and he was compelled to ride along the bank until he reached the
incline which the buffalo had descended. He forded the stream,
galloped under the opposite bank across a patch of ground which had
been trampled into mud by the hoofs of beasts coming here to water,
and mounted again to the open. The bull had gained a quarter of a
mile's grace from his mistake, and was heading straight for a huge
cone of granite.

Norris recognised the cone. It towered up from the veld, its cliffs
seamed into gullies by the rain-wash of ages, and he had used it more
than once as a landmark during the last fortnight, for it rose due
southwest of his camp.

He watched the bull approach the cone and vanish into one of the
gullies. It did not reappear, and he rode forward, keeping a close eye
upon the gully. As he came opposite to it, however, he saw through the
opening a vista of green trees flashing in the sunlight. He turned his
horse through the passage, and reined up in a granite amphitheatre.
The floor seemed about half a mile in diameter; it was broken into
hillocks, and strewn with patches of a dense undergrowth, while here
and there a big tree grew. The walls, which converged slightly towards
an open top, were robed from summit to base with wild flowers, so that
the whole circumference of the cone was one blaze of colour.

Norris hitched forward and reloaded the rifle. Then he advanced slowly
between the bushes on the alert for a charge from the wounded bull;
but nothing stirred. No sound came to his ears except the soft padding
noise of his horse's hoofs upon the turf. There was not a crackle
of the brushwood, and the trees seemed carved out of metal. He rode
through absolute silence in a suspension of all movement. Once his