TRACKING A BISON.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2169, 13 August 1897, Page 4

TRACKING A BISON.

("Badminton Magazine.") The tracks are quite fresh, drops of blood are on the leaves he had brushed against, and with both rifles ready, we get nearer and nearer to .him. We are going up a steep hill now, the jungle in places is not quite so thick—open patches here and there. "There he is!" from Chippani, who has eyes like a hawk, and a snort and a short crash above us tell us we are seen. "Shoot!" Chippani says, and to our cost I do. With no cover below him, no open place to meet him, and everything in the bull's favor, I ought never to have fired, as by making a flank march I could easily have got above him and in comparative safety. However, there is not much time to think of these things, and as I fire one barrel of the 10-bore into the thicket where the bull is standing he comes down the hill like a steam engine. I give him the other barrel, but nothing short of instant death would have stopped him then. I turn to get behind a friendly tree I had fortunately noticed out of the corner of my eye, about twenty yards off, and in a second overtake Chippani and Ande making for the same retreat. A noise like a runaway steam engine tells me he is dose behind, and he must have been within three yards when I fell flat on my face, bringing the two men behind me on the top of me as the huge brute goes right over us a thousand miles an hour, catching my cheekbone with one foot, and treading full on Chippani's thigh with the other. By some extraordinary chance he escaped having his leg broken, owing probably to the ground being very soft, and consequently his leg giving way to the pressure. lamup in a second, rifle gone, blood pouring from my face, and dash for the tree, from be< hind which I peer cautiously—or incautiously, I should say, as there he is, ten yards off, head up, tail in the air, a splendid sight, indeed, but that I was not exactly in the position to admire the beauty of the situation. He sees me, and, with a snort, dashes at the tree. I slip round it, but he is quicker than I, and I feel his breath and foam on my neck, while on the lower side of the tree, which is on the side of. a steep hill, he just catches me on the ribs with his horn, and I am hurled into space to land twenty feet up in the air in a thicket of dead bamboos, where I lie, transfixed by thorns like spears, really thinking my last moment had come. But no, the side of the hill is too greasy for him to stop when he has got the pace on, and he disappears, while I climb out of the bamboos, get hold of my rifle, load and count up the casualties.

Chippani is lying on the ground with his thigh nearly ground to powder, but Ande somes up smiling and enjoying tke fun immensely. Leaving Chippani be* hind a fallen tree with the brandy flask, Ande and I run along the ridge to see where the beast has gone. We can just make out his back, as he walks slowly down the valley, but as I am beginning to feel faint and sick I return to Chippani, and we lie there for an hour, my chief sensation being as if some one had given me an elaborate thrashing.