"What magnificent fellows! We must get a bull as well as the two cows the pater spoke of. I shall bear to the left; the troop seems to me to be splitting up. You take those on the right hand, Guy. Now we must gallop hard."
It was even as Tom had said. Entering more woodland half a mile farther on, the troop had definitely broken up into two big sections. Tom, galloping as hard as the mopani growth would allow him, was rapidly closing up with the hindmost of the left-hand section. In another mile they had once more entered on a stretch of nearly open grass veldt. Here Tom set his pony going in earnest. He was quickly up to the tail of a magnificent old bull, upon which he had fixed his attention. The great antelope was in far too high condition to stand a prolonged chase. So fat, so plethoric was he, that he was now practically at the end of his tether. From the slinging trot he had relapsed to a heavy gallop; his sleek, short-haired, buff coat was moist with sweat, showing the bluish skin beneath; clots of foam dripped from his mouth, and strung out over his mighty neck and shoulders.
Tom saw that the bull was his. His eyes rested upon those magnificent horns. Firing from the saddle, he gave the bull two bullets at very close range: the first penetrated the antelope's ribs, but did not stop him; the second broke his off fore-leg at the shoulder, and the great beast came down instantly in his tracks, as if struck by a pole-axe. Never again would the goodly antelope wander through the mopani forest, or graze peacefully over the grass plains. Tom jumped off instantly, gave the bull another shot, which put him out of his suffering, cast an admiring look at the splendid horns, and jumped on his pony again. Galloping along the spoor of a few of the retreating herd, which he was easily able to follow, in ten minutes he was within hail of the nearest of the troop. Now he singled out a fine cow, carrying a remarkably long and even pair of horns, and turning her from the rest galloped hard at her. In two miles the cow was beaten, and Tom, having raced past her, jumped off, and as she came by gave her a shot behind the shoulder which instantly stretched her dead. The eland is the softest and most easily slain of all African beasts of chase, and, unlike most of the antelope family, which are astonishingly tenacious of life, will often fall dead to a single well-planted bullet. Feeling mightily content, the lad examined his prize, handled the long, even horns, noted the fine basal twist, put his knife into the dead beast's loin and saw that she was very fat, and turned to knee-halter his pony.