After a short interval we followed on after the buffaloes. Within
a half mile beyond the crest of the hill over which they had
disappeared was another thicket. At the very edge of the thicket,
asleep under an outlying bush, stood one of the big bulls!
Luck seemed with us at last. The wind was right, and between us
and the bull lay only four hundred yards of knee-high grass. All
we had to do was to get down on our hands and knees, and, without
further precautions, crawl up within range and pot him. That
meant only a bit of hard, hot work.
When we were about halfway a rhinoceros suddenly arose from the
grass between us and the buffalo, and about one hundred yards
away.
What had aroused him, at that distance and upwind, I do not know.
It hardly seemed possible that he could have heard us, for we
were moving very quietly, and, as I say, we were downwind.
However, there he was on his feet, sniffing now this way, now
that, in search for what had alarmed him. We sank out of sight
and lay low, fully expecting that the brute would make off.
For just twenty-five minutes by the watch that rhinoceros looked
and looked deliberately in all directions while we lay hidden
waiting for him to get over it. Sometimes he would start off
quite confidently for fifty or sixty yards, so that we thought at
last we were rid of him, but always he returned to the exact spot
where we had first seen him, there to stamp, and blow. The
buffalo paid no attention to these manifestations. I suppose
everybody in jungleland is accustomed to rhinoceros bad temper
over nothing. Twice he came in our direction, but both times gave
it up after advancing twenty-five yards or so. We lay flat on our
faces, the vertical sun slowly roasting us, and cursed that
rhino.
Now the significance of this incident is twofold: first, the fact
that, instead of rushing off at the first intimation of our
presence, as would the average rhino, he went methodically to
work to find us; second, that he displayed such remarkable
perseverance as to keep at it nearly a half hour. This was a
spirit quite at variance with that finding its expression in the
blind rush or in the sudden passionate attack. From that point of
view it seems to me that the interest and significance of the
incident can hardly be overstated.
Four or five times we thought ourselves freed of the nuisance,
but always, just as we were about to move on, back he came, as
eager as ever to nose us out. Finally he gave it up, and, at a
slow trot, started to go away from there. And out of the three
hundred and sixty degrees of the circle where he might have gone
he selected just our direction.
