rack and had the lead
of me now by several hundred yards. Will was as far behind him as I,
but had gone over more to the left, leaving me--feeling remarkably
lonely--away in the rear to the right.

Kazimoto followed Fred so closely, stooping low behind him, that the
two looked like some strange four-legged beast. They were headed for
the forest in front of them at a great pace, increasing their lead from
Will, who, like me, was more or less winded. I stooped at a pool to
scoop up water and splash my face and neck. When I looked up a moment
later I could see none of them.

At that instant, when I could actually smell the great brutes crashing
in the forest, unseen within a hundred yards of me, and would have
given all I had or hoped for just to have a friend within speaking
distance, a shot rang out in the forest ahead, and rattled from tree to
tree like the echo of a skirmish. It was not from Fred's gun, or
Will's. It was the phantom rifleman at work again.
Schillingschen--Schillingschen's ghost--or whoever he was, he could not
have timed his fusillade better for our undoing. The first shot was
followed by six more in swift succession. And then chaos broke loose.

Toward where I stood, from every angle to my front, the whole herd
stampeded. No human being could have guessed their number. The forest
awoke with a battle-din of falling trees and crashing undergrowth,
split apart by the trumpeting of angry bulls and the screams of cows
summoning their young ones. The earth shook under the weight of their
tremendous rout. I heard Fred's rifle ring out three times far to my
left--then Will's a rifle nearer to me; and at that the herd swung
toward its own left, and the whole lot of them came full-pelt, blind,
screaming, frantic, straight for me.

There was no turning them now. None but the very farthest on the flank
could have turned, given sense enough left to do it. It was a flood of
maddened monsters, crazed with fear, pent by their own numbers, forced
forward by the crowd behind, that invited me to dam them if I could!
As they burst into the open, more shots rang out in the forest to lend
their fury wings!

I glanced behind, to right and left, but there was no escape, I had
come too far into the open to retreat! There were big rocks to the
rear to have scrambled on, but there was no time. There was one big
rock in front of me that divided their course about in halves; to pass
it they must open up, alth