had plenty of leeway, the animal being so far off that even if my bullet
had not been fatal I should have had time for a couple more shots. The
African buffalo is undoubtedly a dangerous beast, but it happened that
the few that I shot did not charge. A bull elephant, a vicious "rogue,"
which had been killing people in the native villages, did charge before
being shot at. My son Kermit and I stopped it at forty yards. Another
bull elephant, also unwounded, which charged, nearly got me, as I
had just fired both cartridges from my heavy double-barreled rifle in
killing the bull I was after--the first wild elephant I had ever seen.
The second bull came through the thick brush to my left like a steam
plow through a light snowdrift, everything snapping before his rush, and
was so near that he could have hit me with his trunk. I slipped past
him behind a tree. People have asked me how I felt on this occasion.
My answer has always been that I suppose I felt as most men of like
experience feel on such occasions. At such a moment a hunter is so
very busy that he has no time to get frightened. He wants to get in his
cartridges and try another shot.

Rhinoceros are truculent, blustering beasts, much the most stupid of
all the dangerous game I know. Generally their attitude is one of mere
stupidity and bluff. But on occasions they do charge wickedly, both when
wounded and when entirely unprovoked. The first I ever shot I mortally
wounded at a few rods' distance, and it charged with the utmost
determination, whereat I and my companion both fired, and more by good
luck than anything else brought it to the ground just thirteen paces
from where we stood. Another rhinoceros may or may not have been meaning
to charge me; I have never been certain which. It heard us and came at
us through rather thick brush, snorting and tossing its head. I am by
no means sure that it had fixedly hostile intentions, and indeed with
my present experience I think it likely that if I had not fired it would