African Camp Fires by Stewart Edward White
page 142 of 268 (52%)
page 142 of 268 (52%)
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creature not easily identified is a scientific possibility in Africa.
Therefore we fired at once. One of the bullets hit his foreleg paw. Immediately this astonishing small creature turned and charged us! If his size had equalled his ferocity, he would have been a formidable opponent. We had a lively few minutes. He rushed us again and again, uttering ferocious growls. We had to step high and lively to keep out of his way. Between charges he sat down and tore savagely at his wounded paw. We wanted him as nearly perfect a specimen as possible, so tried to rap him over the head with a club. Owing to remarkably long teeth and claws, this was soon proved impracticable; so we shot him. He weighed about fifty pounds, and we subsequently learned that he was a honey badger, an animal very rarely captured. We left the boys to take the whole skin and skull of this beast, and strolled forward slowly. The brush ended abruptly in a wide valley. It had been burnt over, and the new grass was coming up green. We gave one look, and sank back into cover. The sparse game of the immediate vicinity had gathered to this fresh feed. A herd of hartebeeste and gazelle were grazing, and five giraffe adorned the sky-line. But what interested us especially was a group of about fifty cob-built animals with the unmistakable rapier horns of the oryx. We recognized them as the rarity we desired. The conditions were most unfavourable. The cover nearest them gave a range of three hundred yards, and even this would bring them directly between us and the rising sun. There was no help for it, however. We made our way to the bushes nearest the herd, and I tried to align the blurs that represented my sights. At the shot, ineffective, they raced to the right across our front. We lay low. As they had seen nothing they |
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