
by their weight. When they started the buffaloes had a lead of a quarter
of a mile, and judging by their slogging, laboured gallop, it looked as
though the horses would run into them in half a mile; but on that ground
the buffaloes could go nearly as fast as the horses, and it was only
after a mile and a quarter of hard riding that they closed in on the
mob, which at once split into several detachments. A magnificent old
bull, whose horns measured ten feet from tip to tip, dashed away to the
right with six or seven cows lumbering after him. Hugh and one of the
shooters followed this lot. Another mob went away to the left, pursued
by the other shooter and Considine; while one old cow, having had enough
running, suddenly wheeled in her tracks, and charged straight at Tommy
Prince, whose horse at once whipped round and carried his rider, with
the old cow at his tail, into a clump of bamboos. Hugh followed his
mate as hard as he could, both horses feeling the pace, and pecking and
blundering every now and again in the broken ground. Once Hugh saw
a buffalo-wallow suddenly appear right under his horse's nose, and
half-flinched, expecting a certain fall; but old "Close Up" strode over
it, apparently having a leg to spare for emergencies of the sort.

Just ahead of him the shooter, sitting down in his saddle, lifted his
horse with a drive of the spurs, and came right alongside the hindmost
animal, a fat blue cow, which at once swerved at right angles; but the
horse followed her every movement, and drew up till horse and buffalo
were racing side by side. Then without fuss or hurry, up went the elbow
of the rider and bang! the buffalo fell as if paralysed, shot through
the lions. The horse swung away from the falling animal as it crashed
to the ground; and the shoote