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
wheeled and stopped after two hundred yards of flight. This shift had
brought the light into better position. Once more I could define my
sights. From the sitting position I took careful aim at the largest
buck. He staggered twenty feet and fell dead. The distance was just 381
paces.
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