uki
claimed, dwelt roan antelope.

We settled down quite happily. The country round about was full of game;
the weather was cool, the wide sweeps of country, the upward fling of
mountains and buttes were much like some parts of our great West. Almost
every evening the thunderstorms made gorgeous piled effects in the
distance. At night the lions and hyenas roared or howled, and some of
the tiny fever owls impudently answered them back.

Various adventures came our way, some of which have been elsewhere
narrated. Here we killed the very big buffalo that nearly got Billy.[29]
In addition, we collected two more specimens of the Neuman's
hartebeeste, and two Chanler's reed buck.

But Mavrouki's glowing predictions as to roan were hardly borne out by
facts. According to him the mountains simply swarmed with them--he had
seen thirty-five in one day, etc. Of course we had discounted this, but
some old tracks had to a certain extent borne out his statement.

Lunch time one day, however, found us on top of the highest ridge. Here
we hunted up a bit of shade, and spent two hours out of the noon sun.
While we lay there the sky slowly overcast, so that when we aroused
ourselves to go on, the dazzling light had softened. As time was getting
short, we decided to separate. Memba Sasa and Mavrouki were to go in one
direction, while C., Kongoni and I took the other.

Before we started I remarked that I was offering two rupees for the
capture of a roan.

We had not gone ten minutes when Kongoni turned his head cautiously and
grinned back at us.

"My rupees," said he.

A fine buck roan stood motionless beneath a tree in the valley below us.
He was on the other side of the stream jungle, and nearly a mile away.
While we watched him, he lay down.

Our task now was to gain the shelter of the stream jungle below without
being seen, to slip along it until opposite the roan, and then to
penetrate the jungle near enough to get a shot. The first part of this
contract seemed to us the most difficult, for we were forced to descend
the face of the hill, like flies crawling down a blackboard, plain for
him to see.

We slid cautiously from bush to bush; we moved by imperceptible inches
across the numerous open spaces. About half-way down we were arrested by
a violent snort ahead. Fifteen or twenty zebras nooning in the brush
where no zebras were supposed to be, clattered down the hill like an
avalanche. We froze where we were. The beasts r